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Izetta: The Last Witch (TV).


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L'Imperatore



Joined: 24 Mar 2014
Posts: 822
PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2016 11:30 pm Reply with quote


Izetta: The Last Witch (TV)

Source: Original

Demographic: Everyone

Animation Studio: Ajia-do Animation Works

Genres: action, drama, magic

Themes: historical, magical girl, military, war, witches, yuri

Plot Summary: In 1939, the imperialist nation of Germania launched a sudden invasion of its neighboring countries. This conflagration engulfed all of Europe in one fell swoop, and the era was dragged into the maelstrom of war. Then in 1940, Germania set its sights on Elystadt, a tiny principality blessed with breathtaking greenery and water in the Alps.

Air Date & Platform:
October 1, 2016 (Saturday)
Available on: Crunchyroll

Episode Count / Runtime: 12 episodes
----------------------------------
See the PV here:

https://youtu.be/63K4gVO8uBo

From the writer of Guilty Crown, here comes an alternate WW2 story featuring tanks, fighters, witch, princess, magic, and (hopefully) a small dose of GL theme.
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Darthtabby



Joined: 04 Sep 2015
Posts: 21
PostPosted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 3:56 pm Reply with quote
Pet peeve: Why do people always use Guilty Crown as the example of Yoshino's writing? I knew him as the writer of Mai-HiME and Macross Frontier well before Guilty Crown ever aired. My love of those two series undoubtedly skews my perspective on his career a fair bit, but at least he was the only Series Composer (and virtually the only script writer) for those two series. By contrast he shares Series Composition credit for Guilty Crown with Ichiro Okouchi (Azumanga, Planetes, Valvrave, Kanberi). Yeah, they swapped the lead and assistant Series Composer credits between Code Geass and Guilty Crown, but I wonder how much difference that actually made in practice. Plus anime writers are generally subordinate to directors, and the director of Guilty Crown is not exactly renowned for subtlety.

tl;dr: There's a lot more to Yoshino's writing career than Guilty Crown, and contrary to popular belief in the western fandom its been far more successful than otherwise.

Getting back on topic, I rather liked the first two episodes of Izetta, particularly the premiere. I really like the character of Fine -the first episode alone was enough to make me consider her as a possible candidate for my favorite heroines list. Production values dropped a bit in the second episode and I've had some issues with the character designs (the designs for some of the younger characters like the boy in that Germanian special unit look odd next to the designs of some of the older looking characters) but overall I'm still eager for more.
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FenixFiesta



Joined: 22 Apr 2013
Posts: 2581
PostPosted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 4:10 pm Reply with quote
In a way, this is more of a part a part b side of the introduction, Ep 1 was of course Fine's side of her characterization, and with ep 2 we follow up on Izetta's set up as well as what amounts to the true start of our story as Izetta resolves to use her powers to help Fine as both have came to find themselves more than willing to die for the other (there will no doubt be Doujins about there interpreted relationship)

I liked the concept of setting up the Germanian flight captain that is simply a "soldier doing his duty" that just as well came into conflict with a fleeing Izetta.
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Vaisaga



Joined: 07 Oct 2011
Posts: 13224
PostPosted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 4:33 pm Reply with quote
Darthtabby wrote:
Pet peeve: Why do people always use Guilty Crown as the example of Yoshino's writing?


It's only natural to use a great show to promote an author, isn't it?

Anyways, looking good so far. Though I do get a bit distracted by Fine, who keeps switching between looking like Asuna from SAO and Wakaba from YuYuYu. Same designer, I know, but if you're gonna have a similar character design stick to one!
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yuna49



Joined: 27 Aug 2008
Posts: 3804
PostPosted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 4:54 pm Reply with quote
Why can't shows like this just call Germany and Britain by their names? Are the producers afraid of offending the contemporary German and British governments? Joker Game didn't have any problem naming names. Even if Izetta is supposed to be a fantasy, why can't it take place in actual Europe? Having a map showing the British Isles but not calling it Britain is just silly.

I enjoyed the first episode because I like spunky-girl shows. I'll watch some more.
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Vaisaga



Joined: 07 Oct 2011
Posts: 13224
PostPosted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 5:12 pm Reply with quote
Just to denote it as a different world with a different history. Whatever happened in this alternate timeline resulted in countries being named different things. "This isn't quite the world you know" is what it says.
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FenixFiesta



Joined: 22 Apr 2013
Posts: 2581
PostPosted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 5:34 pm Reply with quote
Vaisaga wrote:
Just to denote it as a different world with a different history. Whatever happened in this alternate timeline resulted in countries being named different things. "This isn't quite the world you know" is what it says.

This far from the first series that makes an alternate take on history, sometimes the writing DOES intend to make full use of this as a partial example is Strike Witches, I remember a side comment in the original SW series is that "if we didn't have the Neuroi to fight, these girls would be battling each other" by slightly changing history certain expected animosities can be sidestepped.

The other side is certain technologies can be founded earlier than expected, there is also the nature of using a "familiar map" of sorts or putting in an alternate version of the ruling Governmental party because of writers ignorance.
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Yuri Fan



Joined: 19 Mar 2015
Posts: 394
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2016 8:39 am Reply with quote
I really liked the first two episodes! Hopefully the rest of the show is equally good.
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phia_one



Joined: 15 Jan 2012
Posts: 1654
Location: Pennsylvania
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2016 2:40 pm Reply with quote
Episode 2

spoiler[The aerial battle was an interesting way to showcase some of Izetta's powers. I wonder if that Captain's plane crashed or not. I didn't hear an explosion or anything. Seeing Fine continue to be a strong character was nice to see. ]

This show has potential and I'm looking forward to more.
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Dessa



Joined: 14 Jul 2004
Posts: 4438
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2016 8:47 pm Reply with quote
yuna49 wrote:
Why can't shows like this just call Germany and Britain by their names?


You do realize that Germania and Britannia are older names for those regions, correct? They're both the terms that the Greeks and Romans used.
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HelloBucket



Joined: 07 Apr 2015
Posts: 477
Location: Upstate New York
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2016 9:24 pm Reply with quote
Izetta's offensive capabilities literally being blood for blood was pretty interesting. I was really looking forward to seeing how she fought and I was not disappointed. Her attacks are powerful, but not ridiculously so and they take actual skill to utilize.

I really hope the soundtrack stays this good for the entire show. The first two episodes were a joy just to listen to.
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yuna49



Joined: 27 Aug 2008
Posts: 3804
PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2016 12:13 pm Reply with quote
Dessa wrote:
yuna49 wrote:
Why can't shows like this just call Germany and Britain by their names?

You do realize that Germania and Britannia are older names for those regions, correct? They're both the terms that the Greeks and Romans used.

Yes, of course. (I took Latin and read Caesar.) But the show is set in 1940 not BCE. And they don't call France Gallia but Thermidor, a name which comes from the French Revolution.
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Yttrbio
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Joined: 09 Jun 2011
Posts: 3649
PostPosted: Sat Oct 15, 2016 4:34 pm Reply with quote
Episode 3:

I was enjoying it, but then my conscience started bugging me. Aside from the fact that Izetta just isn't that interesting of a character yet, there's a couple things that bugged me:

First of all, I thought it was something of a cop-out that the show went out of its way to never show what happened to the people she killed. It's throwing blood and bullet holes all over the place when the pseudogermans do it, but all of her kills are hidden by vehicles, and no infantryman gets cut when she tosses swords all over the place. Given that they clearly want us to recognize that she feels terrible about doing it, hiding the reality of it seems like a cheap way of protecting her in the audience's eyes.

The other problem is that, with its pseudohistory being so close to real history, showing the men throwing their bodies into these life and death situations (on both sides) being totally irrelevant in the face of the cute little girl with magic powers feels like it seriously trivializes the incredible horrors that WW2 soldiers actually faced. There's a way to portray that with a critical eye (off the top of my head, Full Metal Alchemist, Simoun, and Saikano all addressed it at some point), but the triumphant way it's presented here just makes it seem like the writers didn't think it very important.

I'm still enjoying it, but it leaves a bad aftertaste for me, at least.
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phia_one



Joined: 15 Jan 2012
Posts: 1654
Location: Pennsylvania
PostPosted: Sat Oct 15, 2016 6:40 pm Reply with quote
Yttrbio wrote:
Episode 3:
First of all, I thought it was something of a cop-out that the show went out of its way to never show what happened to the people she killed. It's throwing blood and bullet holes all over the place when the pseudogermans do it, but all of her kills are hidden by vehicles, and no infantryman gets cut when she tosses swords all over the place. Given that they clearly want us to recognize that she feels terrible about doing it, hiding the reality of it seems like a cheap way of protecting her in the audience's eyes.


This is a pet peeve of mine as well. Many series, regardless of what the medium is, have this tendency to sanitize some of the more violent actions of the heroes. In Izetta's case, it kind of makes me almost feel like I'm watching a two different shows with the care the writers take in making sure we don't see the actual extent of Izetta's kills.
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HelloBucket



Joined: 07 Apr 2015
Posts: 477
Location: Upstate New York
PostPosted: Sat Oct 15, 2016 7:56 pm Reply with quote
Speaking of odd things about how the battles are portrayed: I also note, to my dismay, that the show has taken the pattern of "one side is always winning unconditionally, suffering zero (or nearly zero) losses" in its depiction of combat. This, and the sanitized violence mentioned in prior posts, gives me little hope of the series having all that much meat to it.

It's still a pretty fun series though, as long as one doesn't try to think about it too hard. Plus, it's pretty high on the "girls using phallic symbols" scoreboard for whatever that's worth.
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