Kabitzin on April 7, 2009 · in Valkyria Chronicles

Summary:

Back in the day, greedy Darcsen hogged all the resources until he was shishkabob’ed by Valkyria and her flaming blue spear. In the present, the East Uropean Imperial Alliance and the Atlantic Federation are at war over the mineral, Ragnite. Since Gallia has tons of Ragnite, the Imperial Army is marching in and it’s up to the town militia to evacuate the townspeople of Bruhl. One guard/baker, Alicia Melchiott, gets tipped off by her young comrades Jan and Miguro about a spy; it turns out to be Welkin Gunther sketching some shining trout. Welkin is locked up, but easily escapes and Alicia gives chase.

Welkin spots 3 Imperial scouts and leads Alicia to his mansion. Alicia can’t believe that Welkin really is the son of the late General Belgen Gunther (the hero who saved Gallia in the First European War), but her joy turns to suspicion when she sees Welkin’s step-sister Isara wearing a Darcsen shawl. For some reason the 3 scouts radio in a ton of backup, but they are no match for Isara who puts down her cleaver to headshot one scout (with a hip shot using Alicia’s rifle), provides vintage grenades to take out the foot soldiers, and then whips out the classic Edelweiss tank that she keeps under a cover in the shed. Alicia decides she doesn’t want to oppose a vicious, efficient killing machine like Isara, and so the three become friends, even though the Imperial Army is still outside shelling the Gunther mansion.

Reaction:

This was a pretty good first episode, although the unique shading threw me off at first. Aside from fainting-Susie Evans, most of the characters seemed pretty cool and it is immediately clear that Alicia wants Welkin to draw her in the buff. So far Isara is my favorite character because she can melee, aimbot, and drive a tank. I don’t know what Alicia is going to do if it turns out Isara is an awesome baker as well, but I don’t foresee this show turning into a romantic version of Yakitate any time soon.

I didn’t feel strongly one way or another about the ED and OP music, but I did like the cute ED animation. I’m looking forward to some sweet fish drawings and military maneuvers, although I get the feeling that this will be one of those shows where no named characters die. I was really impressed with the Bruhl elementary schools when Jan and Miguro claimed to have learned how to drive a tank, and so it was really disappointing to learn that they lied. What are they teaching kids these days? Finally, I noticed that Pikachu also made a cameo appearance in that scene where Hans ran into Alicia.