Unlike a majority of people who have been enamored by the WWII style German military outfits and believe this to be a celebration of the military might of the Nazis, its actually quite clear from interviews with the original LN author that is intended to be two things: 1) a manga that covers WWI history and military procedure, a market relatively untouched in Japan and 2) a satirical critique of war, religion and Tanya's underlying objectivism.
This initial formula was quite entertaining to me. Related to military procedure and uses this to amass countless accolades, hoping to secure a cushy desk job position in the rear guard (which is the neoliberal ideal.) Instead, the military brass in their fear and admiration continue to assign her to the front lines where she doesn't want to be. Tanya has the foresight of extensive knowledge The main character, who is renamed Tanya, is the picture of Japanese neoliberalism and the central "punchline" of the story is that her result-oriented pragmatism is instead seen as fierce patriotism and ideal military prowess by her superiors. Youjo Senki is the tale of an objectivist who is reborn as a child soldier in a imperial nation that is a mix of WWI and WWII era Germany geopolitics and military, but technology is supplanted with magic. I wanted to see it through, but I dropped it after much deliberation. I won't mince words, this is a deeply irresponsible work. While I am aware the reincarnation genre is very overdone, this one rightfully stands out and is very worth reading. Overall, I absolutely recommend this light novel to anyone. While a bit of the plot leeches on some real world events, it is absolutely justified. In this case, the main character shows their intelligence through detailed, well thought out logical plans, interesting philosophy, and incredible application of high level military tactics. Normally, in light novels with the 'reincarnation' trope, the character makes theĬharacter seem intelligent by simply having them outsmart other characters or makes them flat out overpowered. The knowledge of the author shines through and the plot is very well thought out. The language and concepts used can be a bit difficult to read through which unfortunately makes the fan-translation difficult. Those two chapters sum up exactly how it is going to read. To get a good idea on how Youjo Senki reads, take a read of the prologue and the first chapter. While the fan-translation effort is fairly slow for this light novel, the pure quality of both the actual content and the translation effort is nothing short of stellar.