Youjo Senki - Vol. 31 Ch. 102 - Reorganization V

[Eeliejun]

Judging by how many people in the comments perceive YS as anti-communist propaganda and/or a revanchist Germanophile fantasy, overall quite a lot of people perceived this work incorrectly. Especially after Tanya fell into the same trap as Tatsuya Shiba, where people started praising what the author was trying to deconstruct or question.

But back to the topic, comparing the anime to the manga, I got the impression that the latter is primarily more vivid and emotional. For example, the manga has much more comedic or parodic elements, while the anime feels like Zen's straightforward statement on geopolitics and history. With an obvious satirical element, but still. If I understand you correctly, you want to say that LN itself, compared to both adaptations, feels like a much more serious commentary on its themes?

I haven't done any deep research, but reading the author's Twitter, I got the impression that while the audience largely perceives "lolis" and the animanga media as the root of the work, for Zen, the most important thing in YS is the messages he wanted to make.

Would not say the author is fan of the Reich, but they are for sure anti-communist and pro-capitalist. Lik,e whole pages of the LN keep going on and on about how bad Communism is and how great capitalism is.

 

[SuperOniichan]

Would not say the author is fan of the Reich, but they are for sure anti-communist and pro-capitalist. Lik,e whole pages of the LN keep going on and on about how bad Communism is and how great capitalism is.

You're confusing Tanya's POV as a bias of antihero and Zen himself. I don't know how her views evolve as the story progresses, since I haven't read the LN. But I doubt that someone who is known for tweeting about how "communism is the universal solution to all modern problems" and is described in Japanese Wikipedia as a leftist activist would vehemently attack communism in favor of capitalism. That's why I compared it to people who think Zen is a Reichophile just because Tanya is a military genius of a fictional version of the German Empire.

 

[mindlessBiped]

I strongly recomend Kuhn, especially the kindle version with the summary. In my top 3 books

 

[Yankun]

So I appreciate the chapters, but it does kind of feel like y'all basically flipped a coin to decide what pronouns to use for some panels lol

Translation process likely took place where the translator did not see the actual image themselves.
Thus making it guess-work on who is talking to who at every given line.

At least, that's what I would want to believe.

 

[Yankun]

Would not say the author is fan of the Reich, but they are for sure anti-communist and pro-capitalist. Lik,e whole pages of the LN keep going on and on about how bad Communism is and how great capitalism is.

If anything, what Tanya is talking about sounds like what a communist imagine a pro-capitalism would say.
And damned me if some of those were not accurate as hell.

Besides, even in communism, there are several different school of thoughts. Marxist, Leninist, Stalinist, Trotskyist, just to name a few. I'm not too well studied on the subject, but I would imagine a Stalinist criticize Leninists as fundamentaly naive, tend to romanticize, and would shit on Trotskyists for being destructive and vain. All the while, a Trotskyist would label any Stalinist as unnecessarily brutal, only looking for own interests and ready to oppress anyone opposing themselves.....

In short, communism isn't a comprehensive whole either. So criticism on communism itself would not really mean anti-communism.

 

[Eeliejun]

If anything, what Tanya is talking about sounds like what a communist imagine a pro-capitalism would say.
And damned me if some of those were not accurate as hell.

Besides, even in communism, there are several different school of thoughts. Marxist, Leninist, Stalinist, Trotskyist, just to name a few. I'm not too well studied on the subject, but I would imagine a Stalinist criticize Leninists as fundamentaly naive, tend to romanticize, and would shit on Trotskyists for being destructive and vain. All the while, a Trotskyist would label any Stalinist as unnecessarily brutal, only looking for own interests and ready to oppress anyone opposing themselves.....

In short, communism isn't a comprehensive whole either. So criticism on communism itself would not really mean anti-communism.

I still would call it anti-communist. Sure, you have different schools, but that is the same for capitalism. Like you have a bunch of them, like the Chicago School of Economics, the Austrian School of Economics, Keynesian economics, and so on. Tanya follows mostly the Chicago School of Economics. But to keep it simple would label Tanya as a capitalist.

Like Tanya is mostly talking an anti-Stalinist idea of communism. But don't see a reason to specify it like that.

 

[Yankun]

I still would call it anti-communist. Sure, you have different schools, but that is the same for capitalism. Like you have a bunch of them, like the Chicago School of Economics, the Austrian School of Economics, Keynesian economics, and so on. Tanya follows mostly the Chicago School of Economics. But to keep it simple would label Tanya as a capitalist.

Like Tanya is mostly talking an anti-Stalinist idea of communism. But don't see a reason to specify it like that.

It's a bit of bias on my end, but the anti-communism Tanya expresses in this series is very typical of how a communist would view the thoughts and actions of an anti-communist, that is: full on denial of Statlinist ideas, while sometime using Leninist or Marxist ideas as points to criticize the person/idea. That's how it looks to me.

And frankly, choosing Chicago School of Economics as basis for pro-capitalism approach seems like what a communist would do to me too.