Just As Evil As It's Name

Well, friends and neighbors, the manga version of "The Saga of Tanya the Evil" came out in stores yesterday, and so I was all over that.

I had read a basic synopsis on Amazon.  Apparently, a cold and twisted businessman in modern-era Japan is killed by someone he hurt and meets up with what is basically God.  After challenging him and declaring a lack of faith in magic and miracles, God decides to reincarnate him as a girl in the middle of a magic war.

Now, this all sounds well and good.  The man is deliciously evil, God seems tough but fair, and who doesn't love a magic war?  But the premise and the art style are the only things that wind up saving it.

I read through the basic premise (i.e. the first few pages of the manga) and I was cool with it.  But then everyone was jumping around and driving tanks and firing their guns and shit.  And the talking, my God, the talking!

With all of that happening on basically every page, almost non-stop, it was entirely too much information to take in all at once.

This series was based on a series of light novels and it shows.  Things like Haganai were also based on light novels, but much less action and shit happens in series like that, so you have plenty of empty space to admire the simpler artwork and really pay attention to the things that people say (which, by the way, aren't all "Unit X has moved to Point Y, begin Operation Z and fire your guns at so-and-so angle).

Tanya the Evil, however, has everyone making big speeches and talking military hoop-de-doo on practically every page.  I just didn't have the time for it.

Again, the very premise of this manga went some way toward saving it from being a complete waste of time for me.  Tuxedo Gin, Please Save My Earth, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime and I'm a Spider So What have shown us that a reincarnation story can work well, or at the very least be funny.  Tanya the Evil squanders this by focusing more on the magic war and a lot of twisted philosophizing than on our hero's reactions to being in and growing up in a female body.

There's not even any fanservice.  Even that might have made this series slightly bearable.  But, since he's instantly reborn as a baby and spends the story as a prepubescent girl, we don't see any "these are my boobs, this is what I look like naked, how do you put on a bra" moments from her.  Not even in a lolicon setting.

That being said, this is hardly that kind of series.  It's just the kind of series that seems to be all sizzle and very little steak.  The art is great, though.

And, as the final nail in Tanya the Evil's coffin, I was just reading on Wikipedia that the series is still ongoing.  While that isn't necessarily bad in and of itself, the article goes on to basically state that Tanya still remains unchanged as of the present writing.

God put her in that body to help her become more open and empathetic, showing her the worst of humanity's cruelty and showing her what it's like to be so vulnerable that you have to believe in something to survive.  Unfortunately, this is just the kind of environment that someone like Tanya thrives on.

I guess he wasn't so bright after all.

(PS: It has come to my attention that Nameless Asterism is perhaps a tad sad, in that various misunderstandings lead to a ton of hurt feelings and seeming-betrayals and shit.  And I don't need that in my life.  It's slot will now be taken by Beasts of Abigail.

I also intend to review Angels of Death, but only if I can't think of anything to round out the number at nine by the end of the year.

And, finally, that one series I could never remember the name of is "Kigurumi Guardians".)

So, yeah, I would not recommend this series.