The Tanya That Schemes

I’ve recently gotten back into doing a bit of reading, and it comes from an interesting direction, from anime. There are a number of series I have watched over the years that I would love to hear more from as the story was often left on a cliff hanger, and no real resolution was forthcoming. but seeing as that can be common in any media to leave the door open for future money making, I gave up on experiencing more from them. However, I came to learn that there were a number of anime that were made purely to sell books, or were backed by novel series that far outstretched the stories told in animation. This lead to some cautious excitement, I could experience more of some of the worlds I enjoyed watching, just as written word. I was however under no illusion that every one of these was going to be a literary masterwork, or even a real page turner, so I got hold of a range of ‘Light novels’ as they’re known to try them out, and I’m glad I did.

One of the batch that I have been trying out was the novel of ‘The Saga of Tanya the Evil’ (幼女戦記 in its native Japanese), an anime I had watched some months prior and had a fascinating twist, you want to see someone who in any other media would be the bad guy, win. From the anime, you get the impression that Tanya is truly an overzealous warmonger, obsessed with winning, and disinterested in those around her in any way. Thing is, having now read the novels on which they’re based, much of the plot of the anime makes far greater sense, and I find not only Tanya, but much of the plot has been simplified for the screen. Needless to say, I continue to buy up further novels, but I am now split, as it is fun to see the characters brought to life on screen, but part of me is disappointed in how much of a warped reflection the whole thing is compared the source material. This is particularly relevant in that the series I thought dormant, has had a new entry release in February this year in the form of a movie. Will I enjoy it? or even, will it be released here? In the mean time I have some more to read. I keep hearing this voice in the back of my head that tells me that we should read more often as a species, but somehow I feel this is cheating…