So I’m checking out Sora no Woto (Sora no Oto? So・Ra・No・Wo・To? Sora no Whateverthehell, anyway) this season, because I like the humanity-in-decline slice of life with a touch of music angle, but there’s one thing I don’t get. Why the military motif? It seems unusual here; the last thing I’d imagine these characters carrying around is guns — and yet one was fired, even, in the second episode.
But why? Anime often throws teenagers — the absolute last age group I’d trust with weaponry — into military organizations, but newtypes and NERV experiments these heroines are not (they’re effectively routed by an owl, for one thing). I get the world, and why it is how it is, but it wasn’t an absolute necessity to render music the province of the military. The protagonists could’ve met at The Last Music School, or maybe they could’ve convened under The Last Trumpet Maestro or The Last Orchestra Conductor or The Last Composer or something. So why not?
I can think of some possibilities, any, all, or none of which may apply (at your discretion).
1. Moe
Too obvious, maybe, but it bears mentioning for the pretense of a complete list. We see these scrawny, flat-chested things in oversize fatigues, and we fear for their lives. Would any of them survive actual combat? Maybe Mio Rio, maybe Alicia-san Phylicia, but I’m betting against the rest of them. Not because I want to, mind you — and that’s where they get you. You imagine them dismembered on a battlefield, and you cringe, and you cringe, and you cringe. Then you decide you’d leap in front of a bullet for your character(s) of choice. And that, my friend, is moe.
2. Consistency with the setting
I know I discredited this, in a way, above, but I didn’t really intend to discredit it entirely. Consider how understaffed these militaries are — understaffed enough to man a border fortress with teenage girls, for chrissakes. I wouldn’t be surprised if our protagonists are practically (if not technically) conscripts, or if the benefits of voluntary service are such that any young person who knows what’s good for her enlists, or if simple peer pressure plays a role. It’s possible, also, that the military has requisitioned certain services — music training, for example — for the sake of encouraging enlistment. That seems to be how they got Kanata, at least.
3. Social/historical relevance
The human race doesn’t exactly get along with itself splendidly at the moment (if ever it has). Perhaps Sora no Woto’s militant nature is metaphoric, if not cautionary. The use of an understaffed military concentrated in small squads, and the squad at hand’s assignment to a populous area, allows for the kind of small-scale urban warfare that goes on these days. I’m not sure how politically consistent Sora no Woto is with the World Wars, from whence its technology (sans spider-tank) seems to hail — if you’re a history buff, please enlighten me, if you feel so inclined.
4. The good death
Dying well is something I’ve written about a good deal lately. What is a “good” death? It’s one thing in Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, another in Bokurano, another in Hoshi no Samidare. If, thanks to its own love of guns and tanks and marching in formation, humanity is on its way out in Sora no Woto, how might it leave with a bow, or a flourish, or at least without letting the door hit its ass? Aforementioned guns and tanks might confound things, a bit.
5. Just because
At the end of the day, the manga-ka probably just wanted to write a story with a European military feel. Some (myself included) would call this a cop-out — but, hey, that’s why it’s at the end of the list, and to be fair, some might call it Occam’s razor. To put it another way, perhaps Sora no Woto simply represents an effort at trying to figure out how a society would function, given the set of conditions at play.
On point of (2), they’re not conscripts. The war is either over, or the show takes place during an armistice. Maybe. But if this series actually focuses on the “quiet decline” part, I’m assuming the war is done. It’s also implied that Kanata joined because of the trumpeter she meets in one of the flashbacks.
I’m getting Haibane Renmei vibes, so I’m liking it. :)
Yeah, I get you. What I’m saying is, they may not literally be conscripts, but perhaps society cuts off other avenues and nudges them toward military service — not conscripts, but as good as, more or less. Why it would do so during a period of relative peace I’m not sure.
You know, I thought I might get Haibane Renmei vibes from this, but I’m not. Not really. Not yet, anyway. But I do have…if not remarkably high hopes for it, then at least confidence that it’ll be pretty good.
“Why so K-ON S2, Sora no Woto?”
Fix’d
From the map you can see that Seize confines with “Nomansland”. This seems the name of a desert or an unpopulated area. Kureha is boasting that their platoon is tasked to defend Helvetia’s border but in actuality there is no danger coming from Nomansland.
Also the thing about the old school being bigger than every school in the capital suggests that this world is very underpopulated. This could be another reason why they enlist young girls in the military.
But, given war, things like no-man’s-land are tenuous, and maps change at the drop of a hat. I’m not saying I really think these girls will end up in a proper battle, mind you.
If you look at the war in Sora no Woto in an historical light enlisting kids as young as Kureha and Kanata makes perfect sense; It’s quite obvious that Helvetia has just entered the armistice phase of a war of national survival.
Historically when a country fights a war of national survival (WWII GB vs Germany, Russia vs Germany, and so forth) a country will put almost 100% of it’s GDP towards survival, and that includes enlisting kids as young as 14 for tasks such as rear defense, supply, support, and even combat if it gets that bad.
So, in the context of Sora no Woto’s reality I could easily see how the age of adulthood could be 14-14. If you noticed in the first episode those soldiers that Kanata shared the train car with were hardened combat veterans that were thankful to have survived, and they didn’t seem to be the least bit shocked seeing someone as young as Kanata in the military.
Having spent 23 years in the US Army I’ve trained and lead many 17-18 year olds (you can join at 17 if the parents approve), and I can tell you that you could easily properly train kids as young as maybe 15-16 to be good soldiers (hell, girls mature faster than boys, so I think they’d make better soldiers at that age).
Cool; thanks for providing the military context that I often lack. It’s especially interesting to me that, as someone who has trained soldiers, you’re saying that you could make young teenagers into soldiers, if need be. It never seemed too strange to me that a nation low on manpower might enlist young teens, given the historical precedent, but I didn’t think of the bigger picture of national survival.
Now I’m wondering, what’s Gundam’s excuse for teenage soldiers? Other than that the Federation is usually a wet noodle of a government, anyway. In 0079, for example, I get why Zeon might’ve hired them young, but the Federation has an overwhelming advantage in terms of available population.