Series Review – Military!

Salaryman Yano Souichi ends up becoming a mercenary in the conflict between the Krakozhia Dukedom and the Grania Republic and this puts his son, Yano Souhei in danger. Whether the danger is from the enemy side or from Lutgalnikov and Haruka, the officers sent to protect him is up for debate.

Military! (why have I been reviewing shows with such dumb punctuation in the title lately?) is a series of comedy shorts (3.5 minute episodes) which focus around Souhei’s everyday life which is suddenly full of military officers, who are cute girls who will use weapons at the slightest provocation.

A lot of the humour seemed to rely on panty shots and other ecchi fan-service gags, together with some over-the-top slapstick, neither of which I found funny. Slapstick is one of the types of humour which can be hit or miss for me, and in this case it was very much a miss. I am a sucker for dumb puns, and there were a few gems hidden among the panty shots, but overall, it was a comedy which I felt failed owing to my lack of amusement.

It was difficult to get to know or care about any of the characters aside from Souhei, who is oddly passive and really just accepts the madness that his life has become. They mostly seemed to be lacking in personality outside of their tendency to want to engage in combat with weapons blazing. For a short series I don’t expect huge character development or deep characterisation, but I can think of plenty of series where at least I had a clear idea of character names, or could at least think of characters by their personality traits at the end (such as the shy one or the lively one), and Military! failed in this regard.

The visuals were the sort of simple sketchy style that many gag comedy shorts use, with fairly minimal movement and few in-between frames. It did feel a little jarring having most of the female characters having extra cute chibi designs where the male characters had a slightly more realistic depiction. Other than that, the animation seemed fine for what you’d expect of a show of this nature.

The soundtrack utilised several classical pieces at dramatic moments, with well-known pieces such as William Tell Overture and Ride of the Valkyries being utilised throughout the series. I felt that perhaps the matching of classical tracks with moments could have been done a bit better (I also think it’s a missed opportunity that they didn’t use the 1812 Overture at any point, it’s the classical piece with cannons), but I like my classical music and this was one of the few charms that the series held for me.

There was also a very short segment at the end of each episode which ostensibly provided weapon facts, but as the narrator was always cut off, it was difficult to actually find out any interesting information from this segment. I’m not super interested in weaponry, but learning more facts is fun, so it was a shame that there wasn’t really information to be gleaned from this segment.

Overall, I found Military! to be quite disappointing, as a comedy show where I didn’t find the bulk of the jokes funny, leaving the series with little but weak characterisation, and some classical pieces which I could just listen to in my own time. Unless you really like girls with guns comedy, this series probably doesn’t have anything to offer you.