T w e n t y S i d e d

Left: Lila the robot girl Humaritt Right: Najica

The big surprise recently is about how well Najica Blitz Tactics turned out. After watching the first disc I was amused at the density of fan service. Now that I’ve seen disc 3, I’m impressed.

In some ways it reminded me of (don’t laugh) the Isaac Asimov book I, Robot. The book started out with a few rules about how robots work – the classic “three laws” – and then explored numerous possible situations that might arise given those rules. The rules here are entirely different, but Najica has a similar approach.

In the first few episodes they introduce us to Najica as she teams up with a robot girl (a Humaritt) named Lila. Their missions involve rounding up other Humaritts.

At first Humaritts have no real impulses of their own. They pretty much just stand around and wait for orders from their master. My own understanding is that over time they learn to anticipate what sorts of orders their master is likely to give them and act accordingly, thus giving them the appearance of independant thought. In effect, masters “raise” their Humaritts a bit like children (ok, very strong, deadly, and overly literal children) through interaction. Depending on how they are taught, a Humaritt may end up acting just like their master, or they may turn out very differently. It mostly depends on what they are taught and how deliberate their master is about it.

Each episode they encounter another master and another Humaritt, and they see another outcome of the Master / Humaritt process. Each situation is different, although some of them can be seen as explorations on the dangers of teaching duplicity to inherantly honest robots. Many problems arise from “do as I say, not as I do” type hypocrisy on the part of the master.

In one episode they must face a general who is attempting to overthrow the government of a third-world coutry. Her aide is a Humaritt. (And because this is Najica Blitz Tactics, the general, her aide, and all of her troops are all female. You just have to go with it.) Her Humaritt has absorbed all of her master’s idealistic rhetoric. She really believes that if you have faith in your cause you can never be defeated. She believes this in the literal sense, as in: faith trumps combat ability and numerical superiority. The general knows it isn’t true – she’s just keeping up morale. The troops know it isn’t true – this is just what you expect from a charismatic leader. But the Humaritt doesn’t know any better, and takes it all to heart. When at last she is confronted with the truth, the results are tragic.

How low can you go? I think the cameraman must have been a smurf. And a sex offender.

This is pretty deep for a show that I thought was a vehicle for looking up women’s skirts.

I actually think the fan service detracts from the quality of the story. I have a few friends to whom I would recommend the show, but I know the overabundant panty shots would put them off. My wife is usually very relaxed about fan service, but even she didn’t have the patience for Najica. That’s a shame, since it turned out to be a good story. Not that I blame her: If the tables were turned and the fan service had been aimed at females, this show would would have been endless shots of half-naked, well-oiled men with bulging crotches, and I would never have been able to make it though that.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.