The second season of Youjo Senki has now aired, a decade after season one. The production has kept the same designs and art style, including the fictional alphabets. While season one covered volumes 1-3 of the novel and the movie focused on volume 4, season 2 covered volumes 5-11, heavily condensed. I hope this means we can look forward to some movies covering skipped material.
Episode 1: Salamander Combat Team – this episode inserts some flashes of random text. The Soviet cockpit dials have bizarre numbering. The YS compass apparently has West and South swapped. Mexico is apparently the Queretaro Federation (unfortunately the only example of fraktur Q is yet again tiny and blurry).
Episode 2: A Strange Friendship – has English and German text. The confidential Federation document contains Soviet history in English about suppression of the Orthodox church. Tanya’s prisoner interrogation report is a series plot summary. Ruderdorf’s letter in German is more or less on topic.
Episode 3: Well-Intentioned Mediator – has limited text but fixes the canonical romanization of “Rerugen”. Interestingly most of the German documents use the English “general staff office” title.
Episode 4: Operation Iron Hammer – has a Soviet document in German (where episode 2 had one in English).
Episode 5: Unlucky Draw – gives us a very clear fraktur “j” which we never got in season 1. More series summary text appears. Halcyon whisky is probably a nod to something.
Episode 6: Decoy – gives a look at the magic jewel messaging system, the order in German is on topic. The Imperial combat ration chocolate is labeled in English.
Episode 7: Purgatory – has mostly newspapers, in the typical mix of English and German. Blauaugiges is misspelled in one heading and correct in another.
Episode 8: Torpedo Strike – brought a big haul; it gave us a very clear fractur “Z”, the very first appearance of a latin “J” in the franchise, and the first non-blurry latin “z”. The Kingdom of Ildoa visa is part English, part Italian, the reference to “territorio italiano” is probably a blooper.
Episode 9: Sightseeing Tour – has a lot of Italian. I suppose “Milar” is the alternate universe name for “Milan”, etc rather than being typos. The “Astro Rebirth” alcohol is probably a Playstation reference.
Episode 10: A Way to Survive – has mostly on-topic German.
Episode 11: Hourglass and 12: Exit also have mostly on-topic German text. Canonical support for the romanization “Ildoa” though episode 8 used “Irudoa”. The singer “Delia Tauber” is probably a mashup of Delia Reinhardt (1892–1974) and Richard Tauber (1891–1948)
