Valkyria Chronicles, Persecution, and Atrocity 

why does this video have a bit where the creator puts on Serious Disclaimer voice to talk about the artist for Valkyria Chronicles having drawn boobs before and then goes 'DONT WORRY GUYS HE WASN'T INVOLVED IN THE PLOT'? Thinking boobs are misogynist is only evidence of your own misogyny.

Catgirl concentration camps? What is this, UK healthcare system?

"the human mind was not made to comprehend the uwuificatiln of dachu" has got to be the funniest collection of words ill hear all day

“UwUification of Dachau.” Bro, I just woke up and it’s still too early to drink. Why would you do this?

As a very, very, VERY mild defense of the camp being right after the beach episode, sometimes it's narratively useful to disarm the player emotionally before hitting them with really dark content. Or that's what I would say if I thought the camp mission had treated its subject matter with the right amount of gravitas

...They originally planned a catgirl concentration camp. Huh. That's... that's just something I know, now.

"The human mind was not meant to comprehend the 'uwuification' of Dachau" My mind was not meant to comprehend that sentence.

It's interesting that the idea of a foreign people creating a new homeland by expelling the old occupiers and mythologizing that event fits more Japanese history with the Ainu than as a generalized pseudo-European history. I'm far from knowledgeable enough to do anything with that idea though.

Somewhat a spoiler but there's an interesting implied bit with the desert ruins where the entire landscape and ruins are pockmarked with holes and looked melted in places. Which are consistent with the weaponry the Valkyria use and since the magic in setting is by blood and the Darcsens don't have magic powers. The implication is that the "Darcsen Calamity" was the devastation caused by the Valkyrur in their invasion who then did some revisionist history and blamed their victims for it to further legitimize their conquest.

10:50 Witcher is actually a rather poor example since the racism of the setting is actually well built. It isn't just "elves have pointy ears" while it often boils down to it, the reasons behind the racial conflict is much more diverse than they look different. Neither the humans or the elves are native to the continent, but the elves arrived much earlier and on purpose, while the humans arrived later, but by accident. There are two distinct elvish cultures, the Aen Elle who live on another plane (The Wild Hunt and Avallac'h for example) and Aen Seidhe the elves of the continent. The elves of the setting were and are genuinely racist towards humans, seeing humans as lesser beings, viewing humans like animals rather than people. This stems generally from the fact that the elves are naturally magically aligned, longer lived, tall and fair while humans in general are dirty, brutish and short lived without any natural magical aptitude. The Aen Seidhe first saw humans in a sympathetic light and thought they could civilize men to some extent, they failed to do so and their civilization was turned to ash by said humans. Now they are the underdogs of the setting. The Aen Elle are genocidal imperialist elf-supremacist slavers, who seek to dominate everything they can. Most humans fail to see the difference and to most of them, the elves are one big group which would enslave and annihilate all humans given the chance, like the Wild Hunt tries to. In one of the books, there is an elven memorial site with statues, one of them is a mixed race couple, Ciri's ancestors. Although the human of the pair wasn't actually sculpted, but implied (which should be a huge enough honor to a human) to be there because it would have been a disgrace to spend such expensive materials on a mere human, and the elf is seen as a race traitor. Avallac'h also fabricates human historical evidence as a way to protect the hidden memorial site, and just because he thinks it's really funny. I'm obviously not doing the series enough justice here, but it does have genuinely good depiction of racial and cultural prejudice and oppression, and it isn't just black and white either. The series shows a a terrifying world where people live in constant fear, suspicion and superstition (Not too far off from reality). And at the heart of it, it shows that the cruelty is ultimately unnecessary and evil no matter who is the perpetrator, which I think is a good message.

Welcome to the like like two thousand new people between this video and the last one who joined because my Iraq war video and theosophy video took off and had no idea what the...dynamic range of my channel could be. Hope you enjoy overlong analyses of video games.

“A native people with dark hair who were slaughtered by the now dominant race in the area and were forced into smaller and less useable territories.” Yeah, the Ainu, I’m familiar with them.

This fills the Valkyriachronicles analysis shaped hole in my heart.

I have two criticisms of an otherwise pretty good look at the game A: The Beach Episode's placement The Beach Episode isn't part of the core story by default. It's a secondary mission that gets placed in that position after the player pays in-game money for. Plus it sets up an emotional gut punch if the player is psychotic enough to buy new missions as they are available, that you go from the bright cheerful beach to the absolute lowest point of the narrative showing the barbarity that the Empire is inflicting on Innocents. B: The reliability of ingame documents. Once the rug pull occurs and you learn that the Valkyria were the super-assholes rather than the Darcsen and they caused the Calamity, you can't take 33:41 as an objective fact any more. It's in-universe propaganda that was established by the Valkyria to make them look like Sensible Liberators and the Darcsen as Crazy Weirdoes.

Being a smut artist really isn't as big of a deal as people make it out to be. Chris Sanders, for example, has put out quite a few very horny pinup drawings, and he's also one of the main creators of Lilo and Stitch.

Listening to this video, Valkyria Chronicles seems to be much better at dealing with racism and bigotry then most other Japanese media, quite frankly most other media in general. Sure they stumble a lot but the attempt is appreciated. Largo as the fence sitter that makes it worse and actively enables bigotry is a depiction i don't see very often. As you mentioned Deus Ex Human Revolution and Mankind Divided, one of my core issues with them, is that the games should be about ableism and classism but they tried to make it about race, and failed at all of the above. I actually have wanted to write something about it because it's a long held frustration of mine (fun games tho)

If Rosencreutz adds :smilecat: then SEGA will announce VC5 and it'll sell a Rosenbillion copies

Here from the Bret Devereaux Fireside that mentioned your videos! This was a really interesting look at the game, but god that line "the human mind was not made to comprehend the uwu-ification of dachau" made me wheeze and actively recommend the video to some friends. Excellent work here!

The video was phenomenal as always, i assume, i don't know, i just heard the phrase 'persecuted catboys' and got so lightheaded i passed out.

It's important to know when it comes to "Dark hair," "because we're short and have dark hair," was literally a reason that a Japanese general was given by a rabbi in WW2 for why the Nazis hated Jews... so though it's not a feature of all Jews by a long shot I think it fits into the Jewish themed coding. And I'm really glad you made this, this is a conversation I've been wanting to approach for a bit, you didn't hit all the angles that I want to see discussed on this, but this is a really great video, and I'm so glad you made it.

I think VC deserves a lot of credit for at least trying to tackle the Holocaust given that most actual WW2 games seem to try and avoid it.

Still manifesting ports of VC2 and VC3 after all these years

Wait, they were originally going to be cat people? So RWBY wasn't the only one with this idea...

Rosie's racism reminds me of the strange and frankly horrifying style of antisemitism that came out of some people eastern europe after ww2. This attitude of "we are the only real victims." If I recall correctly there was one late Soviet artist who made some abysmal art depicting the Nazis and Jews collaborating to kill Russians. There's, uh, something to say about twisted trauma in all that.

Ah yes... I still remeber playing vc2 blind thinking it was "ww2 fe", these games can go from typical anime tropes to direct allusions of real world tragedies and events Discovering one of my fav units had a "Darcsen hater" trait and hearing one of my companion talk about "Imperial con camps" only to later go to typical school anime plots was both incredibly hysterical and kinda funny

The mention how Darksens bigotry and stereotypes being based on their environment and occupation reminded me of an article about the Buraku (untouchables) [look for the article BBC News: "Japan's hidden caste of untouchables"]. I wonder if they used this material as the basis to write about discrimination.

I'm glad we can hold our media to the uniquely high bar of not doing "catgirls in camps"

I really wish VC2 and VC3 gets a remaster or at least a port to modern systems. I love the series especially the colors.

I remember VC2 having two Darcsen characters with very different reactions to the racism, despite both also being the smart glasses stereotype. One used his talent to prove them wrong with bold stance and direct words and action, while the other quietly accept it and avoid confrontation. And I thought that was neat. Edit: Typo

Wahoo new Rosencreutz video!

Oh my god, i thought this video was like months old, but it's actually 2 days old. I am so surprised and happy, keep up the good work. I am a huge fan of Valkyria series, having 100%-ed parts 1 and 2, and I really love to see videos that research the topic of the game. Thank you for your video!

hold on learning the guitar so I can start my new bad CATGIRL DEATHCAMP

What a blessed way to drive into work. Solid video

I finally understand why Valkyria Chronicles is my favorite 8/10 game in terms of story.

I'm that someone! Man, I've never been more happy about the 2nd video I've seen from a newly subbed creator. I was one of 2 ppl that pre-ordered this game at GameCrazy within Hollywood video. The other person was there with me when I picked it up, because it was my best friend who drove us there. The employees were so entertained by that, and it's one of my top games of all time. I see SO little discussion of this. Now do a Bumpy Trot one lol

Thanks for this. Game criticism is VERY important, and you do some of the best work with games most critics ignore. Games, as an art form, are in a dialectic between narrative/context and systems/mechanics. IMHO, the best games are ones that play with both of these elements, which Valkyria Chronicles certainly does-though with debatable success. But said debatable success allows for further iterations-that’s what this art form is! TLDR more plz (Inc VC5 and bringing 2 and 3 off the PSP and to the US!) ALSO: Look, I’m Jewish and I tend to just avoid WW2 as a setting entirely, preferring the 17th Century “Pike and Shot” to 18th-19th Century Linear Warfare and the Age of Revolutions to WWI to post-World War I as those allow for a balance of interest and distance. Valkyria Chronicles does something interesting with Anime WW2 and I appreciate it. I appreciate the juxtaposition for its own sake. BUT having ripped off the WW2 band-aid, anime-style creators like SEGA-and hopefully more!-should look into other eras as well, being both more colorful in all senses and more distance allowing for harder narrative gut punches with less potential justified blowback.

Man, your channel just keeps giving.

Fantastic video! Really appreciate the fair analysis of my guilty pleasure franchise! I was really dispoainted with how VC4 handled the Darcsens compared to VC1, this video made me appreciate the first game more for all of its flaws.

36:27 the beach episode was DLC originally.

3:33 AAAAnd I though it's just another WW1 with WW2 aesthetic

Excellent video. This summarizes and expands on many of the "stuck thoughts" I've had since playing it. Genuinely impressive what it manages to achieve. On a sidenote, VC2 and VC3 also offer some very interesting perspectives on this topic. The relationship between Zeri and Juliana in 2 is one thing, Zeri himself offers a new way of looking into the topic of resistance (like a much less concerning version of VC3's Dahau) and I found Valerie's (the resident historian) inputs in VC3 to be cool in regards to that question of individual actions having an impact on systemic issues, with her determination to uncover the real details of the Darcsen Calamity.

Great vid! Own it on steam, but i haven't thought about this game in a decade, so it was cool to be reminded of it. World war two with a beach scene, sure is one of the quotes of all time

this is the third time your channel has blindsided me in the best way possible with the choice of games to make videos about would not persecute ranulf though he's too cool

8:00 tbf real life has wild juxtapositions like that all time

…isn’t Galia mostly like Poland? A little country stuck in between two empires? Location of the camps? Even some details like how the place looks, bread being a staple of food and the name Alicia being used in Poland. I love this game, btw

I cannot wait to send this to my friend!

3:49 I want to see you make a video on Kantai Collection/Azur Lane historiography so bad, now... ("And here we have Inazuma, a destroyer (personified as a little girl, of course) that is portrayed as a bleeding-heart softie who even wants to 'save the enemies' aww... because her captain was willing to follow the rules of war and not just machine-gun enemy survivors in the water like all the other waifus.")

Ok i didnt except a valkyria chronicles video.

kind of funny that an anime game is somehow one of the most tactful depictions of the holocaust

Valkyria Chronicles is one of my favourite games, so thanks for this video.

Great video

Honestly i just want to hear you talk about the rest of the games in the series, this video convinced me to play them

we making it into the anime video easy clud with this one 🗣🗣🔥🔥

I've seen the Darcsen as at least partially a reference to Korea and the kind of shit Japan did to that country for centuries.

Thanks for covering this game, youve made my day. Most of your problems come from implications that you make up though. Like the lore you cite isnt the actual history, thats the narrative that the people know. The calamity was made up by the valkyria in order to later justify their conquest. The game is not saying that the og inhabitants were evil, the conquerors were saying that to justify it to later generations. Also the whole racism as a quirk is a implication your making, the quirk rosie has is the hardass, and racism is a part of her character, but not in a way where every sentance she speaks has racism in it. The beath scene is to make us care for isara before stuff happens, and i see the whole incentiviced racism as a psychological flaw with the characters, its their own fault for being this way, and they act accordingly. The 4th game if you ever make a video on it does squad stories that can change these racist or bad traits into not racist ones, showing character growth. Anyways thats it, thanks for the great video, hope you make a video on 4 and how it backs out of its own questions about how nukes can be justified or not.

36:20 "I can point out how they put the chapter about a concentration camp right after the mandatory beach episode, but that's genuinely deranged" Contrary to Americans, whose head explode over any tonal shift, Japanese are more acustomed to it in media. The CC is right after the beach Episode to create a contrast. Black hair is a massive identifier of "Japaneseness". Kids with naturally non black hair get bullied and pressured by schools to dye their hair black. Add pazifismn, technophilia and being from the country where the thinly veiled nuke went off and any Japanese will feel called out.

another banger oomfi

"they did try to keep the horrors of war, the atrocities surrounding it, when they didn't have to. and i have to respect that." you far more generous than i 😂 in my head im like "i dont have to give them jack shit" but yeah. yeah i do give props for not entirely sugarcoating it. i get annoyed with the amount of war based media my dad watches as mindless background stuff, and it's all us military propaganda basically, but *any* war based media seems to have an emphasis on Your Team Is Still Family Even If They Call You A Slur. seems like this game doesn't entirely fall into that, but does in some ways... which may simply be the nature of having the literal need to stick together

Good video.Your argument was nuanced. I think the best thing I can say is that it seems that the makers of the game thought long and hard about what they wanted to say and how to say it about a very risky yet important topic. I think I can forgive slightly problematic execution in that context because it's clear the people involved felt the gravity of what they were doing.

As a big fan of VC i always enjoy new vids about the series. But i have a small thing to say about the somewhat weird tone of the plot, which was mostly a result of the Translation/Localization team. Over the whole they made the Militia sound a lot less profession by removing much of the professional military lingo used in the cutscenes and such. There were also a lot of little personal growth and perspective that got lost in Translation. Alicia not wanting to fight in the Militia and keeping her bakers scarf as that is what she'd rather be doing. And Welkin being a lot more confident in his abilities, But not wanting to join the military to get away from his fathers legacy, And having complicated feelings about ending up as a tank commander just like his father. If anyone here wants to see someone break down all of these little details, the channel Japan Day Tripper is currently doing a stream series about the translation.

8:46 i dont need to persecute Ranulf bc hes already persecuted enough by the game devs with how bad his stats and availability are in PoR and RD

Now that I hear it, HOI4 soundtrack really goes hand in hand with the VC series...then again I would not be shocked if there is a VC mod for HOI4

There are characters with Japanese names from the setting's 'far east', so I don't think the idea of the black hair being a reference to Japanese people is particularly valid. I don't see many people talk about this series and it's one of my favourites, so thanks for diving into the first game's themes like this.

30:36 You know, I awaited to see something from 3rd part and this reaction… yeah. Boy, Valkyria 3 is fun game. In all senses of the word.

lmao holy shit i forgot the part where they go in the camp barracks looking like...camp barracks at a concentration camp.

the darcsen might also draw from the indigenous Ainu people from japan

"i hope at least someone has had thoughts like these stuck in their head for half a decade and enjoyed this one" it was me thank you now to finally get around to playing the 4th game

I actually quite liked the Darcsen being Indigenous to the lands they are being oppressed within. I think while the statelessness of the Jews and Roma was integral to their persecution, I often find myself ignoring things like that because I genuinely believe the atrocities would've happened to the same extent without such overarching "justifications" or preconceptions. Simply because there are just so many, that if one didn't exist, another one of the justifications would be propped up. Neo-Nazi's love to move the goal posts on everything. If an oppressed group is not indigenous, they say they were stateless. If they were indigenous, then those same Nazi's claim they were rightfully conquered by their superior forces. Pointless exercise to play with them, really.

Hello yes it's me, the girl who had thoughts like these stuck in her head for the past 5 years, thank you so much for making this video!

Valkyria Chronicles holds e very special place in my heart, especialyl the first game. I love it to bits tbh.

The Seigval line is the Siegfried line

Finally someone talk about this

Only a few minutes into this video but I wanted to remark that this is kind of how I feel about the legendary manga Berserk and the 30 Years' War.

I played this game way back when it first came out, and didn't buy the DLC (because parents) so there wasn't any beach episode in my multiple playthroughs. I only experienced it years later, and by that time my impressions of the game had long set in so it didn't change anything for me. Though I can see how having it included at default could mess with the tone of the whole narrative. I had just paid it little mind since it wasn't part of *my* VC experience.

I think there's a point to be made about the concentration camp thing being put just after the mandatory beach episode not being that silly and deranged. I do think it's a specific trope of japanese narration to have the silliest of events being put just before the worst things ever. Arguably, the juxtaposition of joyful nonsense with undescribable horrors makes for an even stronger contrast and you can be even more shocked. Basically, concentration camp is a shocking imagery, but surrounded by images of bleeding soldiers dying on the ground, praying for the pain to stop and death to take them quickly, looking at people coming their way to finish off the survivors with bayonets is probably way less shocking than the juxtaposition of a beach party and a concentration camp. One of the associative laws specifically states that contrast is one of the ways to create a strong association, which is basically a strong memory.

We eatin' good tonight...

Listening to me made me realize I was all too okay with treating the Darcsen-related soldier traits as part of the world, quirks of gameplay. I would effectively segregate out Darcsen groups in the squad for more effective combat. The game made me simulate systemic racism

Do you have passing thoughts on how Rosie could've been written better, or are the issues with her character more on the pacing than her story itself? Should the game have had a spotlight on a character who is racist *and* doesn't 'get better'? Great video overall, I'm interested to hear if you've got thoughts on this, or further reading recommendations, since writing on sensitive issues like this is quite difficult to find good guidance towards.

Man I love Valkyria Chronicles

1:23 you mean the Belkan War from Ace Combat?

If anything, this video has convinced me that the newer generations don't seem to be able to process or handle serious themes in media if there is a tiny amount of fanservice in it.

good use of the embassy theme form Mission Impossible for N64 and the rest of it of course; now to play some Hoi4!

13:26 Yakub and his creation had a similar story to the Valkyria lmao

I feel like I need to actually finish the game before I watch this.

Valkyria Chronicles is great

Since you covered Humankind and the later Civs, will you cover Millennia when it comes out?

They hearted on that iron

Loving the HoI music

Since you discuss alot of things about Civ. I suggest you to take a look at CivIV mod: Realism Invictus and how it deviates alot in terms of progression and national identity but still keeps the spirit of Civ.

Hey first time viewer of your channel, just gotta say starting out the actual discussion of the work by swapping to the Important Business voice to say "The artist has draw boobs before, but don't worry!!! He had nothing to do with the plot at all! Also all the designs are incredibly tame anyway" seems incredibly weird and pointless except to point out that they've drawn porn before, which....a lot of artists have especially people you see doing designs for rpgs like this. Just a strange thing to throw in at the start that feels incredibly dismissive of their work and didn't need to be there since nothing in the game has anything to do with that and your stated reason is to not have to deal with youtube getting mad about it but I don't think the robot running the surface level check is going to google and artists name you said in the video and find their works that aren't in the video you make (and also not in the game you're talking about). Bizarre shit, really.

You mentioned it briefly with bioshock, ff16, and the new deus ex games but I would honestly love an analysis of those games and other games who fall into the short sighted understandings of racism you bring up in passing.

I was expecting you to tackle this one for a while, yeah it's not perfect but it came as close to good representation of the horrible side of WW2 as one could unreasonably expect from an Anime game.

Well, i didn't though this game was so "deep?", I think I'll give it another try

So sad I hope there will be another Valkyria chronicles game..

Overall the darcsens could represent any number of persecuted group... but there is one specific plot point that narrows it down for me. The whole "this people did something bad hundreds of years ago" really reminds me of the old "justification" for the christian persecution of jews, even if Jesus was a jew himself which I never understood why it didn't matter. Maybe it's my own ignorance but I don't know other groups with an "historical original sin" that gives an excuse for hatred like this. But it has more to do with religion than strict racism at first and there was nothing about religion in the Valkyria setting so...

30:30 This has me uncomfortable as I feel events like la Terreur and the ongoing Palestine conflict show that “liberation”, from authoritarianism in the former case and ethnic discrimination in the latter, can absolutely be “too terroristy”. To not represent that in fiction feels like denying the reality of terrorism as a thing that exists, and to not cast them as the villain seems even worse. Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’re asking for though. Bioshock Infinite was pretty lazy in its “both sides bad” message, even if I don’t think it was actually *wrong* at the end of the day, at least about some revolutions. For the record ACOUP brought me here, and I agree with Bret RE: Palestine. Just so nobody thinks I’m smuggling apologia.

There's something missing in this analysis. The encroachment of the persecuted in the game is more akin to the native americans since you could argue the justification for racism in the case of both Jewish and Roma is also related not only to the stateless status but also for being outsiders to the Christian status quo in Europe, they came from elsewhere, at least recently enough to be considered a problematic migratory wave. In contrast, the dark hairs are natives being reduced as time goes, making it much clearer it's a struggle for conquest.

hearing you say the thing about catgirls being an analog for the Jews in WWII absolutely fucked me up

This is a series, yes? I eyed it before but are there any recommendations which game one should start with? (I only got a pc)

well this is unexpected