November 13th, 2016 
AstroNerdBoy Izetta: The Last Witch 07
Shumatsu no Izetta episode 07
Izetta, Die Letzte Hexe 07
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis
The Allies meet to discuss the new Germanian warship, an aircraft carrier called the Drachenfels. Britannia introduces Finé, who in turn introduces Izetta. After Izetta demonstrates her powers, Finé offers to have Izetta destroy the Drachenfels in exchange for helping Eylstadt. The Allies agree. Wing Commander Groman is assigned to Izetta for the mission. A B-24 Liberator Handley Page Halifax will carry four torpedoes to a drop site, where Izetta will fly them to the target. The Allies wonder about Izetta’s route to the target, not knowing her weakness. However, they are given a plausible explanation and let the matter drop.
On the day of the mission, the B-24 Handley Page Halifax and a second B-24 bomber with members of the Allied nations fly out. All goes according to plan until Izetta reaches the target site and discovers the Drachenfels is not docked. The Drachenfels has launched with a two heavily armed warship escorts. Izetta has one of her torpedoes destroyed as Captain Basler and his flight launch from the carrier. Izetta uses one of her torpedoes to damage one of the cruisers. A couple of times, she loses magical power, confusing the Germanian forces. In desperation, she uses her third torpedo as a bomb to destroy the carrier’s plane elevator and the last one to hit the fuel tanks, destroying the carrier. Major Berkman calls off further pursuit of the witch, having the information about Izetta that he wants.
Thoughts and Review
An interesting return to plot and action. I have to say, I really wasn’t sure how the episode was going to end.
Drachenfels is the Bismark
Because both of my grandfathers fought in World War II, I have always taken a keen interest in that war. (A war that with today’s modern “sensibilities” could not be won.) The moment the Allies started taking with worry about the Drachenfels, I immediately knew that this was this fictitious world’s version of the Bismark. The Bismark was feared as the most powerful battleships in existence at the time. Aircraft carriers had not yet established their dominance of the seas, though that was coming.
Still, I understand why the writers made the Drachenfels an aircraft carrier instead of a battleship. On one hand, they are showing that Germania understands that carriers trump battleships, even if battleships look cooler. The threat it posed was very real. Further, it allowed Captain Basler to get his rematch against Izetta. While not impossible, it is harder to do that if the Drachenfels were a battleship.
Basler vs. Izetta
The conflict between Basler and Izetta felt very real to me since it was told from Basler’s perspective. Most of Germany’s soldiers, sailors, and airmen were not National Socialists. However, they were Germans and if their government ordered them to go and fight the enemy, that’s what they did.
I suspect it is much the same with the soldiers, sailor, and airmen of Germania. They love their country. Emperor Otto has ordered them to go fight the enemy, and that’s what they do. It isn’t political. As such, your job is to kill the enemy while keeping your own people alive. For Captain Basler, he was out doing his job when a witch comes along and interferes with his mission. To make matters worse, he loses his entire squad.
If losing his command were the only thing at stake, then his passion to get back at Izetta would be boring. However, as happens in war, the airmen with him were just under his command. They were brothers in arms. Losing them was like losing family. While it may be somewhat cliched, losing family and wanting to avenge them is a powerful motivator. I liked how the writers kept Basler from being too over the top. They allowed him to attempt to get his payback, but kept him in check.
Izetta: Cool Under Fire
There’s an old saying that’s been adapted from the Scots poem, To a Mouse.
The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
Certainly, this was the case as this mission went FURBAR when Izetta discovered that the Drachenfels was not docked. Izetta had been given explicit instructions on the need for all four torpedoes to take down the Drachenfels. Then she loses one of the torpedoes as the Germanian navy spring their trap. She’s forced to use a second one to damage one of the cruisers and buy herself some breathing room.
Then, she’s got Basler and his squadron on her tail with their new fighters. She hits two dry areas where her magic powers briefly die and she loses control of her last two torpedoes. I have to admit that the production team did an outstanding job combining the action with suspense. While I knew Izetta wasn’t going to die, I did wonder if she might get wounded or captured.
That said, I loved that Izetta never panicked. Instead, she used her brain and came up with a solution to the problem. Using one torpedo to destroy the plane elevator on the carrier is a brilliant move. It prevents more fighters from being able to launch, and it also prevents fighters from returning to the carrier.
Using the second torpedo to take out the ship’s fuel tanks then seals the deal. The carrier is destroyed (or at the very least, taken out of commission due to very heavy damage) and her mission is complete. Yay, Izetta!
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
Still insanely busy, so let me wrap this up with some bullet point thoughts.
- I loved seeing the
B-24sHandley Page Halifax bombers in action, even if one was just filled with stupid dignitaries. They even had it take damage and lose an engine. UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who corrected me on my mistaken ID of the bomber. - It made me laugh when the subtitles were FORCED to acknowledge someone addressing Finé as “Princess” before correcting themselves. I strongly disagree with the adaptation decision to change how Izetta addresses Finé. For Izetta, Finé will ALWAYS be Princess, not Archduchess. But this is why I despise “localization” over standard adaptation.
- Izetta is too desperate to prove herself. I think this is going to be her downfall. It may cause her to rage, or it may cause her to be captured.
- I wonder if there’s a spy within the Allies. I know Germania used the Drachenfels as bait to draw out Izetta, but they seemed to know when the attack would come.
- I think Germania has the original White Witch, or possibly a clone of her. I think that’s what was in that container.
In the end, Izetta: The Last Witch 07 stepped back up to the plate and provided some good, suspenseful, World War II battle action.
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Actually the bomber look like variation of Avro Lancaster.
You know, you are right.
Hello
It is a Handley Page Halifax
My Googlefu failed me. I knew I saw similar bomber in real life but the name escaped me.
I updated the article. Thanks! 🙂
The strategy is similar to the sinking of the Kriegsmarine (KMS)Tirpitz – the sister ship of the KMS Bismarck that was being repaired/kept in a fjord in Norway – or in this anime the country of Nord. WW2 history has the Tirpitz sunk by two attacks, first by British X class midget subs that dropped limpet mines under the middle of the ship severely damaging the hull’s spine (as kinda explained to Izetta), and then later being bombed and sunk by the RAF.
Germany did have a aircraft carrier, being constructed, and the Drachenfels really looks like the KMS Graf Zeppelin (not the air-ship). Its round range-finders on its command and control island, the shape and placement of the twin elevators, and the twin catapult on the bow of the ship are identical.
Capt Basler’s new plane is a morph or two planes … looks like wings of a Vought F4U Corsair ‘gull wing’ fitted onto a ME109 frame and engine. It showed a catapult launching frame when it took off from the carrier, but would be curious on how they would have drawn the landing wheels on this fighter or landing for that matter on the carrier, but they had it easy, Izetta blew up the deck so they couldn’t land back on the ship.
If they have another ‘witch’ it could be one from another ‘clan’ – whose clan symbol was also on the walls of the castle, including Izetta’s clan (looks like moose antlers).
I guess torpedos are better than bombs. I thought a ‘tall boy’ bomb would have been a better choice since they used it to sink the KMS Tirpitz, and didn’t need a propeller.
You are correct. The anime combined the fear of the Bismark with the attack on the Tirpitz. The Bismark story is better known, which is why I focused on that rather than Tirpitz. But yeah, you are spot on.
I’d totally forgotten about that. I just went out and looked at the photos and yeah, the Japanese clearly designed the Drachenfels on the Graf Zeppelin.
I couldn’t tell what his plane was supposed to be based on.
Interesting theory. That is very possible.
Torpedoes are always going to be a top attack weapon for targeting ships. Bismark got hit with a ton of them.
The Capt Basler aircraft is a hybrid : a Heinkel He-112 fuselage with a He-100 wing and a Daimler Benz engine
Thanks for the information here.
General Benoit of Free Thermidor — is a good anime version of General Charles De Gaulle with less hair – of Free French – but called Free Thermidor in this anime. Add the French Foreign Legion style hat.
Prime Minister of Britannia – Burns – kinda loosely attempt at drawing Winston Churchill – but more dark hair more than the gray hair real one Also smoking a cigar as Churchill did.
I didn’t recognize De Gaulle, but I did see some Churchill mannerisms in Burns.
Some spectators unnecessarily complicate the plan of breaking the Drachenfels hull in two with four torpedoes exploding simultaneously at one point. For my part, on the contrary, I find it logical. Originally, it was at the harbour that the aircraft carrier was to be attacked, and if the plan had consisted only of piercing the hull to make it flow, It would have sunk to a shallow depth, the top of the hull would have remained out of the water and it would have been easy to refloat – like the battleships of Pearl Harbor – while breaking it at Machines, it would have been completely irrecoverable, except for scrap metal.
I agree with you here.
Sorry this ended up kinda long.
Agreeing with you Vautour2B too – but circumstances are a bit different.
Pearl is shallow as in only a few feet below the bottom of a ship’s hull – it cannot handle ships with very deep drafts. A fjord is quite deeper. At Pearl the battleships were docked either tipped over to its side or settled into the shallow mud.
The USS Nevada BB-36 – damaged during the attack and tried to get out of the harbor but beached itself so that the only channel to the ocean wasn’t blocked.
The carrier was moving and not docked, so refloating a ship however it sank from deeper water of a narrow and deeper fjord is more costly, if not impossible to salvage.
The carrier was moving therefore unprotected by any anti-sub, anti-torpedo nets that the Tirpitz had while docked. The Tirpitz was sunk that included using several ‘tall boy’ bombs of the RAF.
Torpedos as planned in shallow water would increase the force upward, but the shallow water in Pearl would cause the hull to hit the bottom, and prevent from over-bending the other way and prevent the fatal cracking/snapping the hull, as you were saying.
In deeper water as in the fjord the theory it would work, provided the upward lift from the torpedos were strong enough, or the displacement force of the water under the ship from the exploding torpedo is strong enough to weaken and bend the hull downward to snap.
I can see this being done to ships up to a battleship, but considering the weight and area displacement of a carrier is much bigger. I’m not sure even 4 torpedos would generate the needed force up and down.
The japanese had to modify its plane dropped dive bomb torpedoes so that when dropped it would not go too deep under the water where it would hit the shallow bottom of Pearl. Several japanese midget subs did fire its torpedoes but were also in-effective and too few.
In the Fjord the water is deeper so torpedos can easily be used, but consider that fjords tend to be narrow and the distance needed of a horizontal torpedo plane’s attack path may have been too short. A dive bomber is much more vertical and almost vertical.
The Tirpitz, Graf Zeppelin, Bismark were considered modern ships, with hulls to reduce the effects of being hit by torpedoes (post-ww1), as in thicker hulls, and even hull blisters that the torpedo would penetrate but destroy the blister first and not damage the primary hull. Also water tight compartments would slow down the sinking process. The Bismark was hit by several torpedoes and didn’t easily sink. Also the Graf Spee had a hard time getting sunk.
The US fleet docked in Pearl without the carriers were aging ww1 ships when it was constructed when submarines and torpedos was just beginning, and less fortified against such a attack, and even less armored decks to prevent dive bombers. Carrier’s were just beginning. Admiral Yamamoto saw its potential. The US Navy was initially not so confident.
Izetta did what the US Navy did at Midway, using bombs to destroy the modern japanese carriers, but Izetta used torpedos like armor piercing bombs.
I agree with much of your argument, but I will, in turn, make some reservations.
First, Britannia had planned to attack the Drachenfels at the port, dockside, and not a ship traveling in the middle of the fjord. Even if the port itself was in a fjord, Britannia would have had no certainty that the aircraft carrier would have flowed to a sufficient depth.
It is true that the BBs of Pearl Harbor were old ships with obsolete torpedo protections, but this was not the case of the Italian battleships of Taranto. The Fleet Air Arm knew it, but it preferred to use Swordfish torpedo planes, rather than Blackburn Skua dive bombers …. and rightly because some of the torpedoes defeated the ‘Pugliese’ system by exploding under the hull, thanks To their ‘Duplex’ magnetic detonators. Izetta, with his ability to steer four torpedoes at the same time, and, with great precision, could do even better..(Not that the Bismark would have resisted the simultaneous explosion of four torpedoes under its engine room)
The torpedo nets are a problem for a torpedo-plane … not for a witch capable of lifting 20 tons Panzer IVs in the air (and flying), as easily as if they were in feathers!
The narrowness of the fjord would not have been a problem for an Izetta capable of landing torpedoes with the ease of an anti-submarine warfare helicopter.
The RAF did sink the Tirpitz with 5 tons ‘Tallboy’, but it did not exist in 1940 … At that time the torpedo was still considered the only airborne weapon capable of sinking large armored ships .