The entire Muv Luv BETAverse is, in some ways, a love letter to cold war science fiction. I don’t even know if this was intentional, but between the Soviet chicanery, CIA spooks, national pride, mad science, “Like the atomic bomb but bigger and badder” new weapons, and general theme of mankind on the brink, it does recall quite a lot of that period’s media and color. There was a time not so long ago when actual, legitimate government authorities sank time and money into researching psychic powers and messing around with plots that would make most spy thrillers look tame, and Muv Luv seems to adore that and the storytelling possibilities that come from it, at least enough to keep the blocs around even in a world where everything behind the iron curtain has pretty much been gobbled up by alien monsters. So, I suppose, it only makes sense that Muv Luv would eventually generate a spinoff actually set closer to the heart of the Cold War.
That spin-off is Schwarzesmarken. Set in 1983 East Germany, this is the Muv Luv sidestory anime that really does its own thing, and that thing is largely going all the way with Muv Luv’s infatuation with rebels, coups, and morally gray political backstabbing by engaging with its world.
Most particularly, we’re going to be talking about the Stasi. In real life, the Stasi were East Germany’s KGB-backed intelligence agency, which due to the massive scope of their operation and its infiltration deep into every facet of civilian life (with part-time spies placed in every apartment, work site, and peer group, including some notable cases of close family members secretly informing on each other), represented perhaps one of the most extensive and effective “secret police” groups. According to some testimonies they had as many as two million informants at their height. To give some perspective on the amount of information they gathered on all the citizens of East Germany, it’s estimated that their attempts to destroy their files as the organization crumbled in 1989 got through about 5% of the total bulk… which is still fairly impressive as that was about a billion pages of data. Not “a billion” as a colloquial term for “many”, a literal one billion sheets of paper.
I mention this because, while I think the show still works if you don’t know the Stasi were an actual thing, Schwarzesmarken does kind of assume that you have a general idea of what East Germany was like around the peak of their operation, since all that is apparently still going on just fine even with the BETA at East Germany’s doorstep.
Though, while you are at least given some sense of the climate of fear and treachery running rampant in East Germany, it is somewhat removed from our main characters. They are the 666th TSF squadron, the titular Schwarzesmarken, a group of East German ace surface pilots dedicated in particular to diving deep into BETA ranks and hunting down the Laser-class BETA, an important job but one that’s bound to be a meat grinder for anyone but the best.
In that squad, our lead character is Theodor Eberbach, a young man with a big chip on his shoulder towards the Stasi thanks to having been on the receiving end of some brutal interrogation after his family (the rest of which, his parents and adopted sister, are presumed deceased) attempted to flee to the West. He’s also a man with very little empathy, as we see in the opening deployment of the show: one of his teammates suffers from agonizing PTSD, which he responds to with grumpy annoyance, and when another is mortally wounded and ultimately mercy-killed, he doesn’t seem to feel much.
This doesn’t please the squad’s commanding officer, Irisdina, who gives him a talking to after hauling him along on a rescue mission in the wake of those events. He’s not terribly inclined to listen to her, since according to rumor she sold out her own family to the Stasi, but he’s still a soldier who follows orders, including the orders Irisdina gives him to take charge of the rescuee. Said individual is a cute young lady from West Germany called Katia Waldheim who, it turns out, is inclined to join up. Katia is entirely too happy and optimistic for this setting (both the BETAverse in general and Schwarzesmarken’s East Germany in particular), and acts as something of a ‘morality pet’ for Theodor, since he’s forced to take care of her and be exposed to her infectious kindness, wearing down his otherwise extremely sour disposition.
This charge also threatens to get Theodor in trouble when the Stasi come knocking, since their organization is quite interested in the new face, as well as in sabotaging any sense of camaraderie rather than paranoia that may be growing among the 666th.
The Stasi, in this show, are represented by a couple of figures in particular. One is Heinze Axmann, a Stasi officer. He’s effectively the main antagonist of the show, and even though he’s not a surface pilot, he has a powerful manipulative presence, a clear deep sadism, and a strong rivalry with both Theodor and Irisdina, having been in charge of each of their previous encounters with the Stasi. The other is Beatrix Brehme, Axmann’s right hand and a deadly nutjob of a surface pilot, who carries out a good deal of the Stasi’s dirty work along with her “Werewolf” squadron. She doesn’t get the most personal development, being basically a loyal attack dog for the Stasi, but she at least can fill out the scenes she’s in well enough. And she does at least have a rivalry with Irisdina, as the two were apparently close friends or rivals in the past driven against each other by strong, incompatible ideals.
While their arrival clearly spells trouble for Theodor and Katia, the rest of the squad (particularly Commissar Gretel Jeckeln, who represents the political interest of the East German government – independent of the Stasi – and is the only other member of the 666th really worth mentioning by name at least as they stand in the anime) isn’t too happy with this turn of events either. However, Axmann has little enough to go on that they get away with the status quo for a time, and the 666th continues to fly operations, helping the Eastern Front hold against the endless onslaught of the BETA.
Eventually, the squad receives a new pilot as a reinforcement: Lize Hohenstein, Theodor’s adopted little sister who is transparently both very much in love with her brother (including in ways not considered appropriate for family) and probably a Stasi plant given where she was last seen and the timing of her arrival, making her a serious problem for Theodor because he’s also become party to the secret of Katia’s true identity as the daughter of a beloved hero of a general who was disappeared by the Stasi years earlier, and whose dream of a unified Germany she wants to carry on.
It’s also a problem for Irisdina and Gretel, as they reach the point of actually bringing Theodor into the loop in order to prevent things from getting worse. Contrary to his early assumption that the two authority figures were Stasi lapdogs, they’re actually scheming against the Stasi, and want Theodor and through him Katia to help earn a brighter future for their country, beset as it is by enemies on all sides. His first assignment, naturally, is to assess what kind of threat Lize might pose (including the question that’s unanswered for the characters of if she’s really with the Stasi) and neutralize it either by bringing her around or making sure to keep her out of the conspiracy loop.
Thus, we spend several episodes playing cloak-and-dagger politics, where we’re not sure who is going to learn what dangerous information, including about Irisdina and Gretel’s planning, Katia’s true identity, and Lize’s actual loyalties. Speaking of the latter, she also seems dangerously close to yandere territory aside from her secret Stasi affiliation, with distaste towards Irisdina and Katia (who both occupy a good deal of her brother’s time and thoughts) festering in a dangerous way.
And, by the way, we do this while still fighting the BETA… at least often enough. Unlike its sibling Total Eclipse or even the Muv Luv parent stories, Schwarzesmarken is not sparing with the aliens. It’s an action show about characters on the front line of the war for Humanity’s survival against inhuman foes, and it makes sure you remember that. True, the constant clashes do somewhat degrade the raw terror of the BETA compared to Alternative, but I would argue that of Total Eclipse and Schwarzesmarken, I believed the threat that the BETA posed more in Schwarzesmarken despite the fairly constant interaction.
Part of that is that the action in this show is both brutal and good. The first episode comes out of the gate enforcing it, with plenty of blood spatter when the BETA get shot up and of course the death of one of the first pilots we introduce, for which we’re treated to a shot of her messed up by shrapnel that really sells the fact that her card is marked before Irisdina puts her out of her misery. It’s maybe not as dramatic as the fall of Kyoto in the first couple episodes of Total Eclipse, but it’s still a good welcome to the hellscape that is a Muv Luv battlefield. And, unlike the Total Eclipse opening, it actually fits with what you’ll be seeing for the rest of the show.
And, the BETA’s aura of menace, while not fed a steady diet of plot armor this time, is kept happy by fairly continual offerings of various sorts. For instance, there’s a fairly long sequence where one of the defensive forts (where Katia is at the moment, due to her TSF being damaged) falls under direct attack. The 666th struggles to provide relief while Katia befriends several of the people there, learning their names and stories, only for the BETA to overrun the defenses and ultimately catch Katia’s escaping group, literally tearing apart her new friends before her eyes and putting the backs of Katia and the other last survivors against the wall until rescue arrives, timely for Katia’s health but a little to late for her mental well-being.
I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me that enjoyed the fact that the BETA are allowed to just chomp people even when the power of friendship with a main character is in play. Killing off characters isn’t necessarily good in and of itself, but I think everybody has that one piece of media that they like specifically because of how it flagrantly ignores survival flags, and Muv Luv properties usually deliver on that score.
Speaking of the BETA, we do get one arc that is more focused on them, as the combined might of the European Theater, including the UN, EU, and Warsaw Pact, commit to a large-scale offensive to thin the herds. This shows off some of the combined arms tactics that the Muv Luv universe is capable of and works as an excuse for military excess. However, the political jockeying is not forgotten, with pretty much everyone having different secondary objectives: Irisdina wants to keep her soldiers alive while Gretel, whipped into a fervor by the demands of the state, wants to achieve superlative performance as a proof of East Germany’s strength and devotion, even if it costs her life. Other political forces still want to impress the West, but want to to so in a more menacing way, and are inclined to hang the UN forces out to dry for a little before saving the day. Add in the fact that the BETA never quite play by the predictions, and you have a recipe for a pretty good battle. Along the way, the 666th manages to earn the respect and to an extent make friends with a squad of West German ace pilots, which could of course come in handy later.
In broad terms, the operation is successful – Most of the pride that’s on the line is kept, Gretel is brought closer to her friends, and lots of BETA are killed off, which is supposed to reduce the pressure on the regular defenses. However, all is not well when the 666th returns home. For one, Lize hits her breaking point, and ends up offering herself to Theodor in such a state that he actually takes her up on it, with it both implied that he once held unsiblingly affection for her in the past and that he’s presently afraid that she might break utterly if denied. This is especially awkward as there had been more of a lean towards Theodor having a growing deep affection for Irisdina.
The Stasi, meanwhile, seem ready to make a move, but what move is not precisely known as the Stasi are themselves divided between the Berlin Faction (led by Axmann) who are German nationalists and the Moscow Faction, who are Soviet puppets. Both factions of Stasi want to seize control of the government of East Germany from their party leaders, but first they have to assert control over the Stasi. Beatrix, for her part, steps somewhat more into the limelight as she seems to play both sides of the Stasi internal conflict. At the same time, Irisdina, Katia, and Gretel move forward with the idea of an anti-Stasi coup of their own, to attempt to restore freedom and dignity to East Germany and possibly move towards reconciliation with the West.
The maneuvering of the 666th is cut off steadily, however, as their friends higher up the command chain are lost and ultimately Lize gets enough of a hook to betray them all to the Stasi. While the rest of the squad is able to escape from their holding cells and get armed up with TSFs (thanks in part to Lize and her boss Beatrix not thinking to lock up, kill, or replace their mechanics), Irisdina is missing, having been taken elsewhere by the Stasi for, presumably, some fairly horrific torture.
During the breakout, the 666th ends up fighting Lize, and one of them, a very sweet type, tries to call her back to her senses with the power of friendship… and gets shot dead by Lize, finally making Theodor realize there’s no way back for his once-dear little sister. She tries to kill Gretel as well, shooting down her TSF, but in part thanks to a save from Theodor, Gretel survives. This leads to a battle between Theodor and Lize that ends with her TSF wrecked and Theodor having to, in a scene that hearkens back to the first episode, deliver the coup de grace with his sidearm, though not before listening to her final words and not without Theodor having some serious stress about it.
In the meantime, Gretel ends up meeting up with Axmann, who is looking to cut a deal with the partisans since he’s high on the Moscow faction’s hit list. He offers them the Stasi Files, opening up the secret end-of-Raiders-of-the-Lost-Ark style warehouse that, in Muv Luv’s universe, contains those billions of pages of every secret in East Germany. His real goal, however, was to get the secret digital copy he had made of the archives, a briefcase full of computer disks that supposedly contains the same information. Naturally, when he backstabs the partisans and tries to book it with the digital Stasi Files as leverage against the world, Gretel fights him. Axmann shoots her, but loses the files in the struggle, leaving them to burn with the paper originals, and leaving Gretel bleeding to death from gunshot wounds while trapped in the steadily growing inferno of the Stasi Files, albeit satisfied to see that the files have met their end.
Except, at the risk of getting ahead of myself, the epilogue will end up revealing that Gretel isn’t actually dead. I don’t know if she’s some Highlander-style immortal or what, but she survives TSF crash, point blank gunshot, and raging inferno, all things that are generally pretty lethal in Schwarzesmarken. At this point I think the BETA would spit her back out. I’m kind of okay with this because I like Gretel – she had a strong growth arc for a secondary character, showed several facets of her personality by being seen both in business, while under pressure, and in what passes for downtime, and was generally nice to have around. Being unkillable is a pretty big perk in the BETAverse.
The plan for the anti-Stasi revolt, facing down Beatrix and the Moscow Faction, is to have Katia reveal herself in her true identity, and to broadcast her and her father’s message to the people. As her father is basically a legendary hero, deeply respected by both the common people and the government old guard, those words should carry enough weight to inspire folks to at least oppose the Stasi making things worse. Originally, Irisdina was also supposed to be a figurehead of the revolution, but as the critical moment comes she’s still imprisoned, the location only revealed by Lize in her dying breaths. Thus, Theodor needs to rescue Irisdina while Katia sends up her message of hope, with Beatrix (who has usurped the leadership of the Stasi) and her Werewolf Squadron moving to fight back against the resultant uprising.
The final battle between Beatrix and Theodor is well-choreographed, and has a good philosophical contrast, with Beatrix going on about how the only chance for survival is through utter totalitarianism while Theodor espouses the belief that a free people are stronger for their freedom. It would be a lot better if Irisdina, the one who was set up as Beatrix’s equal and opposite, was having the clash of words and blades with her, but she’s a little busy.
While Theodor is caught up in a battle with Beatrix (which costs the lives of most of the other incidental pilots of the 666th), Axmann is already moving and pulls Irisdina out of her prison to use as the leverage he thinks he’ll need to survive and sell out to the CIA before the rescue wagon comes for her. Despite being handcuffed and held at gunpoint, she manages to give Axmann a good talking to (in time with the one Theodor is giving Beatrix) which evolves into a physical scuffle. Anti-Stasi forces, following her trail from the prison, arrive to help save the day. Iris decides she’s not going to let Axmann get away, chases him down, and fist fights him (again, with her hands cuffed) until one of her friends arrives to toss her a gun. As Iris is distracted catching, Axmann pulls his own back-up gun, and the two of them trade shots at point blank.
Theodor offs Beatrix, telling her off as she declares that his ideals will lead him to ruin. The defense line against the BETA, thinned out by the whole civil war incident, threatens to fall, but the West German friends, having heard Katia’s broadcast and the calls from the front, are hurrying on to help fight the BETA while East Germany gets its house in order. Katia is hailed as a hero, the Stasi are torn down, but then we hear what actually resolved from those gunshots between Axmann and Irisdina.
In short, Axmann is stone dead, while Irisdina doesn’t have long and apparently can’t be helped by medical intervention. This is one of the more baffling moments in the show, as they never say why she’s doomed (or even in so many words that she is, she just seems to want to reminisce and monologue rather than getting a medic), and she seems to have a fairly long time left to say her goodbyes, enough that I think she could have been rushed to a hospital, but it’s probably better to just assume Axmann got her in somewhere really inconvenient and she’s not a Terminator like Gretel, so her card is marked. This results in her and Theodor watching the sun rise over Berlin as he confesses his love for her and she dies happy in his arms.
A few months later, things seem to be going well. This is where we learn that Gretel is alive and well, as well as that Theodor is continuing to work with Katia towards realizing the dreams and ideals that they and Irisdina shared. If you know your Muv Luv, it doesn’t last, but contained to Schwarzesmarken alone we get to go out on a bittersweet ending of no requited romance being alive but things looking brighter for Germany’s internal affairs and the war front holding for now.
So, how is Schwarzesmarken? Well, it’s not the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it is solid. The characters are interesting, the action is good, the tone and theme are consistent. The pacing can be a little off, especially in the first half that does feel the strain of compressing a VN-sized plot into 12 episodes, but that’s not a fatal issue. At times, things don’t resonate or aren’t explained well enough, but at other times you get outright brilliant scenes.
I think if I were to pick out one most major weakness, it would probably be the villains. They’re not bad; in fact, for Muv Luv (which normally relies on shadowy offscreen manipulators and uncommunicative alien monsters) they do a good deal of heavy lifting. But all of them leave something to be desired. Axmann is your basic “Nazi by any other name” sadist, who threatens quite a lot but delivers fairly little until the last act. Beatrix is an intimidating fighter, but while we’re told that she also has charisma on tap and this deep and tangled background with Irisdina, we don’t really see enough of it for that to pay off, leaving her somewhat wanting in terms of villainy that’s not accomplished via TSF. And the Moscow faction Stasi leader, while critically important, isn’t someone we see a lot of or who gets a lot of lines, so having Axmann kicked downstairs for that joker doesn’t go over well given his lack of development. With more time, like another medium might have, they could all be very powerful villains, but in the run time of Schwarzesmarken itself, they’re all lacking something and they’re too much at odds with each other to really pick up the slack. I think I even might have preferred it if Beatrix was made more of just a brute and always acted in the interest of one of the masterminds, rather than kind of being on her own initiative and kind of not, since then their threat could be pooled together.
I do appreciate how disturbed basically everyone in this show is. We start off with a pilot (one of the few who makes it to the end, by the way) having a PTSD flipout and some dang hardhearted choices being made and follow up with death and mayhem taking their toll and the main character being almost coerced into banging his little sister, who’s mind-broken from years of torture and hides a psychotic yandere side. Nobody in this show is well, mentally speaking, and if they were at the start they won’t be by the time it’s through with them.
All in all, while I can’t say it’s a show that’s an easy watch, it is one that I enjoyed, and would recommend to anyone in the mood for a darker and more gruesome sort of hybrid of mecha action and spy thriller. Even if you don’t know anything else Muv Luv and don’t intend to change that, Schwarzesmarken stands on its own well enough to be worth your time. It didn’t exactly wow me, but it gets a very solid B.