In 2019, a mysterious entity known as The Pillars appear over Scandinavia, threatening the existence of every living being on Earth. Humanity was at a complete loss in how to fight back until the god Odin appears in front of the world leaders at a global summit discussing The Pillars, providing humanity Walküres herocraft as their wings.
Several years later, the battle between humanity and Pillars rages on, with men supporting the Walküres as they soar through the treacherous skies to save the world.
Japan has also become a battlefront, with the Primary Pillar standing over Mt. Fuji, and the 3 Walküres, who are skilled but problematic, fight against it. One day, an Ace Pilot is reassigned to their base from Europe...
Warlords of Sigrdrifa (Sigururi) is a military anime series that aired in the Fall Season of 2020 directed by Tokuda Hirotaka, with Nagatsuki Tappei (Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu) writing the script and Fujima Takuya (Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Vi Vid) doing the character designs. Suzuki Takaaki serves as the design researcher much like his previous involvement in shows such as Girls und Panzer and High School Fleet. A-1 Pictures produced the animation, with Graphinica providing the CGI (as they did on the other two titles).
To go with the anime, Nagatsuki has written two prequel novels, Senyoku no Sigrdrifa Rusalka and Senyoku no Sigrdrifa Sakura that each covers the story of their named characters; Rusalka Evereska and Okita Sakura. Also there is an ongoing manga spinoff titled Senyoku no Sigrdrifa Non-Scramble by Abe Kanari published on Monthly Comic Alive as well as a second spinoff titled Senyoku no Sigrdrifa Kyogeki no Eiyuu on Comic Hu by Nogami Takeshi which focuses on the fight against Pillars before the Walküres came into the scene.
Examples:
- 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: Both the planes and the smaller Pillar units alternate between 2D and 3D animation depending on the shot. Thor also turns CGI in wide shots.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The series mainly takes place in the Summer of 2025.
- Ace Pilot: The Walküres, obviously. Episode 3 shows that Sonoka can just as easily apply her piloting abilities to an arcade racing game.
- Airstrike Impossible: In Episode 2, Claudia and her team fly through the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line to reach the Pillar.
- All There in the Manual: The prequel novels Rusalka and Sakura provide the backstory to many of the characters as well as the lore of the Sigururi-verse.
- Animate Dead: Thor is capable of reanimating the planes of previously shot down Walküres, though it's not clear if both plane and pilot are re-animated, or just the plane.
- Backstory Horror: The horn that signals that the Pillars are attacking? Yeah, that's what's become of Claudia's sister.
- Beach Episode: Much of Episode 4 takes place at a backup base near the sea, with both the Walküres and fighter pilots spending half the episode in swimwear.
- Big Damn Heroes:
- Several critical moments in Rusalka and Sakura is this.
- Azuzu of all people manages to be the one to directly take on Odin in episode 12, distracting him by Talking Down The Villain for long enough until Miyako can catch up and slice the heart of the second Fuji pillar, finally defeating him.
- Break Out the Museum Piece: Played with. While the herocraft the Walküres fly are based off of warbirds from the inter-war and WWII periods, they are capable of performing many feats their real life counterparts are not capable of, something that gets demonstrated in Episode 7 when herocraft are seen keeping up with F-15J's running full afterburners.
- Broken Ace: Claudia is hyped up to be this. Rusalka also fit this role to a T in her story.
- Calling Your Attacks: Claudia and Miyako tend to do this.
- Cannon Fodder: What the conventional military essentially is.
- Cool Plane: Loads and loads of them.
- Crapsack World: While other parts of the world have been devastated to some degree, Europe is especially affected the most by the Pillar attacks.
- Daddy's Little Villain: Odin wants Claudia to be alongside him when Ragnarök comes to fruition despite her objections. He gets the hint when she stabs him through the throat, and declares her as an enemy with the rest of the Walküres.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Most of the characters have this to some degree, mainly related to The Pillars.
- Death by Origin Story: A good chunk of the characters in Rusalka are KIA years before the series proper even begins. Namely, Amy, Natalie, Alejandro, and Shirin just to name a few.
- Defiant to the End:
- Odin's main motivation for helping humanity is to observe them fight desperately to avert Ragnarök, as he was impressed with them battling against the Pillars even with the odds heavily stacked against them.
- Claudia as well, up to, and including, willingly flying at her father's One-Winged Angel form, in clear defiance of him and his goal.
- Divine Intervention: Odin shows up in front of the world leaders and gives them the weapon to fight back the Pillars. He also shows up to meet with whoever he chooses as a Walküre.
- Evil All Along: Episode 10 confirms that Odin actually controls the Pillars and pit them against humanity as part of his plan to undo Ragnarök.
- Extra-Long Episode: The anime begins with a double-length episode.
- Foregone Conclusion: Sakura's death will be this to anyone that will read the prequel novels that center around her.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Azuzu. She even decked her own herocraft out with personal modifications.
- Genki Girl: Miyako
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: One of the criteria for what herocrafts are selected by Odin for his Walküres is how much the original aircraft is revered by the people.
- Hero of Another Story: Rusalka is this in the main story, as her character arc is completed.
- Heroes Prefer Swords: When she's not flying in her plane, Claudia fights with a sword.
- Heroic BSoD: Sakura has one at the end of Part 1 of her story when she receives word that her best friend became a casualty in the Battle of Fuji.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Natalie does this to the Mistletoe Pillar in the end of Rusalka. Claudia's twin sister Shirin also sacrifices herself to become the Gjallarhorn. Tateyama Base's Shield Squadron go down one-by-one while covering Miyako's last-ditch attack on Thor..
- Hidden Agenda Hero: While Odin is helping humanity fight the Pillars, his ultimate motives are still largely unknown, with some Walküres voicing skepticism that he actually has humanity's best interests in mind. The end of Episode 5 does seem to suggest that he wants Ragnarök to occur. This is confirmed to be the case in Episode 10, and has been manipulating the pilots to do so the whole time. Even Claudia, his own daughter, is shocked to find this out. The following episode cements this by contacting the world leaders and declaring war on humanity and the Walküres.
- In Medias Res: Episode 4 opens up this way, with the girls launching an attack on some pillars while in bathing suits. The scene is repeated later on in the episode with the complete context.
- Ink-Suit Actor: Gurasan's character design is based off of Mafia Kajita, the person doing his voice.
- Mildly Military: Claudia notes upon arrival at Tateyama that the whole place is entirely too lax and casual for a military base on the frontlines during a war.
- Military Moe
- Multinational Team:
- The main series has 3 Japanese and 1 European Walküres, with the Rusalka novel consisting of Walküres from all over Europe.
- Averted in the Sakura novels, where Japan has yet to join the International Peace Preservation Organization, and all the major characters are servicemembers of the JASDF.
- Never Found the Body:
- While the destruction of Tateyama by the Fuji Pillar kills off Amatsuki, Leyli, General Okita, and most of the support crew. The only direct mention about Odin's fate is that he's simply missing, while the others can only speculate on whether he actually did die. A rather cryptic line about Asgard just before the blast to Okita implies he might have been simply sent back to where he once came, which is confirmed come the end of Episode 10, then reveals it to the world leaders in the following episode.
- This happens again during the finale upon the defeat of the other Fuji Pillar; with it left unclear if it finally did Odin in or not.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: The Pillars are this against conventional weapons.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Totally-not-Donald Trump is giving the rundown on how the battle against the Pillar in Alaska went down at the beginning of Episode 1.
- Norse Mythology: A rather twisted take where the mythology is both outright evil and plant themed.
- Not So Above It All: The normally very level-headed and duty-driven Claudia gets in on the ridiculous butt clapping that the men escorting her and the other pilots had been doing in the fourth episode.Muscular men in swimsuits: *while clapping their butts*: Clap clap clap!
Claudia and Miyako: *While also clapping their butts* Clappity clap! - Our Gods Are Different: Odin in this show is much younger than normally depicted, though he does have a form that looks closer to his more commonly perceived depiction, suggesting that Odin just prefers taking on a child form in front of humans. He is also evil and manipulative, which actually takes his own daughter by surprise.
- Plant Mooks: Several of the pillars are tree-based, with Thor actually sticking out of one from within the Fuji Primary Pillar. The guards that attack the forces that enter through the portal to Asgard are also living trees with armor.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The main trio of Tateyama Air Base. The whole base itself may be considered this as well, since Tateyama is not considered a frontline base and therefore receives less attention in terms of resources and staff.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Commander Satomi in the series, and Alejandro in the Rusalka novels.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: Claudia is convinced that the reason she was sent to Tateyama is so that Europe would no longer have to deal with massive casualties commonly associated with her missions.
- Red Baron: The most elite Walküres earn special titles that they are commonly referred to as. For example, Claudia is known to the public as "Walküre Schwertleite" and the "Walküre of Salvation".
- Semi-Divine: It turns out Claudia is a literal blood descendant of Odin, which is implied to make her at least a little more powerful than the other Valkyries.
- Strange Salute: Valkyries salute while winking, to indicate their ties to Odin. However, the eye they traditionally close is not the eye that Odin is missing.
- Survivor Guilt: Claudia suffers in this spades, as she ends up the Sole Survivor of practically every mission she goes on. Odin taunts her with this often, even when he attempts to get her to join up with him to allow Ragnarök to happen as father and daughter. She defies him at every turn, going insomuch to nearly and willingly kill herself taking out his armored form in order to break the cycle. though she ultimately survives in the end.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Pretty Boy falls to his death multiple times in the beach episode, only to pop up again unharmed mere seconds later.
- Token Mini-Moe: Sonoka is the youngest Walküre of Tateyama. At the same time, she is also the most experienced, with her being a major character in Sakura.
- True Companions: Miyako is extremely close to pretty much all of the Tateyama Base staff, and she takes it very personally whenever any of them are hurt or killed.
- Unperson:
- It's been stated that Amy sacrificed her past and name to become the First Walküre. It is later revealed that Amy was Alejandro's sister, but that fact was scrubbed from everyone's record and memory until Amy's death.
- The existence of Claudia's twin-sister is erased from everyone's memory except for Rusalka's.
- War Is Hell: The Kyogeki no Eiyuu is chock full of this especially, given how bleak the battle against the Pillar is without the Walküres providing aid.
- Wham Episode: Episode 7. The assault on the Fuji Primary Pillar ends in a complete disaster, with massive casualties inflicted on the human forces. Not only is there the revelation that the Pillars can call upon the spirits of fallen Valkyries to fight for them, but also Odin (maybe...), Amatsuki, Leyli, and General Okita are killed in action and Sonoka is severely injured trying to save the others.
- Episode 10 reveals that Odin has indeed survived the blast on Tokiyama, and has also been manipulating the Walküres, including Claudia, into instigating Ragnarök without their knowing.
- Episode 11, Odin reveals that he was Evil All Along and declares war on humanity.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Sakura gets into a heated argument with her seniors during the training process when it turned out they were coaxing the new recruits to quit.
Hitomi wo nanji ni!
