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What is the Earth like three centuries after an attempted alien invasion? One answer is Soro no Woto.

Background: About three centuries before the show opens Earth had a high technological civilization, including partial negation of gravity. Earth was attacked by giant winged aliens. Either the aliens were driven off at great cost to the planet, or the war so devastated the planet that the aliens decided it was no longer worth conquering. In any event they are no longer around, save for a skeleton beneath a river, and much of the Earth is now a wasteland.

Present Day: Humans have reformed civilization but mostly ... at an early 20th century level. These new nations which rose from the ruins of the world tend to fight over what remnants of arable land and resources that still exist. Kanata, our main character, comes from a poor rural family. She joins the army and is assigned to the Unit which is comprised of our characters for the story, the 1121st Tank Platoon. Their assignment is to watch for any enemy activity from their remote post overlooking a wasteland at their far-flung end of the border. Its a good place to go to hide, to forget or to just get away from everything. All the Unit members Kanata meets have different issues/demons they are avoiding from their past (one of the more severe is PTSD from watching her friends burn to death in a tank). Kanata’s arrival is like a catalyst dropped into a beaker of solution: her bright, accepting personality touch each comrade in turn, and each in turn is then able to take a new view of their past and be uniquely redeemed from the largest regret in their own life.

I find quite a lot happening in this anime, much of it growing in the background and then suddenly popping into the foreground of the story. One of my favorite aspects is that the girls are operating an illegal still and selling brandy on the black market because their Army pay is never on time! There are hints at this through several episodes and then it is brought to the forefront and becomes the focus for the plot of one episode.

What do I like about this show? There's the characters, growing tensions with the neighboring kingdom, depictions of daily soldier life and training, issues with the mafia, challenges with getting an ancient high technology tank back into operating condition, and all backed up by good music and displayed on gorgeous scenery. This is also one of the rare anime that gets a soldier's life right.

I initially thought the script writer was talking about forgiveness for his chief theme, but he wasn't: he is talking about redemption, something more precious than forgiveness; and so Amazing Grace is the perfect recurring theme.

There is quite a lot to this show, and I encourage everyone to give it a try.