The White Witch

It's a short and to the point manga starring none other than the deadliest sniper in history, Simo Häyhä, gender-flipped for the moe fanbase. The story revolves around the titular White-Witch (or White Death, as he was originally known to the Soviets) and her exploits during the 3 month Winter War from late 1939 to early 1940. This is a short manga numbering about half-dozen chapters and rather straightforward. The artwork is great, but everything else is lacking. Characters have no depth, plot is simple, and while I did enjoy reading it (mostly for the art), it ended too abruptly and on an unsatisfactory note.Now, I do note that some are offended by a gender-flipped version of Finland's national hero, but come on now, is this even anything new? Look at the entire Fate franchise, and remember how many times they flipped Three Kingdom characters? I'd say get used to it, because there are a lot more where that's coming from. Lastly, on a side note, the real Simo used a Model 28 Finnish reworked Civil-Guard Mosin Nagant with a hex receiver, but the version in the manga depicted one with a round receiver. A very notable mistake for those who knows anything about him and his weapon of choice.

Or, how to make a legendary person's achievements seem insignificant. Let's just ignore the fact that they replace Simo Hayha's gender for a bit, as that is par for the course when it comes to "historical" anime/manga. I have no problem with that. What makes this series disappointing is how insignificant it makes Simo Hayha's achievements are. Anyone who has even read Simo Hayha's entry on Wikipedia or even TV Tropes will know that this man was practically a living legend at the time, well-deserving of a spot on any "Extraordinary Humans" list. While they do single out Simo Hayha in this series as an excellentmarks(wo?)man, it's never properly conveyed how much of a force to be reckoned Simo was. Sure, Simo terrified the Russians to no end during the actual war, however they never manage instill a sense of fear to the whole Russian Army as most of the kills are generic red (hehe) shirts anyway. They even failed to humanize Simo by making her into a generic action protagonist with the ability to just one shot anyone. Seemingly never justifying WHY these kills are even commendable, therefore making these scenes unsatisfying, lacking in catharsis. This makes the sniper scenes seem unnecessarily intense rather than tense. THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TENSION AND BEING INTENSE. That's not even getting to the Russian counterpart who is basically just a generic "I am evil. Hate me, reader" psycho bad guy (well, girl, but you get the point). The short 6 chapter run doesn't help its case as I could not relate to anyone; not Simo, not the kid she took in, and not her Russian counterpart.