Tanya von Degurechaff

"Men, what is our mission? Extermination! Not a single man spared! We have only one job to do: create a living hell!"

- Tanya von Degurechaff

Tanya von Degurechaff is the protagonist of the light novel and later anime Youjo Senki. Tanya was formerly a Japanese salaryman involved in management, until he (Tanya’s male past self will be referred to with male pronouns) was murdered by a disgruntled ex-employee that he had recently fired, being pushed into an oncoming subway. Upon his death, the salaryman that would become Tanya met an entity claiming to be God, who Tanya refers to as “Being X”, refusing to acknowledge that they are God. When asked why he was an atheist, the salaryman stated that he lived in a world where modern technology provided everything and that there was no evidence of the supernatural. In the novel, he goes further and tells “Being X” that because he failed to anticipate this, he cannot be omniscient. Because of this, Being X sends the salaryman to be reborn in a war-torn world where magic exists. He is reborn as Tanya Degurechaff, an orphan girl in an alternate pre-First World War Germany, who is selected for military service because of her massive magic potential and her unusual intellegence for her age- as she is literally a 40-year old man in child’s body. By age nine, she writes a thesis on military logistics and completes officer candidate school. By age ten, she sees her first combat, and soon after proves herself the only one capable of operating the Elinium Type 95 orb. Tanya is promoted to the rank of Major and placed in charge of an elite mage unit specializing in deep penetration of enemy lines. This unit eventually proves instrumental in the Empire’s victory first of the Duchy of Dakia and the Legadonian Entente and Francois Republic. Throught the alternate First World War, Tanya gains a reputation for cruelty and brutality, often intentionally engineering the situation to maximize both enemy casualties, both military and civilian. This reputation earns her the nicknames “The Devil of the Rhine” and “Tanya the Evil”. Throughout her time in the alternate world, Being X speaks to Tanya, and placed her into situations which he believe will force her to develop faith. At every attempt, Tanya responds by swearing she will find a way to kill “Being X”.