>Look at that picture. Look at her face and tell me that's not
>Ilyusha's face. :)

She reminds me a bit of Lin Beifong. There's not a great physical resemblance, but they both have that "I am stern as fuck and it makes me seem older than I probably am" thing happening.

>No, Ilyusha carries her Volkov-Yartsev VYa-23 autocannon around with
>her. She hasn't, like, named it or anything. That would just be
>weird. But it's always there, slung across her back or propped against
>a wall.

ILYUSHA
I am heavy weapons aeroplane. And this... is my weapon. He weighs 68 kilograms and fires 23-by-152-millimeter, 200-gram, high explosive incendiary cartridges at a rate of 600 rounds per minute. It costs the workers and peasants of the Soviet Union 450,000 roubles to fire this weapon for ten seconds.

>That actually changed a bit as the series went on; Ilyusha was the
>darling of the Chairman of Rodina-Mat

Indeed, to an extent that became rather creepy toward the end there. I'm sure everyone remembers his infamous love letter to her in "Notes from Home". "Our school now needs you like the air it breathes, like the bread it eats." Brrrr. Even Ilyusha herself was a little freaked out by that. (Naturally fanart abounds of the epic blush-and-sweatdrop that passage induced.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.