So yeah… Strike Witches. This show has got it all. Lolis (I use the term loosely), magic, animal ear/tails, guns, aliens, “panty” shots. What doesn’t this show have? Oh right… PANTS! It seems that every freaking female character in this show doesn’t wear any darn pants aside from the adults and maybe a couple of the other witches. This is of course coupled by the fact that almost every other shot in the first 10 minutes of the show had a close up of one of their asses or crotch area. I guess you can’t really call these panty shots since they’re not wearing any panties… they’re wearing swimsuits… for some reason. I guess you need swimsuits in the sky for all that water you’re going to be flying in… oh wait.

But anyways, the premise of the show seems to be a group of young female witches who can equip these “Striker Units”. The Striker Units are pairs of leg armor that have propellers on the ends of them and allow the user to fly; it acts as a witch’s broom for the witches. And how do these things actual work? Well by MAGIC of course. How else would anything in this world work. So, the purpose of coming up with this silly idea is to battle against these invading aliens called the Neuroi and they threaten all existance on Earth.

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Summary

The episode starts off with the Strike Witches going to battle against a single Neuroi. It seems the Neuroi for now are just weird looking aircrafts with red lasers shooting out of it. After being gifted with a bunch of fanservice shots, the group is able to dispatch the Neuroi.

We now go to the main character of the show, Miyafuji Yoshika. A girl who lost her father due to the war against the Neuroi. Her father is also someone who participated in creating the striker units. Yoshika lives with her mother and grandmother and run a small clinic by using their healing magic to treat the local villagers.

Yoshika is scouted by one of the Strike Witches, Sakamoto Mio. Her purpose in meeting her is to enlist Yoshika into the army and obtain her untrained powers for the Strike Witches. Yoshika refuses at first, but later meets with Mio again after she apparently receives a letter from her late father. Yoshika still refuses to participate in the war, but wants to travel with the army to Britannia to find out about her father.

Yoshika is allowed to travel with the army and volunteers to do the daily chores for them. Mio shows off her striker unit to Yoshika who is immediately impressed. Shortly after, Mio senses a Neuroi off in the distance and the fleet is soon attacked. Mio tells Yoshika to hide in the sick bay and the conclusion of the ordeal is to be left until the next episode.

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Impressions

Despite how ridiculous the plot and various elements of this show look, I actually find it a bit interesting to watch. I mean it’s pretty much cliqued out and the only thing original is probably the striker units, but even that isn’t really that original. But the visuals are pretty cute and enjoyable and the characters aren’t really that awful to watch. The show is pretty tolerable (for me anyways) and might actually be something worth watching.

By the way, if you didn’t know already, Strike Witches is actually a prequel to Code Geass. C.C. is related to the Strike Witches and even Mio carries a Geass ability. Britannia eventually wins the war against the Neuroi and use the victory to fuel an imperialistic conquest on the entire world.
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Right anyways, I hope none of you believed that or took it seriously… or as a matter of fact, I hope none of you found that bit to be remotely funny… cuz it wasn’t… so don’t laugh. =(
But seriously, does everyone have to use the name Britannia now a days? Is it so cool to use that they just can’t call it Britain/Great Britain/United Kingdom or something. I’m pretty sure we’re not talking about this Britannia… are we? No, seriously, I’m really asking this question.

Like I said before, almost every other shot in the first 5-10 minutes of the show was like ass and crotch all day. I almost wanted to turn the damn episode off because I almost couldn’t stand much more of its ridiculousness. It was kind of like watching a loli version of Aika and without the boobies. But they eventually calmed down with the fanservice as the episode went on. I mean fanservice is good and all, but there’s a point where people are just annoyed by it. I’m glad they didn’t go too overboard with the camera angles.

While on the subject of blatant fanservice, what the hell is up with the uniforms in this show? Yoshika’s school uniform is comprised of a one-piece school swimsuit with a sailor’s uniform shirt over it. I just picture the principal of the school being this perverted old man… almost like the one from TLR. But it’s not just limited to that. It seems that almost all the other Strike Witches have the same type of uniform except for a few of them. I guess it’s easier to not wear pants when you have to always put those striker units on. @_@

Judging by the amount of witches and the initial appearances by them, there should be a good variance of personalities and character archetypes among them. We’ve already seen the hardworking/peace-loving main character and the sort of bold/militant Major Sakamoto Mio. There was also a brief scene with three other characters; one being an prim and proper upper-class type character with a possible tsundere personality (too bad there’s no leading male characters in this show… at least none that I know of). I expect there to be a “character for everyone” sort of deal with this many different characters like TLR or Sekirei. This aspect of the show has me fairly interested in it so maybe that’s a good thing.

The action scenes were pretty decent. I’m hoping they either stay on that level or maybe even improve the quality of the fight scenes throughout the series and not just pour all the effort into the first episode. The visuals and character designs are certainly nice and cutesy and it’s not bad enough for me to turn away. I just hope they stay consistent with the quality.

The OP and ED aren’t exactly that great, but they weren’t necessarily bad either. The OP was pretty standard and the music was a bit boring. The ED was dangerously cute, but the music again wasn’t anything special for me. I think the ED might provide some people with some pretty awesome animated GIFs if they can get a hold of a credit-less version of it.

I’m fairly certain that shows like this may piss off military enthusiasts like Crusader or Calawain, but for military-ignorant people like myself I don’t find it to be that bad. The possibility of this being blogged might be pretty decent depending on how I feel after the second episode or maybe it might be picked up by someone else here. But seeing as I don’t have anything to blog now other than TLR and MAYBE something else from this summer season, I might as well take it up.

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