In 1939, the Neuroi appeared and began to attack the planet. The only thing that can save the human race are young girls with augmented magic powers called Witches.

Episode Summary

The episode begins with an epic battle between the Strike Witches and a Neuroi ship before shifting gears to focus on Yoshika, a young student. The last she saw of her father was when she was 6 and he left to go try to find a way to defeat the Neuroi and never came back. Little does she know that she’s being watched. The cart she and her friend are on has an accident and her friend ends up being hurt, so Yoshika reveals her magical talents to heal her. Her control over her own powers isn’t quite so good, so her mother and grandmother help. Afterward, she’s approached by a member of the military named Mio Sakamoto requesting she use her power to help with the war. The next day Yoshika receives a letter containing a photo of her father standing with Mio.

A day later, Yoshika meets Mio at the base, but still doesn’t want to enlist. She’s there to ask about the letter and Mio’s relationship to her father. Yoshika begs to come with to Britannia to try and find her father, but still refuses to participate in war. Yoshika earns her keep by helping with chores, and Mio demonstrates how flight with the Striker unit works and that Yoshika’s father invented it. Half a day before reaching Britannia, their ship is attacked by the Neuroi, and Yoshika as a non-combatant is relegated to hiding in the sickbay.

Thoughts

Okay, so WTF Gonzo? It’s been a while since I’ve seen such utterly fanservice-y designs in an anime, and that’s after having seen things like Kanokon. In case you’re not willing to watch an episode of the show (which, believe me, I would fully understand), I will note that the majority of the female characters just plain don’t wear any pants. At first I thought that they were all wearing bloomers, which I suppose could be justified by the fact that they wear huge mechanical leg things and pants would get in the way. But so many of them seem to just be wearing shirts and underwear. At least give the girls some skirts or shorts or something, for crying out loud. To emphasize this complete lack of lower-body coverage, the camera angles seem to be chosen to focus on their buns and crotches. The most exciting scene of this episode, the opening battle, was completely ruined by the fact that the girls would fly in front of the camera, booties right there, and the camera would just focus on their goods. Utterly disgusting. Never mind the fact that the oldest in the group is supposedly 19, suggesting that most of them are underage to boot. Fabulous. Exploitation is apparently even better when it includes lolicon.

This show continues in the tradition of Gonzo’s poorly-integrated CG effects. Though not as glaringly-obvious as Blassreiter, since this show has a more simple, cartoony design in the first place, there’s still a problem with how obvious the CG looks in comparison to the rest of the action. This is more obvious in any scenes containing CG characters, since they move somewhat unnaturally. Otherwise the animation itself is pretty good, and there’s a good sense of action during the opening scene.

There’s not a whole lot else really notable about this series. It’s Gonzo’s third foray into online distribution, for one. Every Thursday the new episode is available for free at Gonzo’s Youtube channel from 2:00pm until Midnight, and downloadable episodes are available for a fee from both Crunchyroll and BOST TV from that point onward. Be prepared to pay a steep price, however. The cheapest you’re going to get the episode is three dollars, I believe, and a high-def episode will set you back five. Personally I don’t think the price is right for a show that seems to pride itself on exploiting young girls for fun and profit.

Pros

• Available almost immediately following its Japanese broadcast in a legal mode of distribution

Cons

• The fanservice, oh God the fanservice
• CG isn’t integrated well

By Jessi – 09/01/08