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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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Sky Girls. Definitely Sky Girls. Those thoughts quickly occured to me as I watched episode one of Strike Witches. A mysterious alien threat (the "Neuroi"), a secret weapon, only usable by cute girls, one particularly plucky new recruit--I could be describing either series here. Am I supposed to be thrilled by these new devices? They are basically streamlined shells that fit over a girl's legs and have small propellors where her feet would be (I bet keeping the two props from hitting each other while in flight would be a hell of a task). magic has something to do with it, but unless the magic frees the girls from having to obey the laws of aerodynamics, I don't see how. And these things are responsible for the Witches' "gaining the power to fight back against the Neuroi"--because now cute girls can flit about and fire sexy machine-guns at alien ships? It's as if the makers were desperate for a new technical twist, which didn't have to make sense, it just had to be different. But they seemed to me like crude precursors to the jet-pack--more like Ink-chan's laughable magic flying getup in Moetan than anything plausible. I couldn't help laughing even as a (presumably) serious battle was raging. In fact, I couldn't help wondering if I was supposed to be taking the show as a whole seriously. Strike Witches is set in 1939 in some sort of parallel universe--I'm sure girls wearing skirts that are so short that they almost vanish at the beltline wouldn't have been tolerated back then in our world. World War II has been replaced by the war against the Neuroi; I noticed that the girls are apparently no longer named after famous fighter pilots as was the case in the OVA. Strike Witches has everything: magic, guns, cat ears, aliens, panties--everything except enough plausibility to take it seriously or enough humor to not care. And the message I get is that yes, the viewer is expected to suspend disbelief and accept the premise. But I couldn't do so; this show is absurd. Again, I broke out laughing as I watched Major Sakamoto in her Sky Girls outfit leading a squadron of conventional aircraft, and calmly issuing orders before combat--while every pilot was essentially looking up her skirt. And why do they carry machineguns? Ordinary 'planes can do that, without much effect apparently. Of course a sword has a devastating effect, though. And then there's the scene where Miyafuji visits the site of her father's demolished laboratory--am I really supposed to be moved when she's crying while parading around in such a scandalously skimpy skirt? I felt distinctly embarassed to be watching something so ridiculous. I noticed that there was really no need to pause the episodes at all, probably since the dialogue is so simplistic that there's no need to do any serious thinking about it. For all the simularities to Sky Girls (which was by no means a fantastic show), I fear that perhaps the most glaring difference will be that Strike Witches won't be nearly as good. I promise myself not to watch any more of it. Last updated Sunday, July 20 2008. Created Sunday, July 06 2008. | ||||||||
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Other Sites
| Name | URL |
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| Japanese (Language) Series Web Site | http://s-witch.cute.or.jp/ |
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