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「ありがとう」 (Arigatou)
“Thanks”
Episode at a Glance:
Looking at Yoshika, Gertrud is reminded of her younger sister Chris, who was traumatized into a coma after a Neuroi attack on Karlsland. Feeling responsible for failing to protect her, Gertrud’s performance as the Strike Witches’ ace faulters in training, but she continues to avoid yet observe Yoshika. Minna notices this though, so Mio suggests pairing the two of them up to see what happens. In the meantime, Yoshika is working hard with Lynne taking care of cooking and cleaning, and finds out that they get paid extremely well due to the risks involved in their job. Realizing this, Yoshika feels she’d rather not be paid if that’s the case, but Lynne is happy that she can help support her family back at home. Mio on the other hand is attentive to Yoshika and her training all this time, which draws the jealous eyes of Perrine as usual. Minna later suggests that Gertrud take some time off to see her sister, but she refuses saying the Chris she knew died long ago.
In a subsequent training exercise, Mio pairs Yoshika up with Gertrud, but a sudden Neuroi attack originating from Karlsland has them intercepting the enemy instead. After a quick platoon restructuring, Minna sees that Gertrud is being reckless and ignoring her wingman Perrine, which is very unlike her. In the process, she gets wounded, but Yoshika heals her despite her protests of prioritizing the enemy’s defeat over saving her life. While Gertrud feels she can’t protect everyone since she couldn’t even protect one person, Yoshika convinces her otherwise, so she rejoins the battle in the sky and manages to destroy the Neuroi. Following its destruction, Minna slaps Gertrud, and in tears, questions why she doesn’t value her life when the Strike Witches are like family. Hearing this restores Gertrud’s confidence, so she asks for a vacation to visit her sister. Back on the base, both Perinne and Erica thank Yoshika for saving Gertrud. The following day, Gertrud prepares to leave to see Chris, and upon looking at a picture of her and her sister, feels she has to thank Yoshika one day as well.
Next Episode:
「はやい・おっきい・やわらかい」 (Hayai, Okkii, Yawarakai)
“Swift, Gigantic, and Soft”
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Impressions:
Natto, you either love it or you hate it. Personally, I’m not a big fan of it so it was funny watching Perrine make a big scene about it. Aside from that, the episode mainly revolved around Gertrud’s past, but more so, the newcomer Yoshika and how she’s slowly influencing everyone around her for the better. Last episode was about befriending Lynne and helping her overcome her lack of confidence, and this time it was pretty much the same with Gertrud. While I’m not against a protagonist slowly changing everyone’s opinion about them, I hope it doesn’t revolve too much around this theme as shows like Naruto have overused it to death. In short, I find it’s a good way of inspiring children to be pure and earnest, but I really don’t think that’s Strike Witches’ target audience. A little bit of this is okay as Yoshika slowly becomes an accepted member of the team, but I’m hoping things shift focus back to the Neoroi sooner rather than later. Finally, I’m not implying that week’s episode was bad or anything, as I still enjoyed it, despite it following a similar pattern to last week’s showing. I simply hope the writers have some more variety in store in terms of plot.
Next time, it looks like an obligatory beach/swimsuit episode, which is earlier than I expected. Given the connotations associated with the episode title, I have to say it’s quite reminiscent of Kanokon‘s way of making you think perverted things.
Cast:
– Miyafuji Yoshika (宮藤 芳佳) / Fukuen Misato (福圓 美里)
– Sakamoto Mio (坂本 美緒) / Chiba Saeko (千葉 紗子)
– Minna-Dietlinde Wilke (ミーナ・ディートリンデ・ヴィルケ) / Tanaka Rie (田中 理恵)
– Perrine-H. Clostermann (ぺリーヌ・クロステルマン) / Sawashiro Miyuki (沢城 みゆき)
– Lynette Bishop (リネット・ビショップ) / Nadzuka Kaori (名塚 佳織)
– Erica Hartmann (エーリカ・ハルトマン) / Nogawa Sakura (野川 さくら)
– Gertrud Barkhorn (ゲルトルート・バルクホルン) / Sonozaki Mie (園崎 未恵)
– Francesca Lucchini (フランチェスカ・ルッキーニ) / Saitou Chiwa (斎藤 千和)
– Charlotte E Yeager (シャーロット・E・イェーガー) / Koshimizu Ami (小清水 亜美)
– Chris (クリス) / Sanada Asami (真田 アサミ)
– Doctor (医者) / Satou Biichi (佐藤 美一)
– Narration (ナレーション) / Gouda Hodzumi (郷田 ほづみ)
looks like next time will be francesca’s very own episode.
What’s with the “beside yourself” attitude that’s showing in your paragraphs? This show’s created by GONZO; so expect some inspirational crap. You’ve been spoken for in terms of “panty-clad lolies with delicious weaponry.”
My hope is that this show doesn’t turn into an even bigger “lesbian fiasco.” Lest the h-doujin comes out and it featurs ugly guys and tentacle monsters having sex with them. Even worse: D###girls. 🙁
@Lord Octane:
“Beside yourself” attitude? Can you please clarify what you mean by that?
As for the concern about GONZO, I mentioned back in episode one that the writer for this series is Tamai Tsuyoshi, who worked on Chobits, Rozen Maiden, and this season’s Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu. So while GONZO may be in charge of animation production, I think the inspirational theme is more attributed to the people behind series composition (e.g. Tsuyoshi and his crew) than GONZO specifically. I’m sure they have their say in things though, but at least they have an experienced writer in charge.
We all watch this show for mainly the same reason. Our daily recommended dosage of Vitamin L and Pantsuflavin. I, for one, look forward to some of these fine delicious girls being molested by ugly guys and tentacle monsters. Its silly fun. I mean look at them and they way they show it off. If they were any more blatant in the fanservice, they’d be rubbing their crotches directly in my face, and they’d be 5 seconds away from one(and possibly repeated) good ravaging.
Nice episode overall. Character introduction like episode 3.
WoW, more moe-more and lolicon show xD
divine: Huh? “While I’m [blank], I’m [blank]. I find [blank] [blank], but [blank].” You can get that from any loose-cannon LiveJournal, but you shouldn’t find that in a pro-moe blog. No, wait! We’re not here for the “ramblings” of someone doing a review of your favorite anime, are we? (I’m not.)
GuardMonkey10: Meh… I give up. I’ll just wait for THE numbers.
no pants.
@Lord Octane:
Hmm, I think I understand what you’re getting at, but perhaps you should consider the fact that not everyone thinks like you do. I’m by no means “rambling” about this series as being a favorite of mine, nor am I watching this because of these so-called “pro-moe” reasons I’m being accused of. If I’m not mistaken, I already addressed this discussion back in my coverage of episodes one and two, so it seems a bit pointless to repeat myself here. In short though, I’m not siding with “moe/non-moe” or “loii/non-loli” stereotypes when covering Strike Witches and am just looking at it with an open-mind (which a lot of people seem to have a hard time doing).
With that said, what are you expecting me to say about this show in my impressions? Better yet, what are you here for? If you’re expecting me to make remarks like the one-liner comments you often read about this series, then I’m sorry to inform you that I think more analytically than that.
@GuardMonkey10:
Just curious, but does that reason coincide with the ones I mentioned here? The reason I ask is because those are my reasons for watching this show.
lol, the next episode is going to be my favourite, <3 Saitou Chiwa. I’ll have to say Strike Witches is proving to be the most interesting series this season not because of the external reason people look for in this series. There’s a fair amount of research done such as weapon design and I enjoy how the characters are based on WWII ace pilots. It something I haven’t had much interest but with all the discussion at other anime board on them I might spend time researching about WWII.
As for the episode itself it was quite enjoyable, Gertrud is rather cool as a dual wielding machine gun Witch. Miyafuji finding her role in the military as a medic came as no surprise given her background. Perrine was quite fun to watch, Miyuki Sawashiro in her Shinku (RM) voice is quite fun to listen too.
Lol, on a side note, that’s 5 out of the cast members that I’ve managed to remember names for ^^.
I’m not quite sure what Octane is on about. I do come here for these ramblings.
Well not this for this show, at any rate. But in general it’s a format/system of commenting that I enjoy and use as a heads-up before watching an episode.
The top German war aces in WWII were known for their “point blank” range technique, basically its the most straight forward way to ensure a kill inaddtion to the risk.
Effective, true, but it often meant flying through the destroyed plane’s debris field and risking damage to your own plane. Interestingly, Erich Hartmann was forced down 14 times in his career because of damage taken this way or mechanical failure, but never because of enemy fire….
I’ve read over a lot of of your entries and I had been thinking about if you were interesting in swapping web site links? I am continually searching to swap links with websites about the same readers! I look forward to hearing back from you before long.