First Impressions / STRIKE WITCHES

「スースーするの」 (Suusuu Suru no)
“Nice ‘n Breezy”

Episode at a Glance:
With most of the Strike Witches sleeping in due to the lack of Neuroi activity in the area, Sanya returns from her night patrol and collapses in Eila’s room by mistake. Gertrud isn’t too happy about Erica oversleeping as a fellow soldier of Karlsland though, especially when her commemoration ceremony for having shot down 250 Neuroi is scheduled for today. In the morning, Mio trains Yoshika much to envious eyes of Perrine as usual, while Minna goes off to pick up a package with Lynne. Meanwhile, Erica gets dressed, but can’t find her underwear, so she decides to go out without any on. However, she starts feeling a bit too breezy and steals Francesca’s while she’s in the bath. Realizing that hers are gone, Francesca nabs Perrine’s, forcing her to go commando. When Mio and Yoshika stumble upon Perrine looking like an underwear thief, she explains to everyone what happened, so Gertrud decides to start an investigation.

Yoshika’s swimsuit gets confiscated as evidence, leaving her with no pants on, so Gertrud offers to take off hers and give it Yoshika, but she ends up refusing out of embarrassment. With Erica eating happily away like none of this concerns her, Francesca is deemed to be the culprit and takes off running. The others go off in pursuit of her, during which Francesca inadvertently steals Eila’s pants as well. She later sounds the alarm by accident, causing everyone to prepare to scramble, regardless of whether or not they have pants on, as per Mio’s orders. Erica catches Francesca in the act though and turns her in to Minna, who calls off the false alarm. Minna then holds the ceremony for Erica’s achievements, where the others realize that she’s wearing Francesca’s underwear.

 

Next Episode:
「君を忘れない」 (Kimi wo Wasurenai)
“Forget You Not”

Impressions:
So out of all the Strike Witches, Gertrud seems to be the only one that sleeps in the nude, which spurs on the ever-so-interesting question as to how many girls actually do so on a regular basis. I can’t imagine it being many, so that’s one brief moment of fan-service there. I found it pretty amusing and ironic for Gertrud to yell at Erica for sleeping without any underwear on though, given the premise of this series. I interpreted this as the show not taking itself too seriously in the pantless theme though, which is a welcome revelation as that’s how I’ve always felt about it too.

However, I have to say that having a complete episode devoted to these kind of antics was pushing the boundaries of “lower half” fan-service, which far exceeded those seen in the beach episode. While I think Erica’s attitude was a bit too relaxed with her frolicking around in public without pants on, Perrine seemed far too uptight about having to go commando when she had pants, regardless of how thin they were. Also, you would think they’d have more than one pair of underwear so that they wouldn’t have to chase after Francesca without anything on, but that conveniently doesn’t seem to be the case. The one who wins out the most in all this is definitely Erica, who started all the ruckus, yet gets praised for stopping it and awarded a medal at the same time.

Full length shots: Shirley, Eila and Sanya

 

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)
– Sanya V. Litvyak (サーニャ・V・リトヴャク) / Kadowaki Mai (門脇 舞以)
– Eila Ilmatar Juutilainen (エイラ・イルマタル・ユーティライネン) / Nakai Erika (仲井 絵里香)

26 Comments

  4. As many as people says it’s filler episode, I think it’s more to show the bond of the girls with each other as a squadron, and give the girls a rest/break from fighting neuroi every episode. Seeing Erica with the Cap/Hat looks awesome. Look forward for the next episode.

    nekotails
    Reply

  5. this is a take on the realworld incident when erich hartmann, drunk at the time, put on hitler’s hat because he couldn’t find his own. I’m kinda amused they didn’t play anything off the “he’s got a big head. it must come with the job.” remark.

    as usual, a very amusing episode.

    -Z-
    Reply

  7. So if they don’t fight another generic enemy then the episode is a filler? I haven’t seen any plot development since the introduction and I like it that way. Since the original manga the focus has been the fanservice and not the war itself, so an episode like this is quite to opposite to a filler actually.

    And we learnt a lot about the characters too: now we know how they feel about walking around bottomless and using each other’s used panties, and we can also imagine their sweet scent now that it’s been confirmed that they don’t change them even after a training session. Can you ask for more?

    Batu
    Reply

  10. Barkhorn: “Ok, don’t panic. Remember what the instructor said.”
    Minna: “If you ever get any trouble, all you need to do is…”
    Hartmann: “Feels like I’m wearing…nothing at all! Nothing at all! Nothing at all!”
    Barkhorn: “Stupid sexy Hartmann!”

    unigon
    Reply

  13. This was a wonderful ep. I’ve watched it several times, and laughed by butt off each time. Erica is a bad bad girl. Francesca makes the cutest sounds too. Miyafuji continues to grow on me. I’m strangely wishing Perrine luck in romance with the Major. It would be pretty hot to be sure. Eila is rapidly becoming a favorite. I don’t know why… But her voice and attitude is very… Wonderful! Sanya is pretty cool too. I love her night flying and you can almost make out her asshole on her landing approach.

    GuardMonkey10
    Reply

  15. NO DISRESPECT but what was the name of the dude dat put captions on the pics. NATRONE? or is it DIVINE? pretty sure it was not OMNI. ANYWAY i dont watch the show but i think it’d be great if yall brought that back. these pic’s are priceless

    BROOKLYN otaku
    Reply

  19. The Sojourner: Of course there’s other military staff. I don’t know if you see them too much, but just off the top of my head, there’s the person who held up the sign with enemy coordinates from the tower in episode 4.

    anonymous
    Reply

  23. I wish they could extend this to another season,.. or two… or even three. 🙂 For all I care, it’s an amusing series, and so long as they’ve got something that’ll crack me up, I wouldn’t mind more.

    They should milk the series like this:
    Season 1: full fan service, no story
    Season 2: still lots of fan service, with a hint of story, ending with a 2-3 episode finale. Nothing too serious
    Season 3: Bring on the serious stuff, while keeping the fan service at check. Heavy drama would work pretty well, since we’d have 2 seasons worth of episodes to relate to the characters.

    Why this formula?… hmm… I dunno. But for some reason, I’m thinking UFO Valkyrie, Nanoha, etc, etc… of course, none that has been so easy on my eyes (and brain) as Strike Witches.

    42-42-564
    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *