First Impressions / STRIKE WITCHES

「かたい、はやい、ものすご～い」 (Katai, Hayai, Monosugo~i)
“Hard, Fast, Earth-Shattering~”

With a title along the lines of season one’s episode five, Shirley’s thirst for speed is back this week, but against Gertrud equipped with Karlsland’s prototype “Jet Striker”. In reality, it was more akin to an energy-sapping device that takes all the strength from a girl’s legs and leaves her shaky in the knees for the next while. Funny how that is, because I can think of something that doesn’t involve rocket science and can achieve the same results. >_> Mankind’s been all over it since the dawn of time in fact, and it gives you bags under your eyes all the same by keeping you up all night. <_< Some may even say it even gives you “wings” just like the Jet Striker does. Where the “Me 262 V1” seems to excel though is that it gets the job done quickly, and with the desired outcome. (Can’t… stop… poking fun…) So um, we had a race here (yeah a RACE!) to test the capabilities of this new unit, which Lucchini deemed dangerous business and caused Shirley to give up on being the one to test it out. Gertrud subsequently hops on the opportunity like she originally wanted, leading to a Karlsland versus Liberion showdown against Shirley in her usual Striker Unit with its Merlin engine. It’s Germany versus USA!

Up against the Jet Striker’s theoretical top speed of 950 km/h, Shirley seemed to have no chance of winning whatsoever; however, some of you may recall back in season one that she actually reached Mach 1 speeds and caused her clothes to disintegrate, which is roughly 1225 km/h in the Earth’s atmosphere (dependent on temperature). Here, she couldn’t compete with Gertrud climbing altitudes though, since she doesn’t have the propulsion found in jet engines that help achieve escape velocity. The test to see who could carry the most load at such speeds was somewhat foolish as well, since the Jet Striker looked more than capable of outputting enough power to offset the difference in mass. As such, it wasn’t the least bit surprising that the end result was the same. What was impressive was how Gertrud managed to carry a massive 50mm cannon on her back and 30mm ones in each hand. The shells for that huge cannon must have weighed a ton too, yet carrying extra rounds didn’t faze her one bit. She’s definitely the Strike Witch that packs all the heavy artillery, and this only went on to reiterate how much she kicks ass doing so.

Before it was all said and done, the two of them did have a normal race, except that acceleration is generally the deciding factor more so than top speed. I guess Shirley really didn’t stand a chance after all, but at least she has no problems getting out of bed in the morning! Physics aside, the drum can bath scene was funny to see, since Lucchini is a bucket of groping fun when tossed into the same pot as Yoshika. I think the real fan-service came from Gertrud working out in her white tank top however, as those one-armed pull-ups were quite the spectacle whether viewed from the front, side, or behind. Behind undoubtedly gets my vote, but only because of the ridiculous amount of screen time her butt crack had to mesmerize me by going up and down. Up… and down. Up… and down. Anyway, the appearance of an actual Neuroi at the end came on cue as part of the “Neuroi of the week” progression this series tends to follow, but did give us a taste of the Jet Striker in action before it got wrecked. It also gave Shirley a moment to shine after losing to Gertrud the entire episode, as she kicked her Striker Unit into overdrive and broke the sound barrier again to catch Gertrud’s out of control one after the latter passed out. Unfortunately, nothing was shown of Mio kicking some ass samurai style just prior, but I must say that Seto Saori has filled in wonderfully for Chiba Saeko in that role. If I didn’t know any better, I would probably mistake her for Saeko at times.

Overall, this was a fun episode that gave us a taste of some new Witch technology, plus introduced us to Erica’s younger twin sister Ursula (also voiced by Nogawa Sakura). Now I can understand the reason for using young girls in combat with the whole magic power deteriorating as they get older bit, but I fail to see the justification behind a 16-year-old researcher. It’s probably the cheap cop-out explanation of child genius, but Erica is one of my favorite characters, so it’s a bonus that she comes in two flavors now. Erica sleeps in a dump and has her half of the room with Gertrud clearly sectioned off, while Ursula actually has her act together as a meganekko. In any case, with a new rivalry between the Liberion and Karlsland captains, it wouldn’t be right without an “Over Sky” version by the two of them. The seiyuu groupings for the various versions of the ending theme are generally dependent on what happens each episode, so it wasn’t too hard to see this one coming. For this particular version, Koshimizu Ami is CODE GEASS Kallen Stadfeld win, and Sonozaki Mie is Final Fantasy XII Ashe B’nargin Dalmasca win, so ’nuff said about that.

* I think Amakusa Shino‘s perverted jokes in Seitokai Yakuindomo are rubbing off on me, but it’s not like this episode didn’t ask for it with the “Hard, Fast, Earth-Shattering” title. Seriously, am I not supposed to think **beep beep beeeeeep beep beep**!?

 

ED3 Sequence

ED3: 「Over Sky」 by 園崎未恵＆小清水亜美 (Sonozaki Mie & Koshimizu Ami)
Watch the 3rd ED!: Download, Streaming ▼

Preview

33 Comments

  1. When Gertrud was doing her pull ups… her, they magnified it =.-.

    Anyways… seriously… way too much fanservice with low panties XP. That’s just me though.

    Seto Saori needs to get Chiba Saeko laugh down! Then she’ll be perfect lol. Erica needs to clean her room so bad. Holy crap, I’ve never seen a room… that could be worse than my friends ever.

    Ursula is Show Spoiler ▼

    Didn’t want to spoil any novel readers or ones who would start. Click the spoiler tag at your own discretion.

    Sora no Kaze
    Reply

    1. I wish there was an edit button. I should have also explained Show Spoiler ▼

      I like how different their personality are. Erica is the happy go lucky older one except when she serious, Ursula the young quiet one lol.

      Sora no Kaze
      Reply

      1. Came to this party a bit late but to explain Ursula’s piloting skills….she’s not very good lol. According to the novel she came from the Fuso ace’s Anabuki Tomoko’s new squadron of flunkies and all she pretty much does is read her Karlsland military manuals. She isn’t very coordinated with her strike unit. She’s also somewhat offstandish so it was surprising to see her a bit friendly and lighthearted…perhaps the years had softened her up, heh.

        Also it states in the novel that while she was recruited to Tomoko’s “screw up” team, Erica had already made a name for herself with her piloting skills. In this respect, Ursula was the brains while Erica was the brawns as far as the striker units go.

        Wolfie
        Reply

  2. I just saw this episode begun with jiggling boobs. All anime should have that as a requirement. =P

    I lol’ed when Gertrud was asking Shirley and company to put on clothes when it was so blatantly obvious that they weren’t wearing pants.

    xcswmboy
    Reply

  5. As for the jet striker, they give it away in-episode when the call it the Me-262 (although the V1 label would suggest it’s the first test model after a whole bunch of prototypes), but the weapons are the BK-5 anti-bomber cannon (adapted from the Panzer III’s main gun), and a pair of what looks like two MK-108 cannons stuck together.

    Shiden
    Reply

    1. More like I don’t rmb the pantsu being lowriding pantsu, at least from the 1st season. I never said it wasn’t fanservice… =.=. Where in the world did I say there wasn’t fanservice to begin with anyways. All I said was there a bit too much with low riding pantsu at the moment.

      Stop jumping the assumption gun.

      Sora no Kaze
      Reply

  9. I lol’d at those whiteout scenes. The uncensored version was still whited out in some parts (luchinni jumping into the bathbarrel, gertrude doing pullups up close) but they weren’t nearly as bad as the “censored” version.

    Avenger
    Reply

    1. I wasn’t planning to. I watched it a while back and thought about it, but chose not to since it was all perverted fan-service. I did get some laughs out of it though.

      I meant to blog the first episode of the Kurenai OVA that features different character designs, but didn’t even get around to that.

      Divine
      Reply

  15. After this episode, demand for Shirley x Trudy doujin is sure to skyrocket (pun intended).

    Some of the camera angles when Trudy was doing her one-arm pull-ups, especially focusing on her panties, were just lol-inducing. The TV stations had to whiten out the front panty shot for obvious reasons. XD

    And good god! What a pig-sty Erika is sleeping in! It makes my room look like a well-maintained 5-star hotel suite. lol I can understand why Trudy insisted on drawing a line in the middle when she learned she was sharing the room with Erika. “Now listen up, Erika, you can dump whatever trash you like on YOUR SIDE, just make sure they never cross into MY SIDE!”

    Her twin-sister Ursula should really have a word with her concerning keeping a place tidy. Is Ursula now the second novel character to appear in the TV series so far after Junko?

    Finally, next week we’ll have an episode on Lucchini-chan, which is to be expected as this installment takes place in her home country Romagna. While Lucchini’s constantly stood out due to her lovely antics, I believe she, Erika and Eila could certainly help with a bit more character development this season.

    Kinny Riddle
    Reply

    1. OK, just Googled around. Ursula is from the first light novel, while Junko and Suwa Amaki (the four-eyed witch in episode 1 that gave Yoshika her father’s letter) are from the manga (2nd manga and 1st manga respectively).

      The first light novel took place back in 1939, when Ursula was still 10. So while most of her team mates then are now way past “retirement age”, Ursula, like her sister, is still in her prime fighting age as a witch.

      Kinny Riddle
      Reply

  16. Gonna put this in a different post as the previous one’s getting a bit long.

    Is it me or do these Neuroi behave in a very Evangelion Angel-like way? Heading in a straight line towards their target (London last season, Rome this season), mindlessly obliterating everything that attempts to get in their path.

    Kinny Riddle
    Reply

  17. This is wrong she has a gigantic mount of venus!!!!!

    The witches went wild this time around. We just need to see them frolic naked. I’m not complaining; but I couldn’t care less for the neuroi or anything else after the lingerie parade. Brooke will be so happy here; but with his luck all witches will be replaced by old jokey bearing wizards guys!

    Finally I want to sleep that way some day….

    Island Esper
    Reply

  19. Also, Strike Witches continues its fun bit of historical parallelism: the real German ace Gerhard Barkhorn (who Gertrud is based on) got into trouble when he was piloting an early Me262 jet fighter, the engines flamed out during a mission, and he crashed.

    dp
    Reply

  20. I totally laughed my head off when the jet striker was aptly named Me 262…

    That aside, they even went as far as replicating the german jerry cans for drinking water. The bath scene, the 2 dark yellow jerry cans with white cross on them

    c2710
    Reply

  21. Well they somehow referenced a lot of how much of a liability the Me-262 was here – the real Me-262 was not only fuel-thirsty, its Junkers Jumo 004 engines didn’t last very long (they had to be routinely changed every 2 days!). What they left out was that the Me-262 was a sitting duck during takeoffs and landings (in WW2, most Me-262’s were shot down by the allies this way).

    Sailor Enlil
    Reply

  22. Is it just me or did this new animation studio put in a SH*T load of 3-d rendered scenes, I know I know it is cheaper and saves time and stuff but DAMN didn’t ANY of you notice how much SIMPLE and easy stuff the just rendered the F about seriously I love the episode and the combat but dear mighty lord.

    nearly ALL if not at least 80% of all aerial combat was Rendered and not animated, Also besides some obvious plot holes like why Barkhorn was able to fly in a straight line the 2d time she lost control is to me still a mystery.

    All in all a Typical AWESOME story for this episode, but dag nabit I want to see that Epic hair again from season one episode 10
    https://randomc.net/image/STRIKE%20WITCHES/STRIKE%20WITCHES%20-%2010%20-%20Large%2030.jpg
    https://randomc.net/image/STRIKE%20WITCHES/STRIKE%20WITCHES%20-%2010%20-%20Large%2036.jpg
    https://randomc.net/image/STRIKE%20WITCHES/STRIKE%20WITCHES%20-%2010%20-%20Large%2039.jpg

    and seeing how the rendered every damned aerial combat I just think it will never happen and maybe only in exchange for like 10 second of animated awesomeness and the rest rendered in 3-d.

    Blue-Ultimate
    Reply

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