First Impressions / Senyoku no Sigrdrifa / Series Introduction

「館山基地へようこそ！」 (Tateyama Kichi e Youkoso!)
“Welcome to Tateyama Base!”

With fall season now in full swing we’re getting to some interesting stuff, and helping lead the charge is Senyoku no Sigrdrifa. While pretty much a paint by numbers tale and chalk full of trope-ish expectations, there’s no denying this anime original has spunk, and if a ~45 minute premiere is any indication, plenty of fun left to eagerly show the world.

As indicated in the always trustworthy (and never wrongTM) RC Preview, Sigururi is more or less what happens when Kotobuki meets Strike Witches and exchanges mecha musume attachments for good old-fashioned aircraft. Per the rites of all magical girl squads these days, alien invasion happened, heroes (read: teenage girls) were found, and humanity fought back. Obviously the same shtick we’ve seen before and itself already present twofold this season, but have you ever seen it with a Nordic flair led by the likes of an Odin aesthetically straight out of No Game no Life? Yeah, didn’t think so. Honestly premise is nothing special here, but given we have Re: Zero’s, Haifuri’s, and ViVid Strike’s creators all collaborating to create this anime original tale, there’s more than a little oomph lying behind the scenes.

Getting down to brass tacks initial impressions are pretty much what you’d expect from this type of series. Lead girl Claudia (Yamamura Hibiku) is one of Odin’s chosen magical girls Named who flies a Gloster Gladiator and thanks to a little bureaucratic shuffling, finds herself smack dab in the middle of Japan’s fight against the latest alien incursion in the Pillars. Naturally the girl has a melancholic backstory with the nickname of Grim Reaper that’s going to yield suffering at some point in this story, but for the moment it’s moeblob and comedy all around. Next comes the accompanying pilot cast of spunky Mugumura Miyako (Hieda Nene), closet yandere (because pink hair never lies) Watarai Sonoka (Kikuchi Sayaka), and nominal commander (yet total melt in your mouth tsundere) Komagome Azuzu (Ichimichi Mao) who are all cookie cutter and paint by numbers as you can expect. While there’s some ingenuity weaving its way through the proceedings (nice to see how the male cast actively plays a role beyond simple mechanics and feature assertive personalities to boot), truthfully if you’ve seen this type of series before you should know what’s coming down the pipeline for characters and story both. Backstory may currently be sparse and the enemy a total black box, but as Strike Witches has shown time and again it’s all about personal struggle and development, and Sigururi won’t be making any major exceptions to that formula.

While this first episode has tempered my expectations of Sigururi going forward, there’s no denying I’m still looking forward to seeing what it brings next. Given the minds at work and the material on display there’s a lot of potential for something fun, with the only question being how well it can deliver on that front. As the old adage says, we’ll just have to see what the next episode brings, won’t we?

 

OP Sequence

OP: 「Higher’s High」by Akari Nanawo

Preview

18 Comments

  6. Weird, of all the anime this reminds me of, Fafner comes closest to mind. Probably because of the opening sequences, and some other similarities. But nevertheless, this looks like something to look out for. It might turn out good, or it might turn out incredibly bad.

    MMX3
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  7. The begin was confused, but i bet this is normal. because we do not know anything just seeing Peoples Die and they are even deperate to use Atom bomb here, and Odin? appered in the UN kinda conference

    But then, these Girls that appeared out of the Blue have enough energy to lift up the mood and blow away the clouds of confusion.. Lets see if the other Episodes let the Sun appear in the Sky

    right now?

    Strike Witches meets Kotokubi, yes Bullseye here. But it is unfair, because both are now airing at the same time

    This Anime seems to get his Energy from the Teamplay and Team mates, with the Fights being the ice on the Cake… Strike Witches Formula just with real Planes

    Strike Witches: Road to Berlin and Senyoku no Sigrdrifa are both beautiful sisters, they should get along

    Episode 1/3 passed

    Worldwidedepp
    Reply

  10. “Pinch me I think we might’ve seen this before.”

    Getting Val X Love vibes (mainly the Norse Mythology motif, Ragnarok, and the “Valkyries”) outta this, chief. (Forgetting about that series’ use of “Powering up through acts of intimacy” during the premiere of Dokyuu Hentai HxEros last season speaks volumes of how…forgettable it was. Alongside Dakara Boku wa, H ga Dekinai.) Also mix in a bit of Girly Air Force and Ace Combat while you’re at it, I suppose.

    Random thoughts:
    – Meta: At first I thought Claudia was voiced by Yui Ishikawa (AL!Enterprise flashbacks). Seeing she’s actually voiced by Hibiku Yamamura though… (Arpeggio!Haruna, Kotobuki‘s Zara, Shinchou Yuusha‘s Ariadoa, and the horny oni Lisa from last season’s Peter Grill.) And Azuzu being voiced by Mao Ichimichi… “Yabai desu ne!”
    – Is it even possible for Eurofighter Typhoons to match the speed of a prop-driven biplane? The only way I could think of is doing a “dirty pass” (basically, flying with the landing gear down), but with a delta-wing supersonic fighter…it’s a bit of a stretch.
    – The cynical side of me can’t help but think this is all one big “Create a problem to ‘sell’ a solution” scenario. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Pillars aren’t alien in origin but are actually mythological. (Though to be fair, they might be going for the Marvel Universe route where the Asgardians are both sufficiently advanced aliens and mythological figures.) And I guess this world would have a Loki, too.
    – So if the core of a Pillar gets destroyed, it turns into a giant tree? (Like Fleugel’s Tree in Re:Zero… Ayyy, creator connection!)

    I don’t know if it’s because of Strike Witches also airing/returning this season, but apart from the whole Norse Mythology motif, seeing WWII-era propeller-driven planes flying alongside 4.5-gen/5th-gen fighter aircraft and the nearly hour-long premiere, I don’t really feel anything about Senyoku no Sigrdrifa that makes it stand out from similar series[1]. That and those similar series I’ve been following have been stuck in a state of limbo, either because there’s not enough material to animate or they just gave up and focused on the source material (light novel/manga) instead (Read: “good old” anime being an advertisement vehicle for the source material).

    Though for the heck of it, I’ll give it a couple more episodes to see if Senyoku no Sigrdrifa can make itself better than what my first impressions suggest.

    Note [1]: I honestly wonder what happened to the following:
    – Girly Air Force – Heard the LNs already ended. Will the manga version(?) follow this ending as well?
    – Kouya no Kotobuki Hikoutai – AFAIK, there’s a spinoff series called Oozora no Harukaze Hikoutai (Harukaze Squadron in the Sky), whose episodes are apparently on YouTube, but untranslated. Not helped by YouTube recently shutting down fan-contributed translations in favor of their (most likely crappy) in-house translation company.
    – Upotte – Has the manga already ended before being overshadowed by Girls Frontline?
    – Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio – Since I’m only dependent on scanlations, I’m not sure if the JP chapters are way ahead with content yet to be translated. (Only managed to read Chapter 121 recently.)
    – KanColle – Recently added their version of Hornet, South Dakota and Helena in-game. Still radio-silent on that second season.
    – Azur Lane – Recently added the busty, fluffy and sleepy aircraft carrier Shinano and moomunition ship Kashino in-game. Bisoku Zenshin (Slow Ahead) anime coming 2021.

    Incognito
    Reply

    1. I too had trouble believing that Eurofighter & biplane scene. But after checking the numbers from several sources, it is apparently quite possible. The Eurofighter has a stall speed of around 100 kt (±20%), while the Gloster Gladiator has a cruising speed close to 200 kt. That scene is entirely possible with them flying between 150-180 kt.

      theirs
      Reply

      1. Thanks.

        That’s without needing the “dirty pass,” yeah? Also, does the Typhoon have more efficient air brakes than, say, the South Korean T/FA-50 (supersonic-capable light fighter, but leagues behind the Typhoon)?

        That scene also reminded me of Phil. Air Force FA-50s escorting a flight of Super Tucanos (prop-driven COIN aircraft with similar speeds to WWII birds) upon arrival in local airspace. Note that the FA-50s had the landing gear down to match the speed of the slower Super Tucano.

        Incognito
        Reply

    2. >– The cynical side of me can’t help but think this is all one big “Create a problem to ‘sell’ a solution” scenario. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Pillars aren’t alien in origin but are actually mythological. (Though to be fair, they might be going for the Marvel Universe route where the Asgardians are both sufficiently advanced aliens and mythological figures.) And I guess this world would have a Loki, too.<

      Aye, also my thought. Also this Tree.. I bet you saw it elsewhere. It is the Tree of Life in many cultures. also know as Yggdrasil

      And yes.. same league. Perhaps it is Odin's Wife Frigga on Rampage here. Because these Shields and Lace look like Greek Mythology

      Worldwidedepp
      Reply

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