STRIKE WITCHES

DESCRIPTION

CAST

ANIME ActionStrike Witches 2
OVA ActionStrike Witches OVA
ANIME ActionBrave Witches
ANIME MusicRenmei Kuugun Koukuu Mahou Ongakutai: Luminous Witches
MANGA ComedyStrike Witches: 501-butai Hasshin Shimasu!
TV SHORT ComedyStrike Witches 501 Butai Hasshin Shimasu!
MANGA ActionStrike Witches: Tenkuu no Otome-tachi
TV SHORT ComedyWorld Witches Hasshin Shimasu!
MANGA ActionStrike Witches: Dai-501 Tougou Sentou Koukuudan
MANGA ActionStrike Witches: Soukuu no Otome-tachi
MANGA ActionStrike Witches: Kurenai no Majo-tachi
MANGA ActionStrike Witches: Erica Hartmann 1941
MANGA EcchiStrike Witches: Katayoku no Majo-tachi
NOVEL ActionStrike Witches: Otome no Maki

REVIEWS

• 

  requiemsama

  78/100
  It will take a good 2/3 of the series to see the depth, but it is proof a brilliance in a story beyond characters.

  Three years ago, I watched this anime and slapped it a rotten score. After all, an anime featuring pantless, gun-bopping teenage girls couldn’t possibly ascribe anything of depth to the varied community of anime goers and entertainment seekers today, right?

  Right.

  Then during my second time through, I realized something unbelievable about this series. This anime isn’t about half-naked chicks shooting down big, black cocks with guns. Right?

  Right…ish.

  So yes…by my THIRD time through I realized: Strike Witches is an idiot savant of an anime. It is an attempted excuse for Japan’s WWII guilt, and combined with incidental, radical feminism investigates a unique reality of victory for all humans and absolution of the original Axis Powers. Furthermore, rather than to be undone by fellow man, the retribution for all the anger of that era is instead unleashed upon an enigmatic alien race bent on aimless worldwide destruction.

  Your 501st Fighter Wing. All the guns, less of the garments. (88/100)
  Despite my rather despicable claims, this simple, misdirected story eagerly rakes in a “bare” perspective on Japanese postwar culture more than any other anime series I’ve ever watched. Yoshika Miyafuji, our protagonist from the Fuso Nation, has after a series of misadventures found herself smack dab in the middle of an international war between humans and a hostile alien invader known as the Neuroi. Though the Neuroi’s intentions and methods are unknown, Miyafuji and the 501st Joint Fighters—the Strike Witches, or gun-wielding teenage girls utilizing magic-powered, leg-mounted rocket engines known as “Strikers” to fly—dedicate their lives (and panties) to the survival of mankind.

  One of the most misunderstood things about this anime is its high degree of fanservice. Nearly every ten seconds the viewer is exposed to some sort of sexual innuendo, be it the slightest visual of pantsu or a blatant bath scene with boobs flopping about like custard. The delivery is unabashed in consistency, if not almost bewildering considering the depth of the alternate historical content. Indeed, this deceitful mask of perversion disguises a highly controversial possibility for this alternate universe as follows:

  • Despite being a relative time frame to what we live, there is no evidence for existing non-Japanese Asians, Jews, or Blacks in the entire series INCLUDING doujin and movie-based media. In the series, the closest to being black might be the Italian girl, Francesca, but considering the brutal circumstances of World War II it freaks me out that neither a Jew or a Chinese exists among the ranks of survivors.
  • For some reason only a small group of magical women between the ages of 12-20 seem to be effective as combatants. Men, older women, and machines seem to be rather defenseless, rendering none but Highly Effeminate Teenage Vixens (HETV) as our only hope.
  • What are the Neuroi? The mysterious qualities of the enemy are vividly explored, but some answers aren’t given. I find it fascinating that the Neuroi have chosen a spot of the world between Karlsland (Germany) and eastern Russia (Orussia) as their hive. If we consider the alignment of world powers during the war era, isn’t it interesting that the brutal enemy of humanity is stationed somewhere in Central Asia? Also, isn’t it just as interesting that the “good guys” in this series happen to hail from Japan (Fuso), Karlsland, and Orussia? Does anyone see what I’m getting at here?

  My conclusion is that Strike Witches presents as an innocent peep show, when it ruthlessly stakes on radicalism and nationalism as the true berth of survival. The weakest races have been eliminated, and a unique gift of power to women establishes a rather unanticipated form of feminism—perhaps with the intent to balance out the missing historical factors of this show.

  This is particularly true with feminism. Throughout the series we CLEARLY see the reduced sexuality of women’s legs, as nearly all women in the show do not wear pants. For the otaku this is obnoxiously fanservice; to the alternate reality, this is a normal getup. In this setting, men would have to start from this specific style of dress to find sexual arousal, and thus would be presented less opportunities to think perverse thoughts. Women, too, lose power through arousal of men, and are then more focused on careers and independence. I’m sure many a fan has tried to excuse this by saying that “in order to fit into the Strikers they can’t wear pants—blah blah—requiem stop talking—I’ll bite you” sort of argument is the most cogent.

  The sad truth is that they’re only halfway there. Feminism wins simply by the lifestyle of this series, and—considering that all other types of Asians are missing—it is winning much more than races or gender stereotypes by default.

  We also have evidence for radicalism through the consistent failures of men throughout both seasons. Airplanes, battleships, and maritime weapons are all rendered useless, bereaved of all duty but to serve as cannon fodder for the elite Witch squadrons. Commanders shrug helplessly while their ships are mercilessly crushed and sunk, and whatever authority they might even have over Witches is easily bypassed.

  Next, if the Bechdel test were to be applied to this series, hardly a moment in it would fail. The entire series voids men of any appeal or authority, focusing the entire story on the Witches and their sisterhood. This is fascinating, especially considering that a tit or ass flies across the screen with all but sexual abandon. Even Yoshika’s awkward tit fetish remains effeminate, keeping the perversion limited only to women without delving into yuri or shoujo ai. Also, in great relief there are absolutely no random peeping scenes involving half-naked men getting punched by tiny women into the stratosphere while shouting “I AM LIKE…SO SORRY.” Or at least not as in the exhausting case of practically EVERY ecchi harem series known to otakukind.

  Altogether, though the creator himself may not have even dreamed of this, his lewd creation defines “unique” in its background, plot, and style. It may have been designed to make men horny and stupid, but it could still be insightful enough for any informed viewer. For reasons such as this, I can offer a ridiculously high score.

  Two-dimensional, but well-grown. (55/100)
  While stock characters are expected for a series focused on as many pantsu shots as possible, making sure the characters actually fit together is not as such required. Strike Witches makes several attempts to go beyond that, particularly with complicated ladies like Minna, Eila, or Gertrud. I should not be spoiling this series at all in saying that our main protagonist lives up to our expectations, as her limitations and delimiters all come and go as expected. There are a few good moments for everyone, even support characters such as Shirley, Perrine, and Francesca.

  Regardless, all of the girls make up for their limited personalities with well-placed anecdotes of growth. Mio, in particular, encounters a struggle that puts the entire squadron through many hardships, yet we see with her continued passion to save humanity a constant state of perseverance. When not enthused by boobs and butts, we actually start to see a little bit of depth to everyone as they fight their own personal battles, (at least moreso than the drooling we do while they fight the actual enemy.)

  My personal favorite? Definitely Perrine. Not because she’s a prissy, tsuntsun nerd that offers the best personality-to-sexual-exploitation ratio; mainly just because she is easy to figure out. In fact, each witch has some sort of spice to her that feeds the lonely wolves like me. While it is designed as an advertisement net to catch and draw my attention, it is at least nice to get a little more differential between the women than a typical 21st century harem series with the same visual appeal.

  Incidental music WIN. OP/ED fail. (86/100)
  Neither the opening nor closing theme of either season was particularly fascinating. Though well composed and nicely sung, the openings are unfortunately the same, drab Ishida Yoko dancepop ditties that dominate such a small market with upbeat feel and trendy melody. Even though they are in the same court as Ishida, the I’ve Sound girls always manage to harness a stronger or more atmospheric melody. To its own justice the series should have had its own personal opening theme. Or perhaps rather than dance music, why not something on the side of a tune from the WWII era? Either way, another pop song about “Doing what I can do” and “loving some certain, undistinguished person” is justifiable for me to skip ahead one and a half minutes as soon as possible every time.

  Meanwhile, the real groundwork is done by a time tested artist like Seikou Nagaoka. His track “Witch no Tatakai,” or “A Witch’s Fight” is a driving force for perhaps the entire series’ climactic moments. Written with a very powerful bass line, we can feel the surge of excitement build up as the melody creeps in at some point seconds later. The sort of “champion melody” rises out of the trumpets (or in some cases, an electric guitar) through the oscillating strings, and builds up more and more intensity when recapitulating for a second time through. This track is perfectly aligned for underdog victories, high speeds, and pretty much most highly emotional scenes on the battlefield. For something that he probably threw together in 20 minutes, the perfectly chained elements make it quite unforgettable—I still could recall it several years after my first viewing of the show!

  Nagaoka also empowers more endearing moments with his gentle strings in “Eikou no Kiroku.” He draws out mystery with “Kunou” and its Dorian harp. He demonstrates his mastery of orchestration with the grinding bass harmonies in “Neuroi no Su he.” Without a doubt, the musical programming for a show like this fit all too perfectly to serve as distraction from the fanservice, or at least more than the jumpy tunes that surround each episode.

  An animation behest to bre-hests. Ha. Ha. Ha. (72/100)
  As a healthy male I would be criminalizing this series for giving the animation a score lower than 70 points. It is literally as though the animation studio took an extensive class on drawing vaginal protrusions and ample bosoms while studying butlery.
  Seriously. Every few seconds, however subtle or obvious, a boob or butt is “served warm” to our eyes as a feast, delivering the most intoxicating form of perversion so much so that we are left passively molested by our screens. While many other series might put this one to shame in this regard, very few can deliver with the same degree of tastefulness.

  My biggest detractor for score here is solely the key animation. Often during fight scenes the characters shapely figures would become too fluid and perhaps not-so-shapely. In fact, within the first five minutes of the series we see a rather terribly drawn view of Gertrud’s patooty, as it is quite clear that somebody was too busy completing key frames to actually bother providing detail to her shape. This same mistake happens several times, showing that despite the “ample” details, the budget wasn’t exactly such.

  That said, the action scenes were made with good intention. The weapons are drawn badass—even to the extent that they can be as exciting as the…yep, you guessed it…perhaps the best action scene in the entire show might be the part in season one concerning Shirley and Mach 1; though not very detailed, the desired effect came through quite well. (As for the best episode, it is without debate the infamous sukebe-mushi of Season 2, episode 7.)

  Uncomfortable for many at first, but the wounds will heal. (78/100)
  And that is perhaps the best thing about Strike Witches, considering the great deal of socially unacceptable content unleashed over 8 hours visually. If you are a Forever Alone, this series will provide great comfort. If you want to see something controversial and can choke down the hypnotizing amount of female parts, give it a shot. OR even if you are looking for unique Feminist propaganda, this would be great material for a write up.

  If you are a married man who wants to pick up a good series to watch with the family…while I would personally think how awesome you are for even trying to suggest this series, you might just want to save it for when the family goes to sleep (or if you watch in sprees, when they go to see the old folks for the weekend.)

  Continue on AniList
• 

  Perrine

  50/100
  Strike Witches doesn't know what it wants to be, and it shows.

  Overall, Strike Witches is a mediocre show. Gonzo, the studio that developed it, needed a show with sales, and it shows. Looking back, Strike Witches is almost certainly a half-baked idea, a universe with little to no development and no real idea of what it wants to be. It started as a series of sketches and drawings by Fumikane, a world imagined at a surface level. Gonzo is more than happy to do the bare minimum expansion of the world needed to start a show, and it's quite apparent.

  The first half of the series is largely over the top fanservice. It banks on the sheer audacity of the fanservice to entice audiences and generate buzz. If you took a shot of your favorite liquor every time there was an egregious panty--or rather, crotch--shot, you'd be dead. The girls' lack of proper pants is what Strike Witches is most known for, and though it's oddly cute and slightly lewd in the source drawings and concepts, it's particularly strange in a moving anime. Episode 7 is most guilty of the lewd pandering, opening with one of said crotch shots and embarking on a ludicrous story that only serves to bring the nudity to the 11th level.

  Still, there are occasional glimpses of a good story. Sanya's character-driven episode, though filled with fanservice, is well done, and hints at what might have been if the show had decided to take itself more seriously. The last half of the season, about five episodes or so, introduces actual plot lines and drama, with characters revealing their pasts and dealing with developments that actually involve the setting. There's genuine interest generated, and it didn't take fanservice to do so. I often wonder what this series would have been like if it had decided to use characters or plot to drive it along, instead of unapologetic fanservice.

  In the end, Strike Witches definitely feels like a show that wasn't thought out. It has very conflicting tones, what with the heavy emphasis on a continent on the brink of eradication, a hopeless war where mighty naval ships and mechanic might are seen as completely ineffective. At the same time, the girls live lighthearted lives, lewding each other in a carefree, almost comical manner. It doesn't know what story it wants to tell, or even if it wants to tell a story at all, given that it takes 8 episodes (more than half the series) to get rolling. The lack of heart and effort, combined with the studio's greed, really hurts Strike Witches.

  I just wish they hadn't managed to mess up the golden combination of cute girls, magic, aliens, and 1940s tech.

  Continue on AniList
• 

  TheRealKyuubey

  80/100
  For a dumb fanservice show, it more than exceeds the sum of it's parts.

  The year is 1939. Rather than the Earth we know, this is an Earth in an alternate reality... Where the global land mass looks quite different, and magic flows like electricity... Humanity was attacked by a mysterious alien force known as the Neuroi. Armed with devastating power and hostile intentions, they push humanity to the brink of destruction... And it’s there that they encounter the Witches, a global force of female magic-users who fly through the air with the help of the newly invented Striker Unit, carrying guns as large as them to destroy the enemy of their people. One such witch, young Yoshika Miyafuji, the daughter of the man who invented the striker unit, is thrust into the conflict when she joins the 501’st joint fighter wing, also known as The Strike Witches! All she wants is to help people to the best of her ability, and with immense magical potential inside her, she’ll stop at nothing to prove that defending mankind against the Neuroi runs in her family.

  The first season of Strike Witches... And only the first season, due to budget issues... Was produced by Studio Gonzo, a name you may have come to associate with a high level of inconsistency in the budgets of their works. They produced beautiful works of art that either had a high budget or a modest budget that knew how to use it, and they’ve produced stiff looking garbage that would barely pass for an independent ONA. As luck would have it, Strike Witches is on the better end of the spectrum. The story is mostly split between exciting aerial combat and slice of life stories taking place at the base... Think Tanya the Evil, but without all the backstabbing and political intrigue... so it was pretty easy for Gonzo to split the budget, and I don’t just mean in two ways. I mean in four ways.

  First, you have the content taking place at the base. The animation is fairly cheap here for the most part, but it’s well directed and framed, so the lack of money never really holds it back. The immersive lighting and highly-detailed backgrounds carry the visuals in a lot of static shots. When the action on base does need to kick up for whatever reason, they switch over to a broken-model style of animation that never really looks good in any anime, but it’s used sparingly here. As for the battle animation, the blend of 3D and 2D animation is damn near immaculate. The Neuroi are exclusively rendered in 3D, which fits their design perfectly, but CG is also used for far off shots of ships and the witches themselves. There are multiple shots where a 3D witch in the distance flies towards the camera, and becomes 2D so smoothly that you can hardly say you noticed the transition.

  The character designs are bright, colorful, highly distinctive, and instantly memorable. There are a few areas where the level of detail felt excessive... Close-up panty shots that can get a might uncomfortable, frankly... But aside from that it’s all put to good use. The music was produced by the legendary Seikou Nagaoka, who imbued it with a high energy, uplifting military sound, full of trumpets and drumroll accompaniment. I’d like to specifically call attention to Striker no Hishou, possibly the most iconic piece of music from the show outside of the main themes. It’s heart-pounding, fist-bumping triumphant victory music that plays quite a bit throughout the series. The opening, To Do What I Can, was sung by Yoko Ishida of Ah My Goddess fame, and it’s from the perspective of Yoshika, meaning it carries a dose of her positive and hopeful outlook within it.

  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; Strike Withces has one of my favorite English dubs of all time. The cast is made up of Funimation’s past stars, future stars, and a handful of names that didn’t stick around for too long, but more impressive are the two names the producers had to reach out for... Stephanie Sheh, who has never really been a Funimation actor, was pulled in from this project to play against her normal type... Not the soft-voiced waifs she usually plays, but a tough-as-nails hard-ass with the best of intentions. They even called upon Kira Vincent Davis, an actor from Texas who had largely retired three years prior after the downfall of ADV Films, but this particular job seemingly reignited the spark of her career.

  Relatively new to the business, Cherami Leigh had only received a few lead roles prior to playing Yoshika, and her performance here was nothing short of star-making. Her character is young, enthusiastic and sincere, and she holds nothing back with her portrayal. Some of these casting choices were perfectly natural... Jamie Marchi playing a loud, outgoing redhead, while her best friend Trina Nishimura played her snarky, impish loli counterpart... Jad Saxton playing the stuck-up tsundere, while young Kate Bristol played the shy girl with low self esteem... Anastasia Munoz plays the commander of the squadron, an exceptionally mature character who’s motivated by a wealth of painful experiences for Munoz to explore... Caitlin Glass and Jennifer Forrester perfectly matching the awkward yet comfortable chemistry of a pair of ambiguous love interests... And Luci Christian, who can play basically anything, flexing her versatility by playing a lazy, easygoing slob. Put it all together with an adaptive script that’s both respectful and charming while occasionally letting certain actors improvise, and in my opinion, it’s just a joy to listen to, and I highly recommend it.

  If you’ve never heard of Fumikane Shimada, you have at least seen his work before. A professional illustrator and character designer, he’s been a highly influential figure in Japanese media, especially in the sub genre of Mecha Musume, IE turning inanimate objects into moe waifus. Yep, it sounds weird on paper, but in practice... Well, it’s still weird, but where there’s an audience, weirdness can still flourish. If you’re familiar with any piece of Japanese media that involves girls either using or being military equipment, such as Kancolle, Busou Shinki and even the critically acclaimed Girls Und Panzer, it came straight from his mind. Originally printing his design concepts in certain hobbyist magazines, some of which were made into figurines by Toranoana and Konami, his work quickly caught the eye of the anime world. After some success with the JC Staff anime Sky Girls, he would work with Studio Gonzo on a project that was more ambitious and fleshed out... And batshit insane.

  Now imagine you’re an anime director, and you’ve been instructed by the studio to create a series around these elaborate sketches of half-naked waifus with animal ears on their heads, jet engines on their legs and giant fucking guns in their hands. What the hell are you supposed to do with that? Well, if you answered ‘take it completely seriously and pour your heart into the product,’ then congratulations, you’ve come up with the same answer as series director Kazuhiro Takamura. All things considered, Strike Witches didn’t deserve to be directed and paced as well as it is, the series exists primarily to flash you with enough panty shots to make Najika Blitz Tactics blush, and here Takamura’s using every visual trick in the book to make sure you feel for these characters in every situation they get into with a wide array of techniques.

  But as amazing as the production values and direction may be, they’re not what makes this series special. Plenty of ecchi shows are well made from a technical standpoint, but if there’s one thing Strike Witches has that elevates it above most shows of it’s ilk, it’s the characters. I recently tried watching Kancolle, and I couldn’t do it... None of the characters stood out to me, and halfway through, they had blended together so much in my head that I barely knew three of their names, all of which I’ve forgotten. In Strike Witches, the focal point of the series is on Yoshika Miyafuji, and she is one hell of a likeable protagonist. She’s earnest and sincere, she has strong values and beliefs, she wants to help people as much as possible, and her main character status gifts her with an excess amount of magic potential and the ability to heal others...

  But she’s also not a mary-sue. The plot makes no effort to hide how inexperienced and naive she is, and she develops in confidence throughout the story. She has a unique dynamic with every one of her main costars, even if her interactions with a couple of them are relatively small this season, and not all of them are positive. There are witches she respects or looks up to, some she follows orders from or tries to learn more about... And one or two she butts heads with, because she is surprisingly not a pushover. If she(or someone else) is being treated unfairly, she’ll speak up. Start talking shit to her, she gets mad over it. If she were in any other anime, she’d be one of the better shonen protagonists. The rest of the cast aren’t all quite as strong a presence as Yoshika... Out of the ten of them, only Mio Sakamoto really comes close to her level of prominence... But they’re all unique, they’re all interesting and they’re designed just differently enough to stand out from each other at first glance.

  You might not like all of them(I don’t care for Francesca Lucchini myself) but you’ll probably remember them all. You'll also feel a level of respect for them over the fact that they talk to each other using military titles, rather than cutesy honorifics. Yoshika spends her time at the base interacting with each of them between battles, and you get to know them all pretty well through her, even if they don’t get as much of a spotlight as the others. For example, it doesn’t take long at all to identify Erica Hartmann as a lazy savant, the ace pilot with a massive kill count who’s also completely unmotivated to do anything between battles other than sleep. She barely trains and her room is more clutter than space. We know all of that, and yet she is probably the least prominent out of the entire main cast. It wouldn’t be fair to say everyone got their own focus episode this season, but Hartmann doesn’t even come close, tagging along with other characters’ stories, and her biggest moment comes when she’s maybe forty percent of the focus of episode 7, arguably the worst episode in the season. And she’s on the low end of the scale!

  The entire cast is explored to a point where you know who they are, you know why they do what they do, and some of them even have fairly tragic backstories. There’s little to no exposition throughout the narrative, and every fight against the Neuroi is important in some way- Either it’s related to the larger plot, or it’s intended as the climax to someone’s character arc. There are some dumb plot points... Including a cliffhanger so stupid a character actually calls out how stupid it is in the cold open of the following episode... But considering the pedigree of this show, there’s way less idiocy than there probably should be. A little stupidity in a case like this is justified, so why don’t I give this show a perfect score? Speaking of which, if I love this series and hold it in such high regard, why do I call it a guilty pleasure anime? As long as I hesitated to review this title, one I like and have a lot to say about, there must be a really big elephant in the room.

  Elephant, thy name is Fanservice.

  Now before I go any further, I want to be clear about something: In a general sense, I have no issue with fanservice. I do believe there are ways it can be used poorly, see my Sankarea review for more info on that, but for the most part, I like nudity. I don’t really talk about this much, but one of the main reason I drifted towards anime when I was a teenager was because it was able to have nudity, and it didn’t have to be the strictly comedic, strictly male double standard nudity of American adult animation. That was over twenty years ago, but I still do generally have a soft spot for uncensored fanservice, which is something Strike Witches has in spades... There was always going to BE fanservice, with the series being based off Shimada’s pervy designs, but Gonzo upped the ante by avoiding your typical trappings like steam, light beams and barbie-doll bodies(at least on the home release).

  Having said all that, you may be surprised to hear that my biggest complaints with this series are in relation to the fanservice. First off, let’s take a look at the premise behind said fanservice. In order to use the Striker Unit to fight the Neuroi, female magic users had to keep their legs bare. This led to them going pantsless around the base, and in the five short years since then, women globally have just stopped wearing pants. It’s a fashion trend now. Where do I even begin with this? First off, why didn’t they just wear shorts? I get the fact that skirts would have been redundant, but they make short pants for a reason. Since some girls get away with wearing swimsuits, why don’t they all wear leotards? Some of them wear panty hose, okay, so if thin fabric is okay, why not opaque tights? How did the trend spread globally so fast, and how did it not cause a ton of issues? Look, I get the fact that creepers gonna creep no matter what you do, but I have to imagine every woman on Earth walking around nearly bottomless wouldn’t help the situation.

  And then you have episode seven, the fanservice episode. Yes, this fanservice series has a fanservice episode. The plot of this episode sees one of the girls misplacing her panties, so she steals someone else's, and that girl steals someone else's, they chase each other around the base, cringey hijinks ensue... Wait, so are you seriously fucking telling me each girl only has one pair of underwear? Is that a thing we’re committing to? With the amount of fucking money they’re getting paid... And yes, it’s canonically stated that the witches make a handsome chunk of change for their efforts... They only have one fucking pair of underwear each? They lose one, oops, guess they have to steal someone else's. I am sorry to harp on this so much, but it’s such an obvious plot hole that the dub actors themselves called it out in a commentary track. Combine that with the reasoning behind the constant pantsu, I don’t even think early RWBY was this incompetent at world-building.

  And of course, there’s the fact that out of all the uncensored nudity in this series, most of it involves characters under the age of 18. This is a tricky situation to talk about, but I guess I should start by saying that underage nudity in anime is nothing new. The Japanese don’t have the same cultural taboos as we do, and while uncensored nudity has become less common in the medium due to increased TV standards, a character’s age really hasn’t played a factor in that. Our taboo in the western side of the world is well justified, obviously, there are very good reasons for it, but from what I can tell Strike Witches seems to catch way more backlash from it than any other anime even though shows like Highschool DXD get away with way worse.

  What I will say in Strike Witches’ defense is that according to US law, nudity that’s not presented in an overtly sexual context is not considered pornography, and with the exception of the occasional groping(I really don’t like Francesca Lucchini) the nudity in Strike Witches is completely casual. Characters bathe, they frolic in the forest... One of them just canonically sleeps in the nude because that’s how she rolls. There are far more critically acclaimed anime that are far more legally questionable than this... A certain “so fucked up” scene from End of Evangelion springs to mind, in particular... But if it’s still a deal breaker for you, I understand. I would actually recommend the spin-off series Brave Witches as a non-ecchi Strike Witches alternative. It’s not one of my personal favorites, but it’s still pretty good, you can watch it independently from the rest of the franchise, and it isn’t dull-as-shit like Kancolle.

  Strike Witches' success spawned it a huge franchise, and Funimation has been consistent about releasing that franchise stateside. There are three separate seasons to this show, one that just finished and will be releasing early next year. Also available is a movie, a pretty damn funny gag show called Take Off, and the afore-mentioned non-ecchi spin-off series Brave Witches. The sole exception is a 3 episode OVA, cleverly titled Operation Victory Arrow, which is the only entry in the franchise to not receive a stateside release. Several spin-off, prequel and side-story manga are available from Kodansha, and a series of video games have yet to make the journey.

  Given it’s pedigree, Strike Witches had every excuse in the book to not be as good as it is. For a dumb fanservice show built around an objectively stupid premise and based on a collection of pervy fetish artwork, it vastly exceeds the sum of it’s parts. It’s a simple story with no real depth, and it operates more on emotion than logic, but it’s more than exciting and unique enough to make up for it. What it can’t make up for is just how far over the line it pushes it’s fanservice, and the insanely idiotic logic that went into justifying all of it. I can’t say I’d recommend it to everybody, especially due to it’s age rating, but if it sounds like fun and you’ve been warned about everything that could be considered controversial about it, I’d say you should check it out.

  I give Strike Witches an 8/10.

  Continue on AniList

SIMILAR ANIMES YOU MAY LIKE

• ANIME

  ActionAzur Lane
• ANIME

  ActionVividred Operation
• ANIME

  ActionKantai Collection: KanColle
• ANIME

  ActionGirls und Panzer
• ANIME

  ActionHigh School Fleet
• ANIME

  ActionSky Girls
• ANIME

  ActionKouya no Kotobuki Hikoutai
• ANIME

  ActionYoujo Senki
• OVA

  ActionAIKa R-16: Virgin Mission
• ANIME

  MusicSo Ra No Wo To
• ANIME

  ActionSenyoku no Sigrdrifa
• ANIME

  ActionAssault Lily: BOUQUET