God said, “Okie dokey, dude. Check out this anime. It’s called Sora no Woto. You’ll love it; it’s pretty radical, man!”
Today, I am back at home well-fed. My mom cried when I told her Pikachu was killed by the characters from K-On!. Nevertheless, the miracle known as Sora no Woto made me ponder about the future of war animes.
A few weeks ago, Professor Oak gave me Charmander along a copy of Strike Witches. He boasted, “It’s uncensored. Consider it a rite of passage.” He patted me on the shoulder, winking. I had never heard of Strike Witches until the professor told me so. Judging from the synopsis, it looked like a war anime. I went into the MyAnimeList database, reading the synopsis and the reviews; many people likened this work to Sora no Woto, the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs awarded this work for cultural excellence, and God told me to review works through Fox News before that. I decided to watch this work and review the work.
Strike Witches is set in an alternate World War II setting, specifically the Battle of Britain. Considered one of the toughest battles in World War II history, the Battle of Britain setting has the potential to set up thought-provoking characters and themes. It can make us ponder about the effects of the appeasement effort led by Neville Chamberlain, war in different people’s perspectives, shell shock, and more. Sora no Woto might actually lose to the work’s possible themes; its themes are environmental, cultural, and anti-war by nature, criticizing warmongers for making the world it is today. Consider Strike Witches’s setting for a minute. Wouldn’t this be a fascinating show for everyone to watch?
I remembered Professor Oak’s winking. As I began to watch, I realized why he winked. Oh dear, I’m seeing young girls’ reproductive organs and underwear for no apparent reason except Freudian imaginations. The alternate history made little sense whatsoever. This did not bode well.
In this alternate historical setting, Japan worked with the Allies and stationed their troops at London. The Neurois, aka the Nazis, were unknown sentient creatures that kept blasting away Europe for no particular reason. Their aircrafts looked starkly similar to US stealth fighters. The Allies were stumped, losing all of Europe except England. How could anyone damage the aircrafts when they clearly had force fields protecting them?
Japan’s answer: girls with jetpacks and basic weaponry.
Strike Witches’s setting combined the Battle of Britain, mecha logic, and the mahou shoujo genre so weirdly it made little sense. Questionable aspects of how things worked were never answered throughout the course of this anime.
As I began to write this review, God cried out through Hannity’s mouth, “What about the characters? This show is all about the characters just like Sora no Woto is!”
What made Sora no Woto’s characters so special was that they felt necessary in contributing the story and the themes. Strike Witches’s characters could go into that direction, but most of the times want to, you know, go in an upper direction.
Take Lynette, one of the few likable characters in the work. When she was introduced in the work, she was shown as a shy girl character; a good comparison would be a girly version of Ikari Shinji from Neon Genesis Evangelion. In the end of the episode, she began to open up towards Miyafuji by squishing her to death; suffocating and dying between Lynette’s cleavage sounded like a nice way to die, but it was no example of good storytelling.
Gertrud Barkhorn and the two white-haired girls are the only characters to go completely into characterization. The episode with Barkhorn has some fantastic exposition added in; people can understand her mindset more clearly. The two white-haired girls have interesting stories as well.
Everyone else feels stale. All we really know from Sakamoto Mio is that she laughs like Jack from The Shining and does whatever cos a pirate is free. Perrine is a stalker of Mio. Erica is a clumsy ace pilot. Miyafuji can heal. Francesca is Ed from Cowboy Bebop. There isn’t many characteristics that make these characters involving or realistic; they are just there. Cardboard boxes make better characters than these people.
Like Sora no Woto, it is somewhat episodic. Most of the plot involves the fascinating premise of “cute girls doing cute things”. A particular episode involved about underwear. Very few of them are memorable. When the show adds tension, it does not feel tense; it looks plain silly. The dramatic story and conclusion emerges at the end. Predictable and silly, the conclusion to the work does not pay off well; things get solved with a deus ex machina. There is also a cliffhanger, pointing people to watch Strike Witches 2.
No thanks, Gonzo. I might watch it someday, but it’s not due to your cliffhanger.
I returned the set to Professor Oak and yawned. I do not think this work was the worst work I’ve seen. It did not piss me off a lot; though, I ate a boiled skewed Charmander on a satay stick in the end because of how bored I was. There are things I disliked -- the fanservice, the wasted potential, the unfunny side characters. However, they don’t cause me to hate this work. Instead, I just thought this work as really average; it did not offend me at all. I was just really bored.
There are definitely people who loved it; some may say it is thought-provoking, maybe even more against Sora no Woto. I don’t see it that way nor do I think the endorsement by the government is needed. Say all you want, but I see it as a government-endorsed loli pantsu anime with girls on jetpacks beating up Nazis. It’s no Sora no Woto, that’s for sure. I suppose it can be entertaining to people -- it is possible that I have no soul. As a work of artistic and cultural achievement, now that’s a great joke to laugh about.
