War Witches, Part 3 - Strike Witches II

WAR WITCHES

~part 3~

Strike Witches II

Season 2 produced by AIC Spirits for the Summer 2010 season
Movie produced by AIC for release in March of 2012

Six months have passed since Gallia was liberated from the Neuroi by the Strike Witches of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing. Our brave heroes have disbanded on the precipice of peace. Back in Fuso, aspiring medical doctor Yoshika Miyafuji prepares herself for the next steps of her education. The last line of Witches have been dispatched to meet with the remaining Neuroi nest in Venezia to etch the final days of war into stone. If only it could be so easy. Right as humanity is poised to embrace the calming relief of peacetime, a massive roadblock suddenly comes into view. The faction of Neuroi that successfully communicated with humans is abruptly wiped out by a much larger colony that clearly has no desire to settle for less than complete domination over the planet and its inhabitants. Europe is once again under siege as Francesca's home country becomes the next front of the conflict. The embers of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing begin to stir once again...

Just a mere two years after its debut, the series transitioned from studio Gonzo to AIC Spirits, one of the many production teams under the AIC banner. It was there that Strike Witches 2 was born to continue the adventures of our high-flying heroines as they push back against the growing Neuroi threat while having a little fun along the way. Yes, it's business as usual at the Strike Witches' home base. With the return of series director Kazuhiro Takamura and many of the staff members that worked on the first season, Strike Witches 2 looks almost indistinguishable from its predecessor. It's yet another reminder that the staff on a project is more defining of its quality than a studio's reputation. A smidgen of elbow polish and a noticeable increase of CG shots during the flying sequences are all that separate this visually from the material we've talked about so far. 

To say that Strike Witches 2 is bringing anything shocking and new to the table would be an exercise in dishonesty. This series very much prides itself on having an established formula and deviates negligibly from the first season's blueprint. I'm a firm believer that you can't have too much of a good thing. What makes this format stick largely comes down to the cast itself. With nearly a dozen characters that have dynamic personalities and a wide range of nationalities, the writers are able to play around with episode concepts and different pairings while sticking to the template. It's not unlike the peak of western animation which largely favored episodic experiences in between its climactic bookends, beholden to the status quo as they were. By establishing a clear end goal, the creative minds are uninhibited by meager plot devices as they deliver what the viewers really want - antics and misadventures with their favorite witches. What else is there to do with an ensemble cast of moe military heroines in a world like this one? The soundtrack retains many of the recognizable compositions from the first season along with a brand new OP and ED that I personally prefer over the originals despite how iconic they are. The ED song also has several variations with different characters singing per episode as intended.

 

This time they're training to be real witches!

Once again, we begin our story in the peaceful island country of Fuso. Yoshika, now a proud middle school graduate, has gathered the resolve to seriously pursue enrollment at a medical school to carry on the tradition of her family clinic. While discussing the matter with her childhood friend Michiko, fellow Fuso witch Suwa Amaki comes crashing down behind the clinic in a scene that was foreshadowed at the end of the previous season. She delivers a mysterious letter from Yoshika's late father containing blueprints for a new striker prototype. Bewildered and seeking answers, Yoshika and Michiko head to the nearby naval base where Mio Sakamoto has been stationed as an instructor. Mentally burdened by her weakening powers, Yoshika's former commanding officer went into hiding to forge the cursed blade Reppumaru in a desperate bid to overcome her inability to raise a defensive shield in battle. In the process of delivering the blueprints to the naval base, Yoshika happens to overhear her comrade-in-arms Lynette Bishop reporting on the carnage in Venezia as the struggle against the Neuroi continues. Despite her pleas, Yoshika is unable to communicate with Lynne and is subsequently kicked off the base by Mio after returning from her leave.

The events of the first season clearly established that Yoshika doesn't take "no" for an answer once her heart and mind have jointly decided on a course of action. She quickly learns that Mio is boarding a flight to the newly built Strike Witches base near Romagna to continue the fight. With righteousness burning in her soul, Yoshika hijacks her old striker unit from storage and convinces the naval crew to help her launch. Fueled by her magic might and stubborn nature, she catches up to Mio's plane and informs her battle commander that she has no intention of being left behind. Even with her brooding vagabond demeanor, Mio can't resist Yoshika's infectious sense of justice and desire to help people. She helps Yoshika dismount her striker unit and the two Fuso witches ride together toward the front lines to continue their assault against the ruthless Neuroi forces. Slowly, the gravity of this new development pulls each member of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing back to their second home.

These first couple of episodes heavily mirror the original series debut, with Yoshika and Mio commuting to the base and being interrupted by a Neuroi threat before reaching land. The duo have to hold off the enemy long enough for the rest of the 501st to show up and provide the necessary support to take it down. From there, we get right into the thick of it with a heartfelt reunion as Commander Minna officially reforms the Strike Witches. Our established groups remain the same; the only major development is Perrine graduating from the pent-up bully to a loyal member of Team Yoshika alongside Lynne. Her admiration (to put it lightly) for Mio is still present but with far less intensity than previously expressed. Instead she serves as the haughty, easily embarrassed third wheel who secretly cares about Yoshika so much that in one episode she stalks her around the base. Perrine also receives a long overdue episode this season focusing on her anxieties over the restoration of Gallia after its liberation. This serves as a nice perspective on her empathetic nature and sense of responsibility toward her people as the daughter of a once noble family.

 

Yoshika remains vigilant as Mio brandishes her katana in the plane

Many of the episodic adventures sandwiched between the crust of the plot are expanded concepts from the first season. There's another training arc with Yoshika and Lynne, but this time Perrine gets to tag along as the trio is put through a grueling regimen by Mio's former mentor to better control their magic. True to their identity as witches, the girls have to master the art of flying on a broomstick in a montage that has one of the most recognizable depictions of cameltoe in anime history. Shirley's speed freak episode gets turned on its head as Barkhorn receives an experimental striker unit capable of supersonic acceleration with the steep cost of obliterating her magic reserves. This ends with a gag that involves Yoshika misidentifying striker engineer Ursula Hartmann, Erica's bespectacled twin sister, who shows up at the base to apologize for the faulty prototype. The comfy Eila and Sanya episode is more dramatic this time around as Yoshika unwittingly becomes the focus of Eila's ire after being chosen to defend Sanya during a mission to destroy a Neuroi obelisk in the stratosphere. Naturally, our heroine has a pure soul and switches places with Eila at the last minute so the two lovebirds can have their moment above the clouds.

The writers put in the work to ensure that any character who hadn't received their own episode got a cut this time around. Perrine's segment is a twist on the beach training camp that quickly pivots to a treasure hunt sequence in an underwater cave as she desperately seeks out wealth to help reconstruct a broken bridge that is preventing children in Gallia from attending school. Francesca and Erica both get their moment in the limelight in contrast with their roles as gag characters for the majority of the previous run. After playing the lazy overachiever for over a dozen episodes, Erica finally has to flex her talent in air combat when her former training school rival Hanna arrives at the base for an assault mission against the Neuroi. The latter half of the episode is an extended competition between the two that culminates in a heated dogfight with Erica seriously engaging to secure Hanna's autograph for Barkhorn. But perhaps the most emotionally resonant offering of the season goes to Francesca's supply trip to her home turf of Romagna. In an interesting deviation from the typical episode layout, very few of the other witches appear in favor of showcasing her misadventures with a local girl named Maria who is secretly the soon-to-be-inaugurated Duchess of the territory. It's a charming little story that showcases the duality of Francesca's childish nature with her genuine sense of duty to protect the homeland she deeply cherishes.

Of course, they still made room to solidify the tradition of the seventh episode with yet another nonsense premise that toes the line between plot and perversion. A small Neuroi bug sneaks into the base to siphon electricity for its host body but finds itself the subject of a feverish chase thanks to its habit of sneaking into women's underwear. Just about every witch on the base gets an embarrassing dose of "bug crawling in my panties" syndrome before Commander Minna executes it with her glutes of steel, earning herself a commemorative medal for two hundred confirmed Neuroi kills in the process. Kudos to whoever went to the effort of puzzling out how to include the monster-of-the-week element in this one while tuning the whole premise to be an even darker shade of shameless buffoonery than last time. There will be yet another episode seven adventure in the future, and you can rest assured knowing that it will plow even further into the fields of folly.

 

Romagna fashion has the hat game locked down

Yoshika and Mio retain their dominance over the major plot beats as they were largely unresolved up to this point. The purpose of the mysterious blueprints from her father becomes clear after Yoshika goes through a crisis where she struggles to fly despite her clean bill of health. Well, it turns out that our heroine's magic power is so immense that the basic striker units crumble at the mere force of her output! Thanks to the incredible foresight of her deceased father, a new striker prototype is tailor-made for her abilities and she's back in the air in no time. Meanwhile, poor Mio is suffering from the weight of her unwise decision to forge a cursed katana that sucks the magic power straight out of her like a vacuum when drawn from its sheath. Her hunger to create a killer finishing move to wipe out the Neuroi nest in one slice blinds her from the debilitating side effects. Yoshika becomes privy to this when she draws the blade out of curiosity and the sheer magic suction alone knocks her clean out. 

Minna is trapped dealing with the demands of military leadership while struggling to wrangle Mio away from working herself to death. Surely the top brass have learned something from the crisis that concluded the first season, right? No, they sure haven't! Unwilling to let the Strike Witches earn all the glory from liberating Venezia, these geniuses decided the best course of action was to fuse the battleship Yamato with Neuroi technology in a "fight fire with fire" approach to the problem. Thanks to the Neuroi's innate abilities of regeneration and flight, this allows the mighty ship to plot a course to ram itself into the nest and blast the thing to hell at point blank range. Naturally, Mio tries to avoid this by unleashing her ultimate strike, but her magic reserves are so thoroughly dried out that the blade just bounces out of her hands and finds itself sheathed in the deck of the Yamato. If that wasn't bad enough, the ship rams the nest but fails to keep the Neuroi dynamo powered long enough to deal the finishing blow. Realizing that she still has a chance to be useful, Mio risks it all to reach the battleship and sacrifices what's left of her dwindling magic reserves to power the cannon and wipe the nest clean off the face of the planet.

Too bad for them, because this only blasts the hive's dense hull open and fails to pierce the massive Neuroi core that powers the beast. Thanks to the Yamato's transformation, the hive is able to absorb the massive battleship into its being and imprisons Mio as a magic conduit to amplify its own power. It takes a Fuso witch to clean up a Fuso witch's mess, so here comes Yoshika with the might of the 501st backing her up in formation. With all the cover fire keeping her unscathed, our heroine is able to reach the deck of the Yamato to release the Reppumaru from its prison. She then unleashes the proverbial god slaying katana blast attack that was highly forbidden for her to use. This turns the Neuroi nest into fine dust particles and saves Mio from being dried into a husk by the enemy, but the raw energy cost from the attack completely dissipates any trace of magic from Yoshika's body. With the liberation of Romagna and Venezia, the 501st yet again disbands. Our plucky lead returns to Fuso to pursue a new life as a medical school student now that she can never again channel her witch power. I suppose Strike Witches will now become a super powered medical drama. Yoshika's Anatomy, perhaps? Yoshika M.D.?

 

Yoshika getting a triumphant hug from Lynne is a season finale tradition

Believe it or not, her story isn't over just yet. With two more years of effort, AIC's main production studio ran it back with the feature length Strike Witches the Movie in 2012. This film serves as an extended epilogue of the second season and takes place just a mere two months after the destruction of the Neuroi nest over Venezia. One would expect this to be an even more bombastic and action-packed experience than the television series, but to my surprise it subverted the established formula quite a bit more than I remembered. What we have here is essentially a "road trip gone wrong" premise swaddled in the cloth of traditional Strike Witches characteristics. Still in the process of adapting to life without magic, Yoshika nearly has a fatal plunge off the edge of a waterfall during a botched puppy rescue but is snatched up in the nick of time by newbie Fuso witch Shizuka Hattori. To her surprise, Yoshika learns that she has been accepted to a prestigious medical school in Helvetia (basically Switzerland) and that Shizuka has been tasked with escorting her there with a study visa. Of course, the journey will be anything but smooth sailing as the duo runs into crisis after crisis in the pursuit of Yoshika's educational future.

What I enjoy most about this film are the little vignettes along the way that focus on specific sets of characters. With the 501st disbanded all its members spread out across the globe, the writers wasted no time having fun cooking up little situations here and there for each group. It was also a prime opportunity to better showcase the greater World Witches franchise as a whole with characters from the non-anime side material, some of which would go on to appear in later anime spin-offs such as 2016's Brave Witches. The television series could only flirt with these elements due to the necessity of keeping the setting locked to the 501st base and its surrounding areas, but that restraint was lifted with the film's premise revolving more around travel and fleshing out the world than ever before. The balance of antics and war drama remain consistent with the material we've seen so far. Shirley and Francesca go from racing gondolas on the Venezian waters with Romagna's 504th to fending off an unforeseen Neuroi threat. Later, Yoshika and Shizuka meet up with Lynne and Perrine in Gallia to help look after the local war orphans before coming to the aid of villagers near the Rhine who have been trapped by a landslide.

The major crux of the story remains firmly with the dynamic between the two Fuso girls and their journey. Shizuka is a starstruck admirer of Yoshika solely due to the feats she accomplished with the Strike Witches, but quickly becomes disillusioned after meeting the person behind the legend. These two girls couldn't be more diametrically opposed in their ideologies. Shizuka is a textbook soldier who treats military decorum as law to a nearly religious degree and experiences deep frustration toward those who disregard orders on any level. Yoshika is the kind of person who would set fire to the whole rulebook if it obstructed her sense of justice and goodness to any degree of inconvenience. This is clearly illustrated early in the story during their initial departure on the Amagi battle-cruiser. A collision with an iceberg causes the ammo storage to catch fire and traps a crew member inside. Faced with certain death after the sprinkler system fails to activate, an emboldened Yoshika defies the captain's orders and uses every ounce of strength to help the trapped crew member activate the sprinklers so he can be dragged to safety. Shizuka is not impressed; in fact, she's absolutely livid with Yoshika's flagrant disregard for decorum. This serves as the wedge between the two girls and the main source of interpersonal conflict. As their journey continues, Shizuka struggles more and more to understand Yoshika while meeting her comrades along the way.

 

Shizuka is NOT amused with Yoshika's ramune offer

A slowly building Neuroi threat creeps into the narrative surrounding the journey which pulls the Karlsland group back into the fray. Minna has Barkhorn and Erica scope out the enemy yet are unable to contain them. The communications jamming effect of the Neuroi prevent Yoshika and Shizuka from realizing the impending danger before they are stopped in their tracks by the enemy appearing in a nearby village. Casting away her stubborn nature, Shizuka jumps into battle without orders while Yoshika helps evacuate the villagers. Unfortunately, this newbie witch jobs so fiercely that Yoshika has to bait one of the Neuroi units away with their utility vehicle and then, without a drop of magic in her bones, sends it flying off a ramp into the enemy like a Jackass stunt and manages to finish it off with her gun during the chaos. Then she gets hit by a laser and fucking DIES. Thanks to her impressively thick plot armor, she cheats death but endures a nasty flesh wound. This leaves the struggling Shizuka with no choice but to fly the hell out of bounds and plead for help over the shaky comm lines. The unstoppable, immovable power of friendship allows her cries to pierce the airwaves and alerts every member of the 501st to their plight. You think I'm kidding? Every single member shows up, and while they're throttling in the direction of Yoshika's near lifeless body, their voices reach her soul and coax the dormant veins of magic back to life. Even Mio comes in cruising on a biplane to airdrop Yoshika's striker unit into the jaws of conflict. With her powers burning bright, Yoshika erases her wounds with ease and launches into battle to shred the Neuroi units and their lead carrier with her comrades. An insurmountable "it's over" triumphed by an invincible "we are so back".

The film ends with the 501st Joint Fighter Wing reforming like clockwork to prepare for the next wave of the Neuroi assault. Shizuka finally comes to terms with Yoshika's justice and learns to chill out a little. She has to serve as Mio's replacement, after all! How can the 501st go on without two Fuso witches as its backbone? This is actually a tiny spoiler as Shizuka's enlistment to the Strike Witches isn't confirmed until much later, but I think it's pretty obvious they didn't build her entire character profile in the movie just for her to be a one-and-done appearance. This story concludes what I like to call the "first phase" of the World Witches anime experience and segues right into a stretch of spinoffs and side material. The proper third season continuation known as Road to Berlin would take eight long years after Strike Witches the Movie to finally materialize on television. In that time, three main pillars of work kept the series alive. The first is the movie's prequel OVA series, Operation Victory Arrow, that further expands on the events that took place in the two month gap between the conclusion of season 2 and the film. The second is the direct spinoff series Brave Witches that follows the 502nd Joint Fighter Wing and a brand new cast of characters. Both of these were produced at Shin Oonuma's studio SILVER LINK and will be the main subject of the next War Witches post. The final pillar is the deformed comedy spinoff known as 501 Butai Hasshin Shimasu! (501st Joint Fighter Wing Take Off!). It's a monument of unfiltered stupidity and low brow humor captured in half-length episodic increments and capped off with a thirty minute "movie" that I've admittedly never seen. We'll get to talking about that one at a later date.

It's genuinely impressive how consistent across the board Strike Witches is from a qualitative standpoint between its first two seasons and the film. Generally, people expect anime movies to be a noticeable step up in visual direction and execution, but Strike Witches the Movie is more like a long episode with five-to-ten percent more spice in the action sequences than the usual fare. To me, that's not a bad bargain at all. It would've been interesting to see AIC continue shepherding the series forward, but their sudden production implosion in 2014 made than an impossibility. Needless to say, most of the key players who helped bring this series to life ended up sticking around, so perhaps there wouldn't be much of a difference either way. It's just a passing thought.

 

Shizuka hitching a ride home on Mio's biplane

Next time, we'll discuss how well SILVER LINK did with witches old and new in their brief stint with the franchise. It'll be the last time this series had a consistent studio for more than one production cycle - a harbinger of its late stage era of which its fate remains uncertain. But that's a topic for another time. Until then, stay moe, friends. 

 

Get down, Yoshika's going postal!

War Witches, Part 2 - Strike Witches

WAR WITCHES

~part 2~

Strike Witches

Produced by Gonzo for the Summer 2008 season 

Born between the pages of Comp Ace, a Japanese otaku hybrid magazine that covers computer gaming and manga culture, Strike Witches became a symbol of Humikane's desire to spread his mecha musume concept far and wide. It was a promise of a unified world in which his anthropomorphic bishoujo heroines could thrive under the pressures of danger and the joys of folly. He spent years crafting his empire out of magazine columns, enlisting his artistic fellows to help sculpt the vision for prospective enthusiasts through manga and light novels. It was only after fulfilling his contractual obligations to Konami for Sky Girls that Humikane was finally able to wield the collective strength of all this hard work, hoisting Strike Witches off the page and onto the big screen. Yet, it would still take a short while longer for the series to truly take off into the skies. 

The original OVA episode was produced and released by studio Gonzo nearly two years before the TV anime made its proper debut. In stark contrast to Sky Girls and its OVA that exhibits the full breadth of what the series has to offer, Strike Witches could do little more than present the rough draft of its concept and hope that was good enough. It's a brief seven minutes of animation with short vignettes involving the cast, showcasing the divide between playful antics and high speed combat that the series would be known for. The rest of the OVA is simply a slideshow of production work and fleeting glimpses of ideas that would be tweaked significantly in the process of creating the first season. These shots are narrated with light banter between some of the confirmed cast members in an attempt to add some flavor to the presentation.

It's a fascinating glimpse that actually resembles very little of Strike Witches as people know it now. The character designs look completely different. It's hard to ascertain the mood of the show considering the animated bits are incredibly brief and have little to no dialogue in them. But maybe the most notable difference is the absence of its prevalent casual eroticism - a concept more commonly referred to as "fanservice". There's an ironic sense of inversion here where Sky Girls had a much more revealing OVA episode that transitioned into a largely tame TV anime experience. Strike Witches kept its cards close to the chest, exposing its characters very little beyond the basic designs and personalities. It was a snapshot of a work in progress that still had much to do before all the pieces would fall into place.

 

Yoshika Miyafuji stacking up rice in her OVA form

Twenty-odd months passed before the 501st Joint Fighter Wing would return fully geared and ready for battle. By the time the world of Strike Witches came to life in the Summer 2008 anime season, it was a much different beast than what was previewed in the OVA. The first scene has it all - a highly engaged air combat sequence involving most of the cast against the primary threat of the story. There's a wide variety of firearms and jet fighter inspired gear on display. But perhaps the most notable quality of this sequence is the stylistic showcase of each character's underwear. For the uninitiated reader, this may seem like a gag of sorts. In a high octane aerial dogfight sequence, where do panties enter the equation? The answer is simple; they were part of the formula from the beginning.

In the many years I've been exploring moe art and expression, I've formulated myriad concepts within the canals of my brain. One of these fundamental ideas is something I've coined the "stupid world". This isn't something I believe anime invented - you could trace this idea all the way back to the dawn of animation in the early 1900s and intensified through the work of Chuck Jones and Walt Disney among others. One of the most defining pieces of Japanese animation that embraces this concept is the adaptation of Rumiko Takahashi's Urusei Yatsura, a series that reshaped the cultural landscape and sculpted a path for moe works to thrive in the decades that followed. A stupid world is not unlike our own, but it twists the rules and societal norms deliberately to create a fictional environment that can only operate under its own particular logic. It's an exaggeration of life portrayed through playful caricature and abstraction that gives the setting an otherworldly quality while still being rooted in familiarity.

Strike Witches is another bold point in the lineage of such a concept. As a slice of alternate history, the series takes place in the 1940s where World War II was completely subverted by the arrival of a non-communicative alien race known as the Neuroi. Their silent destruction and nesting of civilization leads the nations of the world to band together for humanity's sake under a unified force. It's not long before they realize that their military technology can barely sneeze on the enemy and the male dominated arm of humanity's strength has little to offer in turning the tides. Thankfully, there's still hope to be found in the power of women! The female population has the unique ability to naturally wield magic power with various applications, but the strength of said power weakens as they get older. Young girls with enough magical aptitude have the means to channel their energy with the necessary force to properly destroy the Neuroi invaders. After a breakthrough by the esteemed Dr. Miyafuji, the Striker Unit is invented to allow these girls - known as Witches - to fly into the air and eliminate humanity's greatest threat.

 

Fuso duo Yoshika and Mio bonding in the skies

With that out of the way, let's the discuss the real twist of this setting! This is a world where women do not wear pants. It is regarded no differently than a fashion trend and nobody in the show has any adverse reaction to this reality. This is the contract that one must tend to when choosing to embark on this particular adventure. Normalcy reigns in a society where women have their underwear on display and no one even bats an eye at it. Even the men feel no need to gawk or assert lecherous impulses toward this state of affairs. In the military, the Witches consider their panties as an essential component of their uniform and they are treated with dignity and respect for doing so! One may wonder what sort of mind birthed nonsense such as this, but I find it rather beautiful. Many an ecchi series will pair its erotic components with shame and vulgarity, but Strike Witches isn't like that. It doesn't play the game to begin with, reshaping its world to fit the rules it desires.

These elements work together to create a visual experience that exudes what I like to call "moeroticism". As the portmanteau suggests, this is a concept that augments traditional eroticism through the lens of moe art. Arousal is a term that is often assumed to have explicitly sexual connotation in the context of human emotions, but that is only a single potential outcome. The erotic is the natural variable in which this outcome is achieved. Moe is a different input for this equation that arouses feelings of protective affection and devotion from the observer. It's a unique sense of excitement that is not necessarily romantic nor sexual, but its role as a response of passion is where the overlap between the two qualities converge. As a result, there is a natural harmonization between moe and erotic characteristics. Japanese artists intuit this concept quite easily, which is largely why it is such a consistent pillar of moe subculture. It's a unique fusion that isn't locked into one particular mode of expression. Moerotic works can be titillating as a matter of course, but they can just as easily be presented as cute or cool without shedding their erotic traits.

If an example is needed to complete the proof, then Strike Witches is an easy pick. It's the kind of series that I didn't expect to grow on me so much as I got older. When I was viewing it as a younger lad, the appeal was obviously the nonchalant nudity and the residual shame of feeling like I was watching something "wrong" like pulling up the unrated version of American Pie 2 on my parents' cable subscription way after bedtime. Now that I'm an adult with a fully formed sense of self and a healthy relationship with erotic art, I can see that the perception I had as a teenager was appropriately surface level for my age. This is a work that trades away its shame and celebrates casual sexual appeal without being drenched in it. It's far more entrenched in the realm of cool moe than vulgarity, and the nonchalance in which it contains these elements is why it has a lot more class than other ecchi works. It wields the power of the stupid world to create normality where abnormality is present in reality, and that in turn shifts the entire playing field into something a bit more fun and fantastical.

 

Yoshika about to endure a surprise attack of appreciation from Lynne

Our protagonist is Yoshika Miyafuji, daughter of the late Dr. Miyafuji and a cheerful student who lives on an island in the Fuso empire (see: Not Japan). Born into a proud family of female clinicians, she slowly but surely hones control over her healing magic to support the family business. Yoshika has deep resentment about her father's death that feeds her hatred for war and desire to be a lifelong pacifist. This is quickly upended with the arrival of Mio Sakamoto, the battle commander of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing, who seeks to recruit our heroine into the titular Strike Witches after seeing the potential of her magic power. Initially unwilling to fight, Yoshika concedes to travel with Mio back to the Witches' home base in Britannia after learning her father was stationed at a research lab in the area. When a Neuroi attacker shows up mid transit, Yoshika gets her first taste of what the Striker Unit is capable of as she flies to assist Mio with protecting the naval fleet that was transporting them. After learning the truth about what happened to her dad, she finds the resolve to accept Mio's offer and enlists as a Witch with the lofty goal of bringing an end to the war.

From here the show quickly settles into a reliable formula of character focused episodes that combine slice of life antics at the base with a sprinkle of nebulous military drama and action scenes to tie it all together. In that respect it's pretty similar to Sky Girls, but the execution is the key difference that sets Strike Witches apart. Unlike its spiritual predecessor, this series has a far bigger ensemble cast and almost none of the important characters are male. Since men have no magical aptitude, they're stuck in a useless military apparatus while the Witches get all the heavy lifting done from their walled garden. Each character has a highly distinct design that is finely crafted down to their choice of underwear. In fact, if you watch this long enough you can basically identify characters by their panties alone! All of the Strike Witches are moe representations of real life fighter pilots from a handful of different countries. Their respective Striker Units are based on aircraft from their nation of origin as well as the weapons they use in battle. Each character also has a specific animal associated with them that manifests as cute ears and tails when they're actively using magic. They had actual animal companions in the original OVA but they were ultimately removed from the picture.

In order to cleanly tie the cast together, most members of the 501st are sorted into pairs. Shortly after joining the team, Yoshika quickly befriends Lynette Bishop - a timid Britannian Witch - and the two become inseparable allies who support each other throughout the show. Mio and her fellow officer Minna-Dietlinde Wilcke from Karlsland (see: Not Germany) serve as the tactical commanders of the unit and are longtime friends. Gertrud Barkhorn and Erica Hartmann also hail from Karlsland, the latter being an ace combatant whose laziness and lack of decorum are only kept in check by Barkhorn's fiery pride. The carefree brat Francesca Lucchini from Romagna (think of the country that Rome is part of) is paired with her best friend, the busty speed freak Charlotte "Shirley" E. Yeager from Liberion (think of the country that likes the word "liberty" the most). Eila Ilmatar Juutilainen is a cool headed tarot enthusiast from Suomus (home of the Suomi submachine gun) who looks after the nocturnal Sanya V. Litvyak from the Orussian Empire (they barely even changed this one). The odd one out is the haughty Gallian heiress (spoilers: she's French) Perrine H. Clostermann who has a one-sided obsession with Mio and spends most of this season trying to antagonize Yoshika because of their shared Fuso heritage. 

 

Perrine and Yoshika aura checking each other

 

The average Sky Girls episode took great care to keep even the most frivolous of events wound around the overarching narrative. Strike Witches is proudly a free spirit in comparison, gesturing at its true soul as a slice-of-life comedy with a multitude of extra steps. Each character has a reason for fighting, and the exploration of this context does keep the ultimate goal of repelling the Neuroi threat in frame. And yet, to imply this show is ever soberly riding on its drama is a simply untrue. The real driving force at play with most episodes is Yoshika becoming friends with everyone while also learning how to be a better Witch in the process. She opens Lynne's heart and gives her the courage to fight as they train together. She pushes Barkhorn to go see her little sister who was wounded in the fall of Karlsland even after getting the cold shoulder from her. She trusts in Sanya's enhanced hearing and spends time bonding with her and Eila on night patrol. Hell, she even does right by Perrine more than once even after being the subject of her bullying! The bonds between the Witches and Yoshika's magnetic personality are what allow the cast chemistry to so vibrantly blossom with each episode. It also helps that they are all different shades of gay. Even Minna, who canonically had a male lover at one point, has turned the Witch base into a female sanctuary where she longingly looks after Mio who is becoming too old to maintain her magic strength.

Of course, there's always a thrilling battle sequence to cap things off. You can't just have a military focused anime without some conflict here and there! These elements act as the seasoning to enhance the cool factor of this moe buffet. How else would they show off all the fighter plane inspired gear and lovingly rendered firearms? It helps that this anime genuinely has some wonderful looking animation even in its calmer moments. Definitely some of the best work out of Gonzo and I'm not just talking about the passionately angled ass shots. There's so much life in the way the characters express themselves and this very same energy is channeled directly into the combat scenes. Hard to argue with how unique it is to see what is essentially human dogfighting in the skies with cute girls and alien geometry. It's easy to write off a concept like this on paper, but seeing how much work went into bringing it to life really puts into perspective that creative expression isn't about how sensible an idea is but how hard artists fight to turn their vision into a tangible experience. It'd be a stretch for me to call this a masterpiece, yet it's a show that excels admirably at being exactly what its creators wanted it to be. That's a wonderful thing.

It'd be negligent of me to skip over mentioning the OP theme which is a classic anisong that I can just recall straight into my brain on demand with a cute montage of Yoshika admiring and ultimately joining the Witch crew. But it's the ED that deserves the most credit for not just being an incredibly moe charm offensive featuring the whole cast but having a different set of characters singing the ED theme with each episode. Yoshika gets to flex her chops the most, as is natural of being the protagonist, but it's nice to hear all the characters get their turn at the microphone. The chosen voices largely follow whoever got the primary focus that episode which is a nice little touch to cap off each character's time in the limelight. Naturally, the show ends with a full performance featuring the whole might of the 501st like a victorious anthem that echoes how far they've come together as a group. I didn't actually stand up and start clapping, but spiritually there was applause in the pit of my heart. 

 

Yoshika in shock as Eila and Sanya expose the moon to their yuri energy

I'm a proud freak. I've been aware of it for a long time, and perhaps the last decade of my life has been punctuated by coming to terms with that fact. In that respect, I think now was the perfect time to revisit this anime and the series as a whole. The me who ran a writing blog on Tumblr in the ancient times would never step up so brazenly to pay tribute to this show. I simply would've hung my head and reflexively utilized self-deprecating terms like "guilty pleasure", attempting to brush off the erotic elements like superficial filth needing to be cleansed away. Forgive me for the impromptu rant, but it really irks me that we're living in a time where even the slightest hint of sexuality in a work riles up the loudest simpletons who spare not a single thought before labeling it as degenerate art that only exists as jerk-off material. Strike Witches is not high art because it's not trying to be. It's a whimsical fantasy where girls look cool fighting sky aliens in their underwear. They can flash their butt at the camera or be naked in the bath all they want. I'm sure there are viewers out there still reliving their teenage fantasies as they ogle Shirley's sixteen year-old breasts. No big deal. We'll all be dead in a hundred years.

I believe fringe modes of expression in the arts are healthy for humanity. There's a deep well of contradiction between our beliefs and what transpires in our imagination. The cultural zeitgeist of today seeks to obliterate the nuance that has allowed the real and unreal to exist with an appropriate degree of separation. It goes without saying that Strike Witches is not a series that I would recommend to the median anime viewer whose stake in the medium is merely skin deep. Regardless of this fact, a fool like me needs to plant a flag every once in a while. There are many outspoken voices who would consider a series like this vile and depraved. Most of the female characters are younger than eighteen years old. Francesca spends much of the show sticking her shimapan clad rear end out and she's supposed to be twelve despite looking like a teenager. Art produced from the moe subculture is often warping the significance of a character's age by tying it contextual elements like personality or the setting rather than visual design. This is the phenomenon that creates archetypes like the infamous "thousand year-old loli" which are often the targets of venom spitting. Ironically, this also produces inverse cases like Yoko Littner from Tenga Toppa Gurren Lagann who has plenty of erotic art depicting her appearance as a fourteen-year old but rarely faces the same scrutiny. I'm not going to deny anyone their right to dislike this kind of trope, but simple disdain is rarely ever the bog standard reaction nowadays.

Anime is a medium that still produces art with the belief that every fictional world is to some extent "fantasy" even when integrated with the margins of realism. Those who paint the canvas get to break the rules. They get to stretch and reconstruct common sense. I'd argue this is an inherent right we have as beings with the power of creation. It's true that fictional stories can influence reality, but the context of the work itself and its scope are essential to judging whether this power is being abused with due diligence. Strike Witches isn't advocating that all women should be walking around with their lingerie exposed. For a military themed story, it's barely even glorifying that aspect beyond aesthetics. Yoshika is outspokenly anti-war. Most of the military leadership is portrayed as incompetent or corrupt. This story operates in a world where national borders have been broken down and humanity has united together in spite of their differences. Women are treated with respect and dignity without having to wear pants! It's as bizarre as it is beautifully idealistic. Even the Neuroi themselves are humanized near the end of the season when a peaceful unit comes in contact with Yoshika, bolstering her to convince her fellow Witches that there's another path forward that isn't one side annihilating the other. I struggle to believe that a modicum of perversion bubbling beneath the surface is enough to invalidate these ideas.

 

Shirley's boobs are NOT safe from this absolute menace to society

I'm not claiming that this anime has a deep vein of social commentary to be unearthed. My long winded point is that art is often more complex than the sum of its parts. It's effortless to judge a work immediately by its surface elements. In some ways this is necessary to save the time and effort of committing to a series that clearly does not appeal to one's particular tastes. It's wise to avoid landmines and instead seek out familiar comforts or fresh experiences that are more palatable. Yet, so much of the conversation gets smothered by a pillow in favor of moral grandstanding and amassing cheap social credit. Perhaps I'm engaging in a bit of shadowboxing here, but I've seen so many relatively harmless shows (including this one) mentioned in passing conversation as if they were illegal contraband despite having official home video releases in the western world. Strike Witches is a niche otaku series and its window of appeal is not particularly broad. I'm not delusional enough to claim otherwise. Those who appreciate it should be able to do so without some obscene value judgment being imposed upon them. Criticism of a harmless moe anime should not always be paired with the inference that its fans should have a loaded gun pressed to their heads.

This isn't a spiel for the sake of my dignity. The concept of being evaluated through the context of my media intake is rarely a concern of mine. I'm simply a hermit in a cave tossing stones off the edge of a cliff. I'm dark woke. Consider this the great filter of my blog experience. We're only scratching the surface of a franchise that went on to have two more seasons, a feature film, an OVA series, and several spinoffs. This was the most optimal time to air the room out. I want to acknowledge Strike Witches for what it actually is. What would be the point of starting this writing project if I didn't fully commit to the idea? I think the most freeing thing about having an obscure blog on the fringes of the internet town square is that you can set the table however you want. This is a self-indulgent padded room where I carve my honest feelings into the walls. I didn't call this blog "Moestheticism" for nothing. Creating my own page meant constructing a space where I can whine and piss myself about serious topics like moe culture and Japanese animation. That being said, I think this train of thought has run out of steam.

This first season smoothly accomplishes its goal of being an origin story for the 501st Joint Fighter Wing and setting the glue that will pull them together on further adventures. It's less about them cleaning up the military's mess or liberating Perrine's home country than it is about Yoshika's influence as a force for good that allows her to reinforce their bonds and become a proper member of the team. Yes, it's another show about the power of friendship. Part of growing old is realizing how life affirming it is to have people you can count on; to be in the company of those who can be supportive and speak their mind in equal measure. That's a large part of why this particular thematic approach to storytelling rarely gets stale for me. Moe works are stacked to the nines with the exploration of interpersonal relationships. Strike Witches runs wild with ambition as it playfully brings its multicultural cast together with the power of tomfoolery and the trust that builds when fighting side-by-side. A profound narrative isn't necessary here. The cast is the show. That's why it's called Strike Witches, after all!

 

Francesca turning the tables on Yoshika as Perrine watches

The conclusion leaves a tentative sense of finality that is typical of original anime productions. Yoshika returns to Fuso to properly inherit her legacy as a clinic doctor after the 501st disbands following their successful mission. This was the only season of Strike Witches that Gonzo produced, but you'll soon find out that this series never had a dedicated studio to produce new episodes. Just about every single new entry in the World Witches animated canon was tackled by a different studio with some of the key staff retained, particularly series director Kazuhiro Takamura. This first season is best regarded as a blueprint that helped define the structure that its sequels and spinoffs would adhere to, establishing a formula of character focused episodes sandwiched between the setup and payoff for the next major plot development. It also began a tradition where the seventh episode of each season always has a remarkably silly premise that's purely comedy focused. This first offering is a chaotic slapstick chase sequence triggered by Erica stealing Francesca's panties after she is unable to find her own. Francesca then steals Perrine's underwear and, after being caught in the act, starts panic snatching lingerie across the base as the other Witches scramble to apprehend her. The seventh episode concept will return more shameless than ever in future installments.

It's truly a miracle of timing and execution that a series like Strike Witches took off strongly enough to sustain itself for over a decade. Moe multimedia franchises have largely succumbed to the changing of trends, especially those which commonly depicted ecchi scenes. Even after the cultural waves of the late 2000s and early 2010s subsided, the Witches still pressed on for quite a good while. Now that I've returned to the beginning of this series after so long, I can see why it had such a lasting impact. Niche works with a laser sharp focus like this tend to attract an audience of passionate enthusiasts. It took me quite a while to realize that I was part of that group. The characters and their stupid, whimsical world never left my mind regardless of how much time passed. I could always slip back in with ease whenever a new entry in the series aired. There's meaning in realizing you truly enjoy something and expressing that admiration without shame. My relationship with this show was one of the last chains that bound me to the noxious irony mindset that was a well-known plague in anime discussion for a long time. The desire to earnestly pay tribute to a work I've always appreciated is a large part of the reason I decided to start this project in the first place.

We don't live long enough to pretend that certain art is too juvenile or crude to be admired, especially when it moves or inspires us. I'm very fortunate to have learned this lesson early with anime like Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt and Lucky Star. There's little point in trying to fumble for a nebulous justification for why it has value when we have the power to dictate that for ourselves. I try to avoid preaching this incessantly in my writing but it was difficult to avoid this time around. Sometimes an idea wells up within you and it has to be let out one way or another. People should embolden themselves more to proudly embrace what they enjoy including the flaws and the cracks beneath the surface. It goes a long way to rediscover what kind of art stirs our emotions. There isn't always a deep or profound conclusion. It can be simple with no strings attached. Frivolous antics and camaraderie. A sense of warmth that can elicit a smile. Cute girls fighting for a better world in the skies above. The rest is noise.

 

Erica and Trude celebrating their hard fought victory

Regular programming will resume next time when I discuss the AIC era of Strike Witches which covers its second season and feature film. What kind of trials and tribulations will our heroines face six months after their first major victory? The only certainty is that the pants stay off. Until then, stay moe, friends.

 

Minna holding me at gunpoint so I don't drop another rant next time