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Strike Witches TV
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Animation - 8.0 |
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Sound - 7.5 |
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Story - 5.5 |
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Character - 7.0 |
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Value - 6.5 |
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Enjoyment - 6.5 |
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Average - 6.8 |
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| Average |
8.3 |
| Animation |
9 |
| Sound |
9 |
| Story |
7 |
| Character |
9 |
| Value |
8 |
| Enjoyment |
8 |
| Strike Witches is a 12 episode ecchi action anime released in 2008, by Gonzo Digimation. Surprisingly, it contains a very solid cast of characters and a decent storyline, and is more like a fully thought through anime with plenty of ecchi added in, as opposed to an ecchi anime with a mashed up storyline.
As an ecchi anime, Strike Witches has some excellent character designs. The level of detail for the characters are very good, as are the graphics and animation for the anime in general. There are also frequent computer generated scenes, all done to a high standard. Fan service is incredibly frequent, but are all the more appreciated thanks to the quality of the graphics. Strike Witches is very pleasing on the eyes, especially for those who appreciate ecchi.
The theme songs in Strike Witches are performed to a very high quality, and fit in very well with the anime. The voice actresses all deliver a top-notch performance, bringing the characters in the anime to life. The background music is probably the only thing that is not audibly noteworthy, although they are not bad by any means. Strike Witches does not disappoint in its audio in any way.
The storyline in Strike Witches is surprisingly well developed and interesting. It contains romance, drama, and comedy, all executed to a level that significantly surpasses most other anime of the ecchi theme. There is one episode that does not contribute to the main storyline in any way, but that episode is also arguably the most entertaining in the anime. Therefore, Strike Witches manages to deliver significantly more than what is expected of it in terms of its storyline, and definitely stands out among other ecchi anime. However, the overall story still lacks the sophistication that would make it truly special.
The cast in Strike Witches are pretty much all female characters. A few male characters are present, playing insignificant background roles. This does not imply that the characters in Strike Witches are disappointing in any way, since all main characters are unique and are given a decent amount of development. Combined with the high quality voice acting, Strike Witches has an incredibly solid and well rounded cast of characters. And of course, having an all female cast is also beneficial for the fan service.
For an anime targeting audiences looking for fan service, Strike Witches manages to deliver significantly more than what was expected from it. It contains a strong storyline, an excellent cast of characters, and very good music and animation. As a consequence, in addition to being an anime that would be enjoyed by viewers looking for fan service, I can recommend Strike Witches to all viewers looking for a good anime, and don't mind ecchi.
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| Average |
5.3 |
| Animation |
7 |
| Sound |
6 |
| Story |
4 |
| Character |
5 |
| Value |
5 |
| Enjoyment |
5 |
| Strike Witches is one of the several significant titles from GONZO that should have revolutionized the anime industry from its slump of poor marketing and sales, jump-starting every market from niche to mainstream. Though semi-popular throughout the community, SW proves to be ineffective at trying to gain western interests into spending money for right-on-time subs through online streaming and downloading... due to its own mediocrity and the fact that it is yet another waste of budget from the ever bashed GONZO.
Like the Tower of Druaga before it (no, I have not and will not ever watch it), Strike Witches was available to western audiences at the same time it was available in Japan, thus there was no point in fansubbing and distributing it to the world through secondary means. Also like ToD before it, it failed to grasp the attention of the world's span, rendering both titles to be forgotten as just another unknown series to run out of print. However, SW should prove popular around the niche market of magical girls in mecha (Sky Girls, Idolmaster Xenoglossia, etc.) that I am happily becoming a part of.
While SW has many of the good attributes associated with nearly all of GONZO's productions, it also retains many of the bad traits as well. As with most of GONZO's other titles, SW features detailed and smooth animation; everything on screen is fun to watch, especially at all of the action sequences spread throughout SW. Also featured in SW is the glorious amounts of fanservice GONZO can saturate into any of their works that features any sort of women. C'mon, you gotta give it to them when all the girls do not wear pants most of the time! (And I am thankful to say that I did not actually notice this until the community pointed it out.) The background music and theme songs are nothing to scathe at: I didn't care for them but I did not skip the songs. Overall, SW is excellent aesthetically.
However, GONZO really fails when they start their scriptwriting. While the premise of their shows are all capable of scoring awesome, all the potential is thrown away once the plot becomes clear: the Strike Witches are a division of the military defending Europe from the aliens called the Neuroi; there are 10 episodes of character development (in other words, plot-unrelated fillers) and 2 episodes of some out-of-nowhere poorly-developed unbelievable bad guys wrecking up the house. The usual formula is applied, and the show becomes typical and generic entertainment for the masses who fall for this sort of stuff. The usual fanfare is acted out: characters get problems, and its up to the rest of the gang to help him/her; characters are in conflict with each other, and some sort of force solves it and everyone becomes happy. Then, as the ending approaches, they suddenly throw in some bad dudes who will attempt to make the viewer angry by destroying the setting and relationships of the characters until they all come back together to defeat the bad guys. SW isn't as bad as Rosario + Vampire (a very recent past GONZO production of THE SAME FORMULA) was, due to the cute compatibility of the characters; the bad guys were, however, poorly written and makes me angry at the reasons the writers are trying to make me angry for.
And if the above is nerve-wrecking, I will let you know that you WILL be enlightened if you understood the last sentence.
A messy, underdeveloped, and mediocre execution of the plot aside, the characters were as charming as their unashamed way to dress about an almost-empty castle headquarters will do to you. Miyafuji is your typical Mary Sue and will probably annoy quite a few people if it weren't for the fanservice joke about breast sizes that Japan is infamous for. I won't go through the side characters, but their personalities and attributes makes them worthwhile; too bad they don't get as much screen time as Miyafuji AH HA HA HA HA HA HA.
If you love fanservice and anything involving females and mecha, make Strike Witches on your list of mandatory watches. Otherwise, support GONZO's ability to produce more trash by tuning in to their future right-on-time sub subscriptions!
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