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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Watch | 8 | 8 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
 Ggultra2764
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[series:1834#1552] |
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Strike Witches is a series that has uniqueness with the premise it attempts to present, but gets too weighed down by conventional elements and the otaku pandering it milks with its rampant fan service. The alternate 1940s timeline creates a rather unique implementation of magic and technology where the titular witches of the series are made into human jet fighters to take on the alien threat they are contending with, making for some rather unique aerial battle scenes that are nicely animated though Gonzo's penchant for conspicuous CG animation rears its ugly head at points with some of the era's military ships and planes, as well as the different forms that the alien threat takes on. Beyond the unique aesthetics though, the series is mostly rather conventional in what it offers up as the girls all have their archetypal personalities they stick with, the plot follows standard tropes found within sci-fi titles that involve military and alien premises and the show's milking of fan service is pointless in its existence beyond being a shallow attempt to titillate its audience. Beyond appealing to otaku and maybe anime fans who are also diehard lovers of World War II era history, I fail to see anything that would draw folks into watching this series in its entirety.
Last updated Monday, May 25 2015. Created Monday, May 25 2015. | ||||||||
| Avoid | 9 | 9 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
 Tayam
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[series:1834#3259] |
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Quick facts about me:
I'm not a fan of magic, and unless a show has something to make up for the use of magic, it's pretty much a dud for me. I gave Strike Witches a try since I've seen the title floating around so much. Barely made it through the first episode alive. Stretch's review sums it up, though in my opinion he was too kind with his words. Magic works fine with comedy, but technology? Technology is science, and science is anti-magic! Let me cut to the cake what totally flipped me off with Strike Witches: Magic girls flying around at supersonic speeds, having no trouble withstanding +10 G-force maneuvers (which would normally result in instant death), and being able to support heavy guns that weigh as much as them, by holding them only in 1 hand, supportet by their wrist alone, and continue blasting away immune to those previously mentioned +10 G-forces. Did anyone order a pizza with "defying every existing law of physics" ?! Next we are introduced to the aliens who are advanced enough to have flying, cloaking space ships, with rapid laser artillery. But oh how convenient, they lack any sort of targeting systems! They are able to fire 10 shots / second at the flying girls in the opening fight scene, missing them by only a hair (weeeee the excitement - not!), but later when attacking a fat ass fleet of sitting duck battle ships over the ocean, the aliens just spam and miss the targets as if they were running their weapons on windows 95, suffering from some sort of never ending blue screen of death attack within their ships... So now the viewers should somehow keep watching WITHOUT asking themselves "why the hell don't those girls just fly holes into the alien ships, bursting them into pieces, since they are immune to all laws of physic and able to defy any existing logic with their MAGIC?" How could anyone even think of getting drawn into a story, when at any given moment some twist could occur that turns everything around, redeeming itself by simply saying "hey well, it's MAGIC, what's your problem..." ? There is absolutely no point in watching this title. If you want any Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Action, Magic, Fan Service, Lolicon or Pantsu, there are a lot of way better titles out there. Strike Witches has FORCED written all over it. Just as Stretch said, the creators made something new and odd simply for the sake of it. The only way I can imagine watching this is with a lot of friends, half drunk, laughing our asses off how stupid this show is and making fun of it until we collapse. Last updated Monday, November 08 2010. Created Monday, November 08 2010. | ||||||||
| Buy | 9 | 8 | 9 | 7 | 8 | 8 |
 Anonymous #3126
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[series:1834#3126] |
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I think that so far this show has got pretty bad reviews... Maybe I haven;t watched enough anime, and I am naive, but I think it was a pretty good show. I think the characters were good... yep yep, lots of panty shots, and ecchi, and all that jazz but it was just for plain fun, I don't think it weakened the story at all. but it was definitely a good way to spend my saturday. There wasn't much technology... and the technology was there only to increase the posee of the witches.. so I don't agree with reviews in which they say that that did not make sense... In fact, there are several instances in which the witches actually use their powers: telekynesis, healing, seeing beyond??? I think that this is one of those shows that does great in creating excitement and expectations, but unfortunately has a very simple and non-elaborated ending... Sort of similar to what I felt with Venus vs. Virus, for instance... So just give it a shot, you might find it as cool as I did...
Last updated Saturday, May 23 2009. Created Saturday, May 23 2009. | ||||||||
| Unevaluated |
 Stretch
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[series:1834#628] | ||||||
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Sky Girls. Definitely Sky Girls. Those thoughts quickly occured to me as I watched episode one of Strike Witches. A mysterious alien threat (the "Neuroi"), a secret weapon, only usable by cute girls, one particularly plucky new recruit--I could be describing either series here. Am I supposed to be thrilled by these new devices? They are basically streamlined shells that fit over a girl's legs and have small propellors where her feet would be (I bet keeping the two props from hitting each other while in flight would be a hell of a task). magic has something to do with it, but unless the magic frees the girls from having to obey the laws of aerodynamics, I don't see how. And these things are responsible for the Witches' "gaining the power to fight back against the Neuroi"--because now cute girls can flit about and fire sexy machine-guns at alien ships? It's as if the makers were desperate for a new technical twist, which didn't have to make sense, it just had to be different. But they seemed to me like crude precursors to the jet-pack--more like Ink-chan's laughable magic flying getup in Moetan than anything plausible. I couldn't help laughing even as a (presumably) serious battle was raging. In fact, I couldn't help wondering if I was supposed to be taking the show as a whole seriously. Strike Witches is set in 1939 in some sort of parallel universe--I'm sure girls wearing skirts that are so short that they almost vanish at the beltline wouldn't have been tolerated back then in our world. World War II has been replaced by the war against the Neuroi; I noticed that the girls are apparently no longer named after famous fighter pilots as was the case in the OVA. Strike Witches has everything: magic, guns, cat ears, aliens, panties--everything except enough plausibility to take it seriously or enough humor to not care. And the message I get is that yes, the viewer is expected to suspend disbelief and accept the premise. But I couldn't do so; this show is absurd. Again, I broke out laughing as I watched Major Sakamoto in her Sky Girls outfit leading a squadron of conventional aircraft, and calmly issuing orders before combat--while every pilot was essentially looking up her skirt. And why do they carry machineguns? Ordinary 'planes can do that, without much effect apparently. Of course a sword has a devastating effect, though. And then there's the scene where Miyafuji visits the site of her father's demolished laboratory--am I really supposed to be moved when she's crying while parading around in such a scandalously skimpy skirt? I felt distinctly embarassed to be watching something so ridiculous. I noticed that there was really no need to pause the episodes at all, probably since the dialogue is so simplistic that there's no need to do any serious thinking about it. For all the simularities to Sky Girls (which was by no means a fantastic show), I fear that perhaps the most glaring difference will be that Strike Witches won't be nearly as good. I promise myself not to watch any more of it. Last updated Sunday, July 20 2008. Created Sunday, July 06 2008. | ||||||||
Other Sites
| Name | URL |
|---|---|
| Japanese (Language) Series Web Site | http://s-witch.cute.or.jp/ |
