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Digital Downloads
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Written by maehara
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Thursday, 14 August 2008 16:00 |
 You don't get to be an experienced fighter in a day, so it's training as usual for Yoshika - and the usual problems that newbies face in being accepted by those who know what they're doing. Or who they'd like to be... er, hold that thought. In a tight spot, though, even the inexperienced can be of valuable help...
Yoshika's beginning to settle in to her new life with the Strike Witches, but she's still having problems with one of the squad Lieutenants, Gertrud Barkhorn, who still sees her inexperience as a problem. Looking to finally win some approval from her, Yoshika gets carried away when a training mission unexpectedly brings her face to face with the Neuroi. But she's not the only member of the team who has personal issues that are getting in the way of their good judgement...
Gertrud's issues flow from a sense of failure - having been unable to protect her younger sister Chris from an Neuroi attack (she's now seriously injured in hospital), she's feeling thoroughly inadeqate. Now Yoshika's on the scene, and bearing a strong resemblance to Chris, and so there's a constant reminder of her failure close at hand. That at least means that you can understand Gertrud's attitude to Yoshika - and of course the episode revolves around Yoshika doing something to change Gertrud's feelings and resolve their issues. Awww.
More annoying is our blone-haired, glasses-wearing ojousama girl (whose name I can never remember) - she's just driven by jealously at the closeness she perceives between Yoshika and Mio, and the more of a hard time she gives Yoshika over it, the more you just want to slap her. Hard.
While you do get some character development for Yoshika and a few others, though, what you don't get is any sort of advance about the Neuroi - I'd like to see more about what they are, what they're after, and what they're doing to the large swathes of Earth that are under their control (remember that Britannia is all that's left of free Europe), but I'm beginning to get the feeling that the series is going to concentrate on slice-of-life stories dealing with Yoshika, and leave the war as just a backdrop. Like She, the Ultimate Weapon did, only without being so depressing.
Strike Witches is as shallow as hell, in this form it's edited, and if I'm being honest there's nothing about it that should really make it stand out - but I also can't deny that it's fun to watch, in an entirely mindless kind of way. It's not for everyone, and at US$3 per episode it's a bit overpriced, but there's definitely fun to be had with the series - and this episode is no exception.
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