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Digital Downloads
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Written by maehara
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Sunday, 24 August 2008 16:00 |
 With the introductions out of the way, Strike Witches takes time out to have some fun and ramps the fanservice way up in the process. Or it would have, except that GONZO have seen fit to only serve up the edited version to us gaijin viewers - something of a mistake when the whole episode relies on the fanservice...
It's a lazy morning at the 501st, with most of the squadron lying asleep in various corners of the complex - except for the ever-vigilant Mio, of course. Come time for the girls to finally get moving, though, Erika finds that her get up and go has gotten up and gone, leaving her wandering round the complex in a daze - and in someone else's pantsu. Before the resulting chaos can be sorted out, though, the base's attack alarm is sounded...
The whole episode is a one-gag story: having each of the girls wandering around in either someone else's underwear, or none at all. Erika wakes up, can't find her own underwear, so borrows someone else's. They then wake up, can't find... you get the picture. For the gag to work, you're expected to believe that a) each girl only has one pair of pantsu and b) clearly has no objections to wearing someone else's pre-worn undergarments, which is frankly a bit ewww, but then this is comic anime and little details like that aren't meant to get in the way of a good story. Naturally, given the situation, most of the gags are visual - low camera angles revealing what the girls are or aren't wearing. Or at least, if you're in Japan and watching the series on satellite, that's what you'd be getting - in this version, most of the "good" stuff is thoroughly covered by sunbeams, steam, or other such obstructions.
There are some cases where covering the naughty bits has been turned into an artform - the final episode of Tenamonya Voyagers comes to mind, or the hot-spring episode of Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu! for example - but Strike Witches isn't quite so clever. The gag is fun for the first half of the episode, but after that it begins to wear a bit thin. End result is an episode that's a good little diversion, but that doesn't entertain quite as much as it could.
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