War on Pants... BEGIN! - Strike Witches Season 1 Collection Review

Title: Strike Witches Season 1 Collection
Published by: Madman Entertainment (Australia and New Zealand)
Based on: Original Series
Audio: English and Japanese Dubbing
Subtitles: English
Aspect Ratio: Anamorphic Widescreen 16:9
Runtime: 300 Minutes
Cost: $59.95
Classification: This title is rated MA15+ for Animated Nudity and is not advisable for those under 15 years of age.
Blurb: “The series infamous for its overuse of fanservice and lack of pants. Strike Witches focuses on a military force known as Strike Witches, people who yield magic power and fight with big guns in the sky against an enemy called the Neuroi. For the most part, the episodes are purely for fanservice and mostly focus on one or two characters at a time. Despite this, the design isn’t too bad and the music is appropriate both for the era and genre. If you have a thing for girls in bloomers, this is right down your alley.
Special Thanks: Special thanks go to Madman Entertainment for providing me with a review sample of this title.

Everything about this cover of the title screams fanservice: the cover art, the back cover art, the blurb on the back and the big MA15+ warning is bound to get some people questioning if it is appropriate to have this stocked on DVD store shelves. This is a series that tries to make a war look sexy (??), lolified (??) cute (??) jiggly (??) and depending on your fanservice definition, is most probably not going to fail in that regard. However, does it succeed as a series beyond this? Well, read on to find out in my review of Strike Witches, released by Madman Entertainment this month.

Fighting Aliens has never been this CUTE! The year is 1944 and the world lives in fear of unidentified flying objects called ‘Neuroi’.

With the old-boy old guard unable to thwart this deadly menace, humanity turns its desperate eyes to an aerial attack force with much nicer legs. Meet the girls of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing, better known as the Strike Witches. These darlings of the great blue yonder may not have standard issue uniforms, but they do have all the right stuff. Where the average flyboy falters, these dolls blast alients to bits in the bat of an eyelash. With a little magic and a whole lot of leg, the girls of the 501st are winning the war on pants, and aliens!

Contrary to what you may think, this series actually does stick with the Neuroi storyline quite well, and every episode usually involves them in some shape or form. However, the actual storyline starts off well, dips down into the fanservice episodes and then actually does provide a solid conclusion. In the first episode, you are introduced to a number of characters, including the two protagonists Yoshika Miyafuji and Mio Sakamoto and a number of other characters, who whilst implying they might play some role in the series, actually are never seen again, and you spend half the first season just being introduced to the Strike Witches, and if you are like me, still not learning all their names and just remembering them by….. facial appearances *Shifty Eyes*.

In terms of the episodes that actually focus on the Neuroi instead of how much skin they can show on a character, they are of a good standard and, whilst the battle sequences can be seen as generic after a few times, do try and shake things up a bit by using different plot twists in battle, some character development which I shall discuss in a moment and with it, trying to make reference to World War 2, as this series takes place on alternate universe that has all the countries fighting against this invasion instead of fighting amongst each other. The fanservice episodes on the other hand, are what you would expect…. fanservice all over, including an episode which is essentially “Who Stole the Panties?”, with sexual innuendos included throughout the episode. The storyline is not the best, however it is decent and will appeal to some and not appeal to others.

In terms of character development, you don’t actually meet all the characters until you reach the half-way point, even though they appear as background characters to varying degrees. Whilst Yoshika remains the primary character in every episode, each episode generally has another character who receives most of the development for that episode. The thing is, at least some of them focused on the same cause for the development, Yoshika herself, and as well, a couple seemed to focus on the generic “My homeland was destroyed” plot as well. However, there were a few with interesting storylines, such as Lynette, who is the generic helpless girl, however unlike most like her, does not have a tragic background, which was a nice change from the norm. Charlotte also had an interesting storyline surrounding her past life and her intention of breaking the limits of the Striker Unit. Overall, I would say the character development leaves much to be desired, but it was a lot more rewarding to watch then the main storyline.

For a series such as this to work, it would need to be backed up with solid design in all areas. Thankfully, it does have a rather high standard of design. For the characters, not trying to sound perverse but the designs are of a high standard, and whilst each character spends most of their time in the same outfits, they do occasionally diversify their wardrobe and have them wear different clothes at times, often fanservicey. Whilst it may be unnerving (or a major turn on) for some to experience a world where every female regardless of age, wears no pants and often wears bloomers, swimsuits or just panties (Thankfully no commando), you actually forget about it after a while. For the designers, the sky was the limit for the animation, since they were able to use on land moves in the sky. The animation whilst I think could have been a bit more creative in battle, were of a decent quality and they did try a number of combat moves instead of the normal move *shoot* move *shoot*. In terms of environment designs, a lot of the battle scenes take place in the sky, therefore there is very little that can be done to make the design unique, however the Neuroi designs are, interesting if not a bit half-assed. The on-land environment designs are well detailed and are appropriate for the time period this series takes place in.

Opening Theme
Strike Witches by Yoko Ishida

Overall, a very enjoyable song with a nice fast paced beat and some appropriate lyrics for the series. It is honestly not that fanservicey and focuses more on the battle aspect on the series then the fanservice aspect of the series. The animation is smooth but at the same time extremely fast in the later parts of the clip. However, it is all original animation and none of it is taken from the episodes.

Ending Theme
Bookmark a Head by Fukuen Misato

Let me make it clear right now, I really dislike this Ending and everything in it from the song to the animation. The song just doesn’t have a enjoyable tune and the lyrics are average at best. The first part of the animation for the most part consists of Yoshika running forward and then back from the camera whilst showing off her swimsuit whilst you get the full fanservice view of the other characters undergarments.

There isn’t that much to discuss about the music of this series. The music isn’t as diverse as I would have liked, however for the series as a whole, it worked quite well, with some more light hearted music placed in the fanservice episodes whilst the fighting episodes do actually have tracks suitable to the battle environment and suitable to a military environment. As well, they use a decent number of sound effects during the episode for guns, sky battles etc and all of them are also accurate portrayals of the real things.

In terms of voice acting, there isn’t really much to complain about. Cherami Leigh who voices Yoshika does an accurate job of portraying the young, innocent girl with big dreams and after hearing Monica Rial voice almost every single female child character in english dubs (She at least seems to be a quality staple), it is nice to see someone different voice this character. What was evident to me straight from the first episode was that Kira Vincent-Davis, who voices Sakamoto was both my favorite voice actor out of the lot, but also her laugh heavily reminded me of Ryouko Tanaka voicing Kurugaya in Little Busters! with her signature laugh. There is no noticeably bad voice actresses, so all is good!

In terms of bonus content in this collection, there is a small collection which includes:

At least in my DVD case, a copy of May/June edition of Anime Update, a 31 page magazine by Madman
Commentary to Episode 12
Textless Opening/Closing
Trailers for Black Butler, Summer Wars, Honey and Clover and Gurren Lagann

In my personal opinion, this series isn’t as bad as some people make it out to be, and at the same time, maybe not as good as others make it out to be. It is a solid series that does go overboard on fanservice, however at the same time offers a decent storyline and some likable characters. As they have a second season possibly planned for english release (Judging from the fact they put Season 1 on the cover), I would say that I am looking forward to seeing how they will continue the story from where they left off.

Final Score

Storyline: B-
Character Development: B
Design: B+
OP/ED Themes: B
Music: B
Voice Acting: B+
Extras: C+
Personal Opinion: B