Format: Region A Blu-ray, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles. Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles.
Length: 95 minutes
Production Date: 2012
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes
In 1939 a mysterious enemy called Neuroi attacked Earth, mostly centring on Europe. Suspected to be of alien origin, Earth’s armies were no match for them. However in the past humanity had always relied on witches, young women, who had magical powers and fought off monsters and demonic creatures whenever they appeared in the world. Military scientists designed Striker Units, wearable machines with propellers that in combination with the witches magical powers, helped the young women to fly. In the battles against the Neuroi, the witches soon discover that they have cores, which when fired upon destroy the Neuroi and dissolve them. The first two TV series follow the 501st Joint Fighter Wing team, where after a prolonged battle the heroine of the series, Yoshika Miyafuji, uses up all of her magical power in a climactic battle.
Two months after the battle, Yoshika has returned to her home country of Fuso and adjusting back to her old life. She surprises her childhood friend, Yamakawa Michiko (who was searching for her in the forest), by riding on a bear that she befriended as a cub. Later the pair hears the distressed cries of a puppy and discovers it fighting for life in a fast running river. Yoshika leaps onto the rocks to save it, but eventually falls in with the puppy and soon finds her self floating downstream and over a waterfall. Lucky a witch in a Striker Unit was passing by and saves Yoshika and the puppy. She introduces herself as Hattori Shizuka and soon realises that it was Yoshika she saved, someone she idolises due to her former military career in the battle against the Neuroi. Hattori explains that she in fact was looking for Yoshika to bring her to Europe to study as a doctor. The Helvetian Medical School, one of the most prestigious medical schools in the world, has invited Yoshika to study there. Yoshika jumps at the chance and her and Hattori board the Carrier Amagi the next day.
While Yoshika is no longer part of the military, she still wants to help around the ship. This irks Hattori to no end and scolds her for not adhering to military regulations. As their journey continues the ship hits an iceberg causing major damage to ship and badly injuring and trapping one crew member. Despite the fire and threat of an explosion, and ignoring Hattori’s commands, Yoshika bravely rescues the trapped and injured man and also manages to get the sprinkler system back in operation, putting out the fire. At their first port of call Gallia, the pair meet two old friends from the 501st; Lynette Bishop and Perrine H. Clostermann. There they spend some time with orphaned children that Perrine looks after. Hattori soon realises that because Yoshika doesn’t act like a solider, it actually helped the 501st become a better fighting force. Later the ship stops at the Rhine to help people affected by a landslide. The 501st become aware of Neuroi becoming more active in the area. Soon Yoshika finds herself in the middle of a Neuroi attack and helps evacuate a local village. Despite the fact she no longer has any magical powers, she joins in the fight alongside the 501st.
This franchise has an infamous reputation for having a bunch of young girls weaning no pants (or a skirt). However the first TV series at least didn’t really concentrate on this fact and to my surprise was quite entertaining. The second series wasn’t as nearly well written and was focused more on the fanservice side of things. Like the “KanColle” franchise, this series revolves around anthropomorphic mechanical girls, a trend that really started in the late 1980’s, but really didn’t take off in a big way until around 2005 with shows like this one and “Sky Girls”. “Strike Witches” is a little bit different to other franchises due the fact the girls are normal people and only wear boot-like mechanical devices with propellers which help them fly. For some reason which I don’t think has ever been explained, the girls also grow animal ears and tails when using their magical powers. My personal theory is that they are possessed by animal spirits which give them their powers. Or maybe they just drew them that way because it’s cute.
Anyways let’s talk about the elephant in the room; the lack of skirts and/or pants. It’s utterly absurd that Yoshika and the rest of the girls walk about in underwear or the old style Japanese school bathing suits, even when they’re no longer in the military or off duty. Let’s face it; it’s pure sexualisation of teenage girls. It serves no other purpose. Even worse with this film there are a large number of crotch shots, especially during battles as the camera passes in extremely close (literally giving the viewer a face full of crotch) as the girls zoom into frame before they take on the Neuroi. It was never this bad in the original series. The story itself is a rather dull affair. I don’t understand why the military themselves took Yoshika to the medical school. She couldn’t be advised by letter and make her way there herself? The movie is a just an excuse to string a number of battles together and bring out the extended cast for the two series, which most of their appearances don’t propel the plot along one iota. For the most part they really don’t need to be in the film at all.
From what I’ve read online there are huge number of highly accurate military machinery and references to key military personal from WWII. This is fantastic if you’re a military nut, but for the general audience it just flies right over your head. The animation by AIC (yes they still make anime, and I bet you can’t name any of their recent shows) is pedestrian at best. It looks no better than standard TV animation from that era. It’s certainly not movie quality except for some parts of the battles. Speaking of which, the best thing I can say about this film is that the battles were very well choreographed and look quite good (gratuitous crotch shots notwithstanding). But other than that’s there’s not much to like in this film. It’s quite a disappointment. Even the personalities of most of the girls are non-existent. Almost the entire cast are softly spoken doormats. They’re very submissive and really, really dull. The exceptions are the extroverted Francesca Lucchini and Charlotte E. Yeager whose contributions to the story and film are just to make obligatory appearances.
Funimation have been really dead slow in getting this film out; nearly four years. Why they didn’t release this earlier is beyond me. I can understand a year or so hold back due to reverse importation worries, but four years is a bit of a joke. The presentation is as per usual; the video is OK, except for the horrible banding which plagues many of their discs. It’s quite noticeable in low light scenes, especially inside the ship during the fire. At least they’ve included the Japanese promotional video and trailer as extras. Funimation now seems to lump all of their previews of other titles as one long video rather than listing separate previews which you can chose to play. It’s yet another thing to add to the pile of Funimation annoyances. At the very least on screen titles in the film are all Japanese, probably because Funimation weren’t supplied “clean” footage for these segments. I can only give this film 5 out of 10. While I loved the original series, I wasn’t all that fussed with the sequel TV series. But this film has finally killed the franchise for me.
Remaining Backlog: Nine TV series, two OVA series and three movies. In addition I am also waiting for the second parts of two TV series to be released before viewing them.
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