Strike Witches – Episode 3

Itatakimasu~

Better late than never, although considering the quality of this blog, never would probably be better. After three episodes, I still can’t figure out whether GONZO is trying for a humorous parody-esque of the entire mecha musume genre, or making a serious attempt at a Sky Girls remake with their own retarded unique touch.

Summary

In this episode we learn the true extend of the invasion by the Neuroi. They have taken over much of Europe and are making weekly raids on Britannia. It has extremely similar parallels to Germany’s Blitzkrieg and eventual air raids on Britain in World War II. Maybe there’s deeper meaning to this or maybe the writer was just feeling random. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to note that Japan, or in this case the Fuso Empire, is not the enemy but probably the saviour of the world.

The Mediterranean is now one giant lake

To make sure you know that this anime is set in an alternate Earth, they decided to call all the countries different name. I’m going to start calling this GONZOfy, because they are the only studio that takes perfectly good material and constantly alter it to their own satisfaction because they seem to think they know better than the authors and artists that actually made it. Here’s a list of the countries and their GONZOfied names from what I gathered in this episode and the Witches Chart.

Britannia – Great Britain (because everyone in 1939 spoke Latin)

Fuso Empire – Japan

Liberion – United States of America (why is America always associated with liberation?)

Suomus – Finland

Orussia – Russia (when creativity eludes you just add an extra letter)

Romagna – Italy (I originally thought it was Romania or something)

Hurray for yuri fanservice!

After last episode’s dramatic change of attitude towards war, Yoshika does a complete 180 again and takes up her pacifism idealism again. She refuses to carry a handgun around but is willing to take a high powered automatic machine gun into battle. The logic must be, by reducing the time she holds a weapon in her hands she is also reducing her participation in the war. Lolis are not known for their brains after all, especially not ones that walk around in their pantsu.

“Please kill me.”

It turns out the Neuroi is not all that stupid after all. They show the first signs of tactical intellect in battle as they create a diversion in their latest offensive against Britannia. This completely takes the girls off guard and the Neuroi almost destroys their base of operations, which would actually make the show a lot more interesting, but alas, Lynette predictably saves the day. Do the girls come up with the battle plans, tactics and strategies? There may be a plausible reason for the girls to be piloting the Strike systems, but there is no way 12 year old teenagers girls have the maturity nor the experience to come up sophisticated battle tactics. However, they still seem to lack any semblance of overall strategy as they seem intent on mounting their invasion on the most defended point on Earth.

Future play!

Thoughts

Seriously, this episode probably made the least sense so far in the series. At the start of the episode it was said that the Neuroi was been making an attack every week. However, later when Lynette was talking about Erica Hartmann, Gertrud Barkhorn and Minna-Dietlinde Wilcke, she said they had 200, 250 and 160 kill counts respectively. Assuming that kill counts work in the same way as it does in this dimension, ie only the person who actually kills the thing gets the count, there needs to have being 610 Neurois. It also means that the three of them have being fighting the Neuroi for around 12 years. o_O

She’s taking growth suppressant drugs to stay moe

High powered sniper rifles produce enough recoil to dislocate a grown man’s shoulder if not used probably. These girls don’t even budge after each shot. Maybe they are propelled by some magical force that doesn’t produce an equal and opposite reaction force.

Newton has being proven wrong by lolis with guns

Throughout the episode, there were a few censored scenes. I am baffled by this considering the girls are in their pantsu all the time. It seems kind of pointless to censor select scenes while leaving others untouched.

Nya~

It still has not being explained why the Neuroi is so intent on taking Britannia. It seems stupid to be attacking your enemy in their most defended stronghold. Maybe there’s some kind of cool superweapon hidden on that island.

Screencaps

Those guys aren’t looking at her breasts

Morning Kendo practice in pantsu

Periscopes?

I’m going to bring a pillow to boring lectures too

A blanket could be going a little too far

Boing Boing~

Steam – worst invention God ever made

Dear diary, today I got punched by a wall

Where do those boulders come from and what are they for?

The towel is for extra comfort where she needs it the most

Yep, she’s still looking for hawt lesbian sex

They also serve as a good arm rest

Foul play… it took a dive!

Giant breasts are a no no!

“I change my mind every few minutes!”

Impulse engine > magic powered propellers worn by lolis

Now we know what NASA based the Saturn V rockets on

Comfy

Normally, if you have a few kilograms of dead weight attached to your legs, you would sink.