Strike Witches Poster Art
© BOST TV

Mania Grade: C+
Audio Rating: N/A
Video Rating: N/A
Packaging Rating: N/A
Menus Rating: N/A
Extras Rating: N/A
Age Rating: 13+
Region: 0 - Digital Distribution
Released By: BOST TV
MSRP: 1.99
Running time: 24
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Disc Resolution: 480i/p (Mixed/Unknown)
Disc Encoding: MPEG-2

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Strike Witches Episode 06 (of 12)

Adding another girl to the completed column, this episode revolves around the musical girl Sanya.

What They Say:
Yoshika and her comrades are attacked by the Neurois on their way back from a mission in London, but gets help from Sanya who happened to be on a night patrol. As a result, Yoshika is given orders to serve the night shift, and must spend the night in the same room with Sanya, when an envious Eila barges in.

The Review:
The episodic nature of the series where it’s going through the cast list of girls one by one is something that can either work or really drain on the viewer. A lot of it depends on whether you like the cast as a whole or whether you latch onto one or two particular characters. Thankfully, the central character of Yoshika is a good one from which to experience the world of this story from as she’s able to take it all in in a way that works well enough since she’s going through all sorts of training. After the heavy lesbian subtext (subtext?!) of the previous episode, this one is pretty tame.

Returning from London with Mio, Yoshika is introduced to one of the other pilots of the Strike Witches group named Sanya. Sanya’s an interesting character in comparison to the others as she’s very mellow and is one of the night shift witches (bad thoughts) that patrols alone. Even more interesting is that she apparently sees Neuroi that nobody else does and spends her time trying to chase them down and eliminate them but only seems to scare them off. In some regards, she seems positively cracked in the head which isn’t helped by her cool manner towards everyone else as she keeps her distance from them. Naturally, this is all prelude to Yoshika being tossed on the night shift herself to experience these things and to learn from her.

Sanya is the kind of character that feels like too much of a cipher, too much of an outsider, enough so that even with Yoshika drawing her into the main circle doesn’t help that much. With a far too mellow and subservient voice and a generally shy personality, she doesn’t have all that much presence. She is an interesting character in her own right, especially with the kind of magic that she uses that lets her listen in on radio frequencies, and her background is one that is a bit more interesting than the others as well. With her family having been in Vienna and a background in music, she has a certain flow to her movements and speech that helps her to stand out from the rest in that way. But within a group, she’s one that is easily drowned out or even simply ignored for the most part.

In Summary:
There is naturally a bit of action to be had in this episode as well, as that is the standard formula for the series after we got past the first episode or two. A bit of action at the beginning that highlights another aspect of the Strike Witches, deal with the character and their quirks and then show how those quirks help the team and binds everyone even closer. It’s not a bad formula, but for the most part the draw of the series still isn’t the characters for me. They’re cute but they annoy me with their uniforms. The action is mild but I really like the overall concept of the series with its alternate history. Finding a good blending of the two hasn’t really hit with the series yet and that’s left me feeling a bit underwhelmed, especially after the first couple of episodes which were a bit better overall.

Features:
Japanese 2.0 Language, English Subtitles

Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70" LCoS 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.