Strike Witches: The Movie

Just watched Strike Witches: The Movie.
Genre: Action, Ecchi, Military
Rating: 7/10

Warning: Strike Witches 2 spoilers ahead.

The Strike Witches movie takes place a bit after the events of the second season.  Miyafuji has returned to Fuso and is studying to become a doctor.  Of course, the war against the Neuroi is far from over, and once again Miyafuji gets mixed in with the members of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing as they single-handedly tackle the threat.  Even without her magic, Miyafuji is determined to help out by doing things her own way.

The most notable new character is Hattori Shizuka, who acts as the "new guy" in the series.  Her personality is similar to that of Sakamoto, but much younger and inexperienced.  Her character helps introduce new viewers to a bit of the Strike Witches universe, and serves as the rule-touter in place of Sakamoto, who is absent for most of the movie.  Another new character, Heidemarie W. Schnaufer, serves as a Karsland night fighter.  Being that I have a soft spot for the radar-using witches (see: Sanya), I liked Heidemarie a lot.

I was hoping there would be some expansion on the lore of the Strike Witches universe, and we got a little bit of a glimpse of other units and their witches.  We were able to see some of the Romagnan and Orussian units, but once again the Liberian units are pretty much nonexistant.  Surely Yeager isn't the only notable Liberian!  We had plenty of aces!  What about the rest of the 357th?

The story for the Strike Witches movie is nothing new to anime movies.  That is to say, it's pretty cliche and follows the same formula that any action movie made in Japan has followed for the past umpteen billion years.  But, that's not to say that it was a bad movie at all.  The animation is very nice and there's a lot of small details that were very enjoyable.  I really liked the scene where Barkhorn changed out the barrels on her MG-42s.  There's even a scene depicting a Tiger platoon!  The air combat is very entertaining, though I wouldn't put it on the same level as the Nanoha movie.

"Detecting strong yuri waves coming in from 11 o'clock."

Going into this movie you should have an idea of what Strike Witches is like, but if not, expect lots of panty and ass fanservice.  This is the famous "girls without pants" anime, after all.  Also, you don't even need to be wearing goggles to see the yuri overtones in this one.  I expected Perrine to climax and fall out of the sky when Sakamoto finally showed up.

I find it interesting that the Japanese include the battleship Yamato in so much of their fiction.  Even in Strike Witches, which centers primarily on WWII flying aces, the Yamato plays a role in every season, including this movie.  There's no doubt that the Yamato-class represented the most powerful and massive battleships ever developed.  However, the service records of the vessels are nothing more than footnotes in history.  Their contribution to the Japanese war effort was minimal, and each of the two operational ships, Yamato and Musashi, were sunk by American aircraft.

In conclusion, I would recommend anyone who likes action anime to check out the Strike Witches movie.  It'd certainly help to watch the series first, though, since the movie doesn't provide much backstory other than "these are the witches, these are the bad guys."  If you liked this movie I'd definitely recommend the Nanoha movie (Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha: The Movie FIRST).  With that movie, though, it isn't necessary to have knowledge of the Nanoha universe.  You can jump right in!