Strike Witches is easily the most overly mechanical show I've seen in a long time, and that is not a compliment. To showcase exactly what I mean, the following is a list of overly mechanical, nonsensical issues that take place in the first episode alone:
1. Nothing important happens until our main character decides to dump an entire expositional onslaught upon her best friend about her dead dad, which is completely nonsensical because why wouldn't her best friend already know all this given that her dad died many years ago, and its too much information to just be a passing mention. It's obvious this scene only exists to give our character a "want" (the driving force behind her actions).
2. During this same scene she mentions how much she hates the war because it took her dad from her, but her feelings about the war are completely irrational. She wants to do what her dad told her, which was basically to save people, but despite this she hates the idea of fighting in the war, because it killed her dad, like not fighting in it is somehow going to make the war not exist? It's a completely irrational and illogical way of thinking, which was clearly constructed just to create a point for internal conflict.
3. A character who wants to recruit the MC into fighting in the war happens to be spying on them during this conversation, and it just so happens that the cart they are riding on crashes. This crash gives the MCs best friend a completely illogical injury--she was thrown from a cart into the grass and somehow her chest was bleeding after? Like, I could understand a broken bone or something, but whatever, not the core issue here. Beside the illogicalness of her injury, the real kicker is that this is so obviously done only for the purpose of showcasing the girls powers in front of the recruiter.
4. After this a letter just so happens to arrive from her dead dad, which JUST SO HAPPENS to have a picture in it, and in the picture is the girl who was trying to recruit the MC, WHAT AN AMAZING COINCIDENCE. Okay, okay, I'll chill out with the caps lock. Point is, this is the most overly orchestrated bullshit to force the main character to come to the conclusion to go with the recruiter even though she, "isn't going to help fight a war" which she's definitely going to end up fighting in. I can go on with more examples, but let's just skip that and talk about how Strike Witches scores in each category:
Story: 2, The start of the story is very similar to a hero's journey story. Basically, the first couple steps of a hero's journey simplifies down to: a hero(es) has a cry for adventure, they're reluctant at first, but they ultimately overcome this reluctance, and they set out on their journey. This is exactly how the first episode goes, but after that the story-telling shifts to an episodic style with every episode focusing on "building" the character of a particular member of the Strike Witches (plot twist, all of the characters are exceptionally flat). Last couple episodes switch back to a linear story-telling style, where you actually need to see the episodes in order to understand what's going on (well, kinda, truth is every "plot development" has one thing in common, which is that none of them are threaded through the story in a way that makes you go, "oh that made sense". No, instead, they're just randomly happening, because fuck foreshadowing). Small example: there's a scene where someone says, "but who would do this", and then another character is like, "I can think of one guy", then proceeds to mention someone we've never heard of before, who (I know epic plot-twist) ends up being the villain of the season, woooo.
(PS. I actually thought the strike gear was kinda cool, but I can't help but feel like they made no sense and weren't explained in any actual depth, oh wait, that's because all of that is true...)
Art: 7, I'm not sure why there's a law in the Strike Witches universe that all women must never wear pants, but I'm for it! All joking aside, this is clearly another OVERLY MECHANICAL decision in order to provide the viewer with an absurd amount of fan service. Ultimately, while I felt it worth discussing, this doesn't actually have any weight in my scoring; this scoring in fact is completely representative of the overall quality and consistency of the art work, which is fairly standard, but satisfactory.
Sound: 4, While generic, a few of the OSTs served as a redeeming factor here, but both the OP and ED were so bad that I couldn't even listen the full way through once, and every time after that, I immediately hit fast forward the second I heard them start. A couple VA's were decent, the MC's VA was annoying as hell and if I ever have to hear Sakamoto's fake laugh again I might have to commit sudoku (yes, I'm memeing, calm down).
Character: 2, Strike Witches has two fundamental problems. First there's like 11 "main" characters and 12 episodes, and while it's not impossible to write a story with 11 strong characters in that amount of time, this story fails to make a single one of them more dynamic that a cardboard cutout. Second, they're all ridiculously troupe-based, and even though none of them have actual character arcs, they all say they've changed a lot because of the MC. The truth is that the writer just wanted that overly idealized protagonist who just magically changes the people around them because they are so cool and awesome.
Enjoyment: 5, This number feels like it might be inflated, because I've basically forked over some pity points to Strike Witches because it gave me ironic enjoyment. Don't get me wrong, there was plenty to be annoyed by, but the level of nonsensical bullshit that Strike Witches achieves is actually kind of enjoyable ... to make fun of. It's definitely not something I'll ever rewatch, but I'm actually tempted to watch season 2 just to continue making fun of it.
Overall 4, I didn't know much about Strike Witches going into it, and my expectations were anything but high, but somehow this still fell below them. I don't really want to quote this again, but don't listen to anyone saying, "Please don't say it is bad just because you find girls in panties horrifying", because Strike Witches is very bad and the only way I can think you might be able to milk even an ounce of enjoyment out of it is because either you really want to make fun of a bad anime or because you really want to see girls in panties.
