The Fall 2016 Anime Preview Guide

Brave Witches

In 1939, the alien Neuroi invaded, seizing control of most of Europe by 1944. Conventional weaponry simply cannot handle their tech, so special leg-mounted flying units were designed for use by witches, whose magic allows them to penetrate the Neuroi's defenses. Squadrons of witches from around the world were formed for the ongoing battles against the Neuroi, and one such squadron is the 502nd Joint Fighter Wing. Hikari Karibuchi's elder sister is a famous hero from that squadron, and as a witch herself, she seeks to follow in her sister's footsteps. Unfortunately, she's barely competent with only stamina on her side, so she must defeat an ambitious classmate to earn the right to battle. Brave Witches is an original anime work and can be found streaming on Crunchyroll, Wednesdays at 2:05 PM EST.

Nick Creamer

Rating: 2.5

The Strike Witches franchise is so deeply imbedded at a certain crossroads of otaku interests that it can be bewildering just to sit back and take stock. The fact that this is technically a WWII-era drama, but that all the complexity of that era has been funnelled into “everyone versus the nebulous CG monsters.” The fact that magic exists in this world, but is only relevant to magical teen girls, who do all of this world's meaningful fighting. The fact that those girls must wear ridiculous propeller-legs modeled after actual WWII planes. The fact that none of this world's scientists have invented pants or skirts suitable for women, and thus all combat must be conducted in swimsuits or underwear. The fact that witches spontaneously sprout animal ears and tails whenever they don their mecha musume kink-suits.

It can be a lot to take in, and the butt parade is very good at robbing the series of any potential emotional impact. Fortunately, this episode provides plenty of time to digest the inherent assumptions of the Strike Witches universe, because nothing that actually happens is at all interesting or unpredictable. This premiere is an extremely basic “hero hears the call” prologue, where our new lead Hikari fights to prove she can fly alongside her war hero sister in Europe. Hikari is the worst in her class, she's taunted by the class ace, they ultimately have a race-off to determine who goes to Europe, and Hikari's unique skills (in this case, apparently knowing how to get wet without losing speed in the air?) cause her to be chosen as the special deployment. It's a functional but entirely unexciting opening to the series - a basic genre setup told without flair or distinction.

Brave Witches’ aesthetics are also largely just functional. The character designs are a mix of cute young girls and grizzled old military men, and the backgrounds aren't much to speak of. The direction and animation are unremarkable, and the CG used for the flying sequences is pretty bad. CG is traditionally terrible at depicting human characters instead of just machinery, so the fact that the “airplanes” here are little girls with no pants means the limitations of CG are constantly on display. In particular, the sequence where Hikari and her rival flew between some battleships looked like something out of a past-its-prime videogame.

But I'm not sure how much of that really matters, in the end. This is the new Strike Witches series - if its particular blend of butts, biplanes, and basic storytelling is your jam, then it is here for you.

Paul Jensen

Rating: 2.5

While the two shows are pretty far apart in terms of genre and tone, Brave Witches has at least one thing in common with WWW.WAGNARIA!! besides airing in the same season: both shows are franchise sequels that can be approached with little or no background knowledge. There's a new cast of characters for this latest witchy outing, and the story looks like it stands on its own. I've only seen a few episodes of the original Strike Witches, but I didn't feel like I was missing anything here. Aliens bad, witches good, pants conspicuously absent. As long as you've got those three pieces of information in your head, you're up to speed.

As an alternate history action series, Brave Witches is off to a decent start. Hikari isn't the most complex heroine in the world, but her persistently earnest personality makes her fairly easy to like. She's also got a plausible motivation in wanting to emulate her older sister's wartime heroics, and I like the decision to put the two of them together early on instead of making her sister into some sort of abstract goal for Hikari to chase. This episode gets off to a Slow Start with Hikari only getting the green light to go to Europe at the very end, but the training exam does at least help establish her personality.

My primary complaint at the moment is with the questionable fashion choices that this franchise is known for. The whole “no pants ever” thing doesn't really bother me when the characters are zipping through the sky and blasting aliens; the airplane leg ensemble is hardly the silliest outfit an anime character has ever worn into battle. It's in the rest of the series that it starts to get on my nerves. The show plays it straight in terms of plot and character development, and there are a couple of scenes that are emotionally compelling right up until the moment that a wide shot reminds us that nobody finished getting dressed that morning. The visuals get so out of sync with the tone that it's hard to take anything seriously.

Of course, looking to a relative of Strike Witches for serious wartime drama is a bit of a fool's errand. If you're going to watch Brave Witches, watch it for the mix of action and fanservice. It's a reasonably good-looking series, and it has a good grasp of how to make the act of flying look exciting. There's also a strong possibility that the story will get more interesting once Hikari finds some supporting characters to fly with. If you're able to meet the show on its admittedly odd terms, it should be a reliable source of entertainment.

Theron Martin

Rating: 3.5

Although Brave Witches is a spin-off of the well-established Strike Witches franchise (which focused on the 501st JOINT FIGHTER WING rather than the 502nd), its first episode suggests that it is intended to be a gateway for newcomers to the franchise. After all, it takes its first couple of minutes to explain the setting and scenario which was laid out in the original series and its eyecatch fills in the necessary details on the nature of magic in this world (or does it as well as the original series did, anyway). The story progresses smoothly on its own, with the only reference to the original series being a newspaper article about Mio Sakamoto which also shows Yoshika (the protagonist of the original series) in the background. And really, you don't even need to know who they are to get the point of the scene: that Hikari has spotted someone roughly her own age from her own country who is involved in the war effort and takes some inspiration from that.

The first episode entirely focuses on establishing Hikari and the basic scenario, so there is no combat and the actual action is limited to a couple of innocuous flight scenes and the qualifying exam against the other girl who wants to be sent to Europe. This reveals that Hikari, while every bit as plucky as Yoshika was, is also an entirely different character rather than just a rehash. What she lacks in raw power and skill she makes up for in exuberant stamina and she doesn't seem averse to the notion of fighting. She also volunteers instead of being recruited and is seeking to follow in her sister's footsteps rather than succumbing to the call of duty. That should mean that we'll get some at least somewhat different personality dynamics once Hikari joins up with, and starts interacting with, the 502nd.

Evaluated strictly as a stand-alone, the first episode does an efficient job at establishing its story, characters, and premise while also giving viewers tastes of what to expect. The technical merits are also pretty sharp, with the exam in particular being an impressive display of moving perspective as the contestants zoom between and around naval ships. The fan service that the original series was known for is back, though at least in this episode it takes a more modest approach. And yes, the “no pants” thing which is the central conceit of the whole franchise is still around.

Overall, this is looking like a pretty promising start. I wasn't a huge fan of the original franchise but I am cautiously optimistic here.