AKA: N/A

Genre: Alternate-universe mecha / moe girl drama

Length: OAV, 10 minutes

Distributor: Currently licensed by FUNimation.

Content Rating: PG (mild violence)

Related Series: Strike Witches TV

Also Recommended: If you're into this sort of thing, you can also try Sky Girls.

Notes:

Rating:

Strike Witches OVA

Synopsis

When the enemy is beyond our power to defeat...

When our nation is on the brink of despair...

When all hope seems lost...

Who ya gonna call?

Nope, not him.

Bingo! Moe, furry flying little girls! That'll do the trick!

Review

It feels pointless to write a review of an OVA that doesn't even last ten minutes, and has the substance of a movie trailer. If this OVA really interests you, you could watch it in about the time it would take to read this review. Because of that, I'm taking a slightly different angle. The first season of Strike Witches TV is coming out soon, and Gonzo will be releasing subs of it on YouTube, and other online video services, to view for free giving it a lot of publicity. In anticipation of that, I will write this review from the point of view of how well the OVA interested me in the full series. Which was "not at all."

In what I assume is an alternate version of World War II England, the nation is threatened by a powerful, unknown (or unnamed) enemy. This enemy is equipped with far better weapons and technology, so to save their nation from sure destruction, the English scientists create something even more threatening: moe anthropomorphized planes. Very special, very young girls from around the country are rounded up by their government to strap on oversized flying boots, equip themselves with heavy assault weaponry, and put small, magical animals on their backs that's invisible to everyone but themselves. These magical animals not only protect the girls from harm, but also magically give them small ears and a furry tail. Ah, technology!

Our narrator, a spunky Japanese nymphet named Miyafuji, has just arrived on the frontlines from three months of intense training. For reasons the anime never bothers to mention, she is not even there five minutes before she is given kitchen duty by her hard-as-nails captain. Which she cheerily does, even making sure her new teammates eat healthy by serving them natto. However, her teammates understandably get the impression that she is trying to poison them. Their anger spills over into a mock battlefield, where Miya-chan realizes the hard way that if you want to make a good impression with people, don't serve them natto.

Okay, so, actually, some of that I made up. But because of the structure and brevity of the OVA, it's hard to write an accurate synopsis. The OVA is comprised of three parts: a four minute info dump by a narrating Miya about the Strikers, then a jumbled mess of several scenes strung together, then a short mock battle where Miya names each of the characters as they fly by, and then a very stupid, sappy ending. Because of that structure, there are a lot of blanks that need to be filled, and Gonzo ignores them. The OVA doesn't make any sense.

But what I did understand of this OVA was ragingly dumb. Let's put aside the whole "girls become magical furry airplanes" for a moment, difficult as that may be. There are more layers of stupid to peel back, such as: why is a Japanese child in an elite force to save England? Where did Miya get that natto? Why didn't Gonzo release a competent, coherent OVA instead this junk? And why attempt to tell a story that obviously needs half an hour in ten minutes?

I don't know what this OVA is trying to do, or why it was even released. It wasn't to hype up the upcoming TV series, since the OVA was released last year. I hope it wasn't to pique interest in a potential TV series, because this video is dumber than a bag of turnips. Really, Gonzo, and the rest of the world, would be better off if this OVA just didn't exist.

If Gonzo was trying to create interest in a new series, they only succeeded in shooting themselves in the face. — Bradley Meek

Recommended Audience: Mild violence in the form of moe girls in mock aerial combat.