In the first round of the Crunchyroll vs. BOST TV battles, it seems to me that Crunchyroll had a clear advantage over BOST TV. While BOST had a better quality stream of the video, you had to pay to see it while, at the same time, you could “donate” as little as $0.01 to download a PC resolution video from Crunchyroll while such a download wasn’t even available from BOST.
However, that has changed now with Strike Witches, with Crunchyroll now giving options to download the episode for $3 or for $5 (you get an added animated badge plus ipod and psp versions if you pay the extra $2).
Meanwhile, they may get more competition from BOST TV this time around, as BOST TV not only offers a better stream of the episode, unless Crunchyroll has improved theirs (though their stream is still free as far as I’m aware), but BOST is offering a PC-sized download for 150 bost points or, conviently, also just about $3 ($2.99 to be exact, I think, though you don’t get any badges or anything with it).
The primary reason I stopped using BOST for Tower of Druaga was the lack of a quality download, and I didn’t feel like putting down $2 to watch it streamed at BOST and then put down another $1 or $2 at Crunchyroll so I could download it. This time, with the better download and an equal price with Crunchyroll, I can feel better sticking to BOST, who I think is much more worthy of my money than Crunchyroll is.
BOST release is a .mp4 file in H.264 at 872×480 resolution while I assume Crunchyroll’s is once again offering a .avi file in Xvid at 854×480 or similar resolution.
Strike Witches: First Impression (or, What horror has Gonzo Wrought?)
First off, the best way to describe Strike Witches is probably Sky Girls meets Moetan meets a dash of Kanokon.
First, the Sky Girls part: loli opposed to war is lured by cool military gadgets into fighting for humanity against evil invaders of some type.
Next, the Moetan part: Blatant loli fanservice. A lot of it. Apparently they’ve living in a time where pants of any kind are banned for all women except seniors. And I mean that. All women wear only panties or bloomers (with optional pantyhose or thigh-highs) below the waste. I’m guessing whomever rules the world at the time is a hard-core pedo.
Finally, the Kanokon part: apparently whenever the girls activate their magic, they sprout something that looks like a fox ears and tail. Not sure why yet, but it probably has something to do with trying to pander to every fetish known to man. I wouldn’t best against some lovey-dovey twin sister pair showing up or something at some point either.
I just had to face palm multiple times as the only battle sequence that was in the first episode had more panty close-up shots than actual shots of the battle, I think.
Oh yeah, and the acting and writing is horrible. And I mean horrible.
While this is a first impression, it may be a last impression as well as I would be hard pressed to put down over $30 to watch this series. It’s almost bad enough that I spent the $3 that I did.
I’m sure the loli and fanservice fans will eat up this series, but I can already tell that this would easily be a contender for worst series of the year if I kept watching it.