Tag Archives: Strike Witches

Strike Witches: First Impression (or, What horror has Gonzo Wrought?)

Strike Witches logoOK, since BOST TV actually allowed PC sized downloads of their series, I thought I would check out the first episode of Strike Witches. Now I kind of wish I didn’t as both my ears and eyes may never be the same again.

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.

Strike Witches: Crunchyroll vs. BOST TV Round 2!

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.

Summer 2008 Anime Preview

It’s that time again: It’s time to look at what anime is airing in the Summer 2008 season. Shows are listed in alphabetical order.

There are 7 possible levels of ratings that I’ll give a show:

  • Will definitely blog it
  • May blog it
  • Will definitely watch it
  • May watch it
  • May watch it if I hear good things about it
  • Probably Won’t Watch it
  • Won’t watch it

As usual, I’m leaving out anything that seems to obviously be a children’s show. Like always, thanks to the Fansub Wiki for keeping a great list of upcoming shows.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way…here we go!

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