Better Late Then Never

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Well, "Strike Witches" has a fairly good idea for drama and action, but you do have to get past its preeminent peculiarity, and that is that the warrior witches are all females who look, act, and sound like 10 year olds, but have D cup boobs - some a little less, some a little more - and do these grown-up things. If the creators had made them all 20 year olds, it would have been more believable - you know, like a real army - but having these too young kids, all of whom are scantily dressed and sometimes nude, is simply distractingly weird.There are mysterious powerful creatures, called Neuroi, who come from who knows where that decide for who knows what reason to attack the people of Earth, and the only thing that can defeat them is the magical strike witch team. A good enough plot, if they took it more seriously and used more than sexy babies to fight them. After awhile, though, it does seem like the main purpose of the Neuroi is to be target practice for the witches. Of course, the enemy does occasionally blow up some stuff, which necessitates their destruction, and they are pretty hard to destroy. The main character is a young witch named Yoshika who commands much of the attention, but she is surrounded by several witch-mates who are constantly with her and are part of the action and drama. All of them get to show their stuff, not only on the battlefield, but also in the bedroom and the bathroom.The girls are cute, if way too young (they're supposed to be early teens - which is still too young - but are really not that old looking or acting), and the action and battle scenes are decent if repetitive. The graphics and animation are fair for this kind of thing, and it is actually pleasant enough to watch these young witches go through their routines, although their transformation to witchlings with long ears and a bushy tail when using their magic is still a bit confusing, but that is also kind of cute, and in itself is not as distracting as their youth and boobs. The natural dress of nearly everybody female is bikini panties and naked legs with a kind of jacket on top - also a bit odd, but then one can only guess that the creators wanted this kind of weird look for their heroines for whatever reason. If you can get by the strangeness of the characters they created, you can probably lightly enjoy the story of fighting alien creatures for survival and find it somewhat fun to watch.

Unfortunately I have yet to see the first series of 'Strike Witches' but when I discovered that it was possible to watch the second series on line legally I decided to give it a go. I thought it might take a few episodes to figure out who was who and what exactly was going on but the characters and plot were quickly and efficiently introduced. Strike Witches is set in an alternate version of 1945 Earth where instead of countries battling each other they are fighting against an alien invader known as the Neuroi. The story follows the 501st Joint Fighter Wing: The Strike Witches as the fight the Neuroi in the skies above Italy; or as it is called here Romagna. It isn't all fighting though we get to see them training, practicing with new equipment and even enjoying a soak in their large bath... their modesty being protected convenient steam of 'lens flare'! While nudity is for the most part hidden the same cannot be said of the girls' knickers which are almost constantly on show sometimes in gratuitous close up! Thankfully there is a lot more to this series than fan service; there is lots of action and plenty humorous moments.The 501st is made up of eleven witches from a variety of countries; I liked the character designs; the cute moe style meant the fan service didn't seem as creepy as it might have done if they had more realistic designs as they are meant to be in their teens; to be honest I barely noticed it after a while and just enjoyed the story. The animation looked good and the flying sequences were stunning in a way that brings the viewer into the action. Over the course of the twelve episodes I grew to care about the characters and when it was over I was left wanting more.These comments are based on watched the series in Japanese with English subtitles.