English Dub Review: Strike Witches – Road to Berlin “Queen of Nederland”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

In hopes of helping Yoshika stabilize her magic, she and Shizuka are taken by Perrine on a smaller mission to preserve some rare flowers that were once helped to bloom with magic. They meet some salty workers, one of whom is none to fond of witches, but their combined efforts against a sudden Neuroi attack help them to see eye to eye.

OUR TAKE

Huh, well I guess not all of the witches are necessarily paired up in these episodes. My bad, though Perrine and another which, Lynette, are really more paired up because they are both supporting characters to Yoshika and Sakamoto. Perrine has actually come a long way since the first season as being more or less a fangirl of Sakamoto and being initially very harsh on Yoshika, but obviously since then, the two have fought in several battles and Sakamoto has since retired, so it’s nice to see that they’ve managed to bury that hatchet. It also helps that, since this is just about Perrine and not about her bond with any other witch, that Yoshika and Shizuka actually get a bit more focus, with the overall plot of Yoshika regaining control of her abilities being able to play a crucial role. Shizuka is not super important to what’s going on, but she gets things to do so it’s not like she’s stuck in the background. Her main goal right now is just showing she’s a contributing member of the team, which I’d say she more or less accomplishes.

This may also be reaching and/or a sign of me not doing enough of research into the previous two seasons (it’s been awhile since I’ve seen them, okay?) but I remember Perrine stories being more about really personal and smaller scale things, which is why it would make sense that her story this season focus on something like how magic is used in smaller tasks like botany. It also actually gives us a chance at a little more worldbuilding than is usually shown, showing us how there is a bit of bad blood between those who work with their hands and those who work with magic. Interesting that they chose cranky old dudes to make this point, but that in and of itself doesn’t imply any thing too bad. Still, it was neat to see how magic is applied for things that aren’t powering two tiny fighter jet stockings, which actually fleshes out the mechanics of it quite a bit. It seems to be just another form of energy with its own specific characteristics, which doesn’t make it super unique in terms of how magic is portrayed in other media, but it at least makes sense within the context of itself. Still though, the neuroi attack felt way too tacked on. I understand you need some action at the end but there are other ways.