English Dub Review: Strike Witches – World Witches Take Off! “501st, You’re Paying Them Back?”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Yoshika, Barkhorn, and Erica continue their efforts to bring the 501st together again.

OUR TAKE

We continue with the comedic short take on Strike Witches, this time checking back in with the 501st. As mentioned last time, it looks like we’ll be switching perspective every other episode between the 501st and the 502nd, and in this case we’ll be following as the Strike Witches continue bringing their members back into the fold one at a time. This episode in particular seems to focus on getting Perrine back, though she’s currently helping out a bunch of sick kids, so they naturally have to film all that for their faux documentary style, since that is also both a recurring gag and part of this storyline. Maybe it’s because the fact that it’s been a couple episodes since this plot was introduced, or maybe it’s that it’s also been an additional week between the dub release of Episodes 2 and 3, but I guess I just didn’t fully recollect things until the episode was well under way. I just thought “oh, I guess we’re still doing this plot? I feel like I’ve heard these jokes already”. Then again, that just might be a difference between the comedic writing of the main show and this comedic spin-off.

But yeah, it looks like the main focus of the Strike Witches based plot is that they’re slowly pulling their group together again while also focusing on how to make it the best documentary, with everyone having conflicting ideas of how best to make that work. Kind of like that one episode of Community where they make a documentary about putting together a commercial for the college, but then make it an hour and a half long and not nearly as funny. Honestly, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be looking forward to here. At least with the Brave Witches, I don’t know those characters super well and have less that I can expect, but that’s going to be every OTHER episode. And it’s not like the Strike Witches plot is necessarily bad, I’m just not connecting to it very much or finding it very funny. But okay, we’re already a quarter of the way through, so it’s not like it’s going to take that long to complete it all in the grand scheme of things. And hey, that means next time is going to be hopefully something I can find more to talk about from! At least, that would be the hope.