English Dub Review: Strike Witches – World Witches Take Off! “501st, You’re Seeing Through the Lies?”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Yoshika and the rest continue gathering the 501st.

OUR TAKE

We’re back to the 501st this week since this is an odd numbered episode, meaning we’re halfway through their plotline for this comedy parody spin-off deal. This time, it’s about getting back Charlotte and Luccini after they’ve spent way too much time on a vacation by pretending to be on some big mission so the village they’re in will have to put them up for awhile. Eventually the resident officer there gets wise and is ready to boot them, but naturally they don’t want to make the army look bad and is looking to get them out of there under the cover of something else, meaning they plan to solve one lie with another lie. That’s pretty funny and all, though I kinda wonder how in character it is for these two. It’s admittedly been awhile since I’ve seen the first two seasons of the show, but while the third season has shown them to be keen on spending their time on eccentric hobbies, I don’t think it made them seem like they’d willingly lie to a bunch of innocent people for the sake of a free vacation. Not that this feels like some sort of great betrayal of their personalities or anything, it just feels a bit off to me.

And yeah, we’re still on the whole “making a documentary about Yoshika for propaganda purposes” storyline here, though it seems like we’ve gotten a bit off the rails with that. If they were just looking to get a solid profile about Yoshika, they could just show her working hard and flying heroically, even during a battle, to get their point across efficiently. But then again, this is a comedy show, so things like this going totally out of proportion is actually kind of expected. Plus this is a parody of the main show itself, so we’ve gotta give all the core cast moments to be funny with their usual schtick at least once across these six episodes that are a part of this storyline. And I guess that’s the same for the even episodes that are focusing on the 502nd’s storyline as well, though I’m gonna be honest, the fact that I don’t know any of them nearly as well as the 501st means that I’m going to have a much harder time telling whether or not they’ve shown everyone off as their main selves or their comedy selves. Anyway, next week is back to the 502nd!