English Dub Review: Strike Witches – World Witches Take Off! “502nd, Sister Aces are Taking Off?”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

The Karibuchi sisters are finally reunited and Yoshika makes a surprise visit to heal up Takami, not knowing she’s totally fine. After some misunderstandings, the Brave Witches take off on a new mission.

OUR TAKE

And that’s that, World Witches Take Off’s final episode has…well, taken off! And since it’s an even numbered episode, we get one last check in with the Brave Witches, mainly focusing on the Karibuchi sisters finally seeing each other after some time apart. As I’ve mentioned numerous times, I haven’t seen the Brave Witches spin-off season that fleshes these characters much more thoroughly, but the sisterly bond between them seems to be pretty central in that group, so it’s nice to see this aspect got to be represented here at least. I could not possibly name or tell you anything about any of the other members of that team if you put a gun to my head, but when you’re making a show like this, you really just want to keep in the essential character details…which I guess most of these characters don’t have. Considering this is the B team of the franchise, I guess that makes sense, but it is still pretty unfortunate that this many characters get only scraps of character to work with. Even the last backstory segment focuses on a couple of them and as much as their character profiles SOUND kinda interesting on paper, it would have been better to see some of that in action somehow.

I am kinda glad that Yoshika got to show up and have a little bit of a role in the comedy since this is the last episode and she’s the main character of the more developed show, though as much as I have not been a huge fan of covering this, I still kind of wish that there was one more episode to properly bring the teams together. The OP shows everyone interacting and bouncing off each other’s personalities wordlessly, but it would be that much neater if we actually got to see them, say, at a party and comparing similar traits or in a fight against a Neuroi and seeing how their combat styles blend in interesting ways. I know that they didn’t necessarily promise that this would be happening, but the OP sure led me to believe there would be some sort of crossover. There are supposed ties to certain characters in their backstories, but even a casual watcher like me would honestly like to see something that would properly bring both teams together in a big crossover. Heck, do another movie like they did in 2012! It’s certainly been long enough that it would feel special. But that’s that on this show I guess.