English Dub Review: Strike Witches: 501st JOINT FIGHTER WING Take Off! “501st Time for A Haircut?”
At what point does a squandering of resources change over from incompetence to malice?
Overview (Spoilers Below)
Major Sakamoto is practicing with her sword, but Miyafuji notices that she is unable to see through her overly long hair. It’s time the major had a cut, but she usually does it herself. Not wanting to allow that, much of the 501st all get together to try to cut her hair. At first, Hartman wants to do it, but she eventually chickens out. She calls an all-hands meeting, but Hartman and her slackers are not interested in coming. On her second call, she excludes them, so they make sure that they are the first ones to show up when it’s time to cut the major’s hair.
Lucchini insists that she be the one to cut the hair. Everyone is reticent, especially after it is revealed that she has the sniffles, but she goes through with her cutting anyway. She is going to cut the bangs when she sneezes and accidentally takes a little bit too much off the top. It’s then up to Miyafuji to salvage the do. She does so, but it is quickly undone again by Lucchini. Perrine is then called in to try to remember what hairstyles the major has had in previous iterations of her hairstyle, but she passes out soon after seeing the major in such a state of disarray. In the end, Miyafuji saves the day, as per usual.
In the second adventure, the 501st wants to throw Miyafuji a party for all she has done for the joint fighter wing. It’s initially going to be a welcome party, but because some of the soldiers are going to be unavailable, it is instead a mother’s day party, and Miyafuji is declared the base’s mother. Nearly everyone pitches in to make sure the party is a hit. Miyafuji does her best to stay out of the way, really just imagining the planning of the party—her favorite part of the whole experience.
On the day of the party, everything seems to be going well. Some of the absent soldiers, however, are saying not to save them any leftover food and drink. This seems a little suspicious until we realize that the barracks really can’t produce an edible meal without Commander Miyafuji at the help. The party planners have managed to serve rubbing alcohol cocktails as refreshments to the guests. Everyone, thus, gets sick or runs as far away as they can get.
Our Take
It’s hard not to just list the quasi-random things that just seem to happen each week on Strike Witches: 501st JOINT FIGHTER WING Take Off! Unlike most shows of its ilk, it doesn’t seem to be building to a joke or jokes in any of its stories. The humor is pretty random, and the structure is what could generously be called very loose. I’m never really sure who I’m rooting for, and nothing that funny ever seems to happen. As a result, I spend the runtime of most episodes somewhere between bewildered and listless. Some of this may be my lack of familiarity with these characters, but five episodes in, I only have the vaguest ideas about a handful of them.
A large part of the problem seems to be who the series chooses to center itself around. Miyafuji is not an interesting character. She seems to be the only member of the 501st that has any kind of practical or homemaking skill, but that is precisely what makes her so boring. She never uses the skill for anything novel or interesting, she just constantly plays Gallant to the rest of the base’s Goofus. That may be something Strike Witches: 501st JOINT FIGHTER WING Take Off! could have gotten away with for an episode or two, but with no development nearly halfway through the season, I find myself struggling to care about any of the happenings on base.
It’s fine for characters to be flat, and they don’t need to grow to be compelling, but then they need to present clear and compelling archetypes. Most of these girls are total ciphers to me, completely dependent on which of the show’s few strong personalities they orbit. Is Aili lazy? Is she crafty? Is she mischievous? She has at times been all three, but still never gets quite enough screen time to pin down. This is unfortunately symptomatic of the majority of this eleven character cast. This show needs some serious cuts to make itself coherent, and that is a hard pill to swallow when the average story tops out at about seven minutes.
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