English Dub Review: Strike Witches – Road to Berlin “The Strike Witches Come Together”


OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Yoshika does her best to defend the Doge ship with her malfunctioning Striker Unit, but the iceberg armored Neuroi is too tough to defeat on her own. Luckily, the 501st make their dramatic return to duty and destroy the Neuroi and officially go back into duty, along with new recruit Shizuka.

OUR TAKE

This episode is pretty much just the second half of the first episode’s story, which more or less is just about getting Yoshika back in action and restoring the status quo of that the majority of the first two seasons had. That being getting the band back together and sticking them right back in that same ol base they’re usually at. There are a couple notable changes to this to note the continuity of things, those mainly being that Sakamoto is retired from active duty because of her aging out, while Shizuka, the character introduced in the movie, now joins the team as the newbie. This is a nice bit of paralleling with Yoshika’s role in the first season, when she was the newbie, but now she is a seasoned veteran who can mentor this new recruit. We’ll get more into that next time, since the next episode will be mainly focusing on Shizuka adjusting to her new position, but for now, let’s look at how this episode showed a return to form for both Yoshika and the show as a whole.

My mind is kinda foggy about how exactly Yoshika first got into the group, and frankly I’m too lazy to look it up or rewatch the first episodes (plus saying all this helps pad out the word count! Woohoo!), but considering she went from being a greenhorn who was barely keeping it together to flying into combat on whatever Striker Unit was available, even one that’s falling apart, shows that she’s come a long way and is flying high with the best of them. Or at least she will be once she gets a proper unit. Even if I don’t remember exactly how her journey started, I can at least tell that Yoshika has definitely come a long way. Apparently not long enough that she learned how to wear pants or to avoid this show’s gross obsession with crotch and ass shots, but definitely long enough that it is deserving of credit. And while we haven’t seen much of them yet, it was nice to see everyone else in the 501st get a moment to shine and show off the character traits they’re all known for. But this was definitely a Yoshika centered episode, so we’ll get to all the rest in their own time, I’m sure. In the meantime, STOP MAKING ME LOOK AT THEIR BUTTS. I’M ABOUT TO CALL THE COPS ON MYSELF.