Pantsu anime Strike Witches fancies itself a serious drama with romantic and sentimental wartime themes and exciting aerial dog fighting action, if the latest episode, number eight, is anything to go by. Those keen to assert its credentials as a serious anime rather than a opportunity to scrutinise the nether regions and lately, nipples, of various adolescent girls are sure to be delighted, but serious pantsu fans will come away with little.
The serious scenes are very serious, with strong themes of ties of duty and conflicting loyalties, along with an exploration of the tender hearts of the young maidens themselves, struggling with alienation whilst serving their countries as unflinching weapons.
However, these shots are there to remind you, regularly, that it is all a glorious farce to justify 13-year-old girls doing the splits in mid air with nothing but their not-pantsu to preserve their modesty, amidst what must be a very respectable animation budget.
No real service of any kind in this episode aside from in the drama and action scenes as usual. The constitution of these episodes in this on/off fashion seems rather unbalanced.
What I was most impressed by is the quality of animation in this episode; it is fantastic. The CG battles and various landscape and panoramic views all look magnificent, and the witches are appealing and fluidly animated. Production values are really first class – you may wish to have a look if you have not yet done so out of pantsu related disinterest.
A new character appears?
No, just a figure, based on a witch you can see in the gallery.
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The Boosttv version is cesnored. I can accept free streaming is censored but not the pay one. I never spent a cent for something edited. Aggravating this, Strikes fansub release uncut edition for certain episodes, so no way i support the official fansub. Epic fail.
Not sure, but the Witch doll looks extremely familiar to one of the characters in the light novel. :S
Otherwise, it was completely Gonzo-esque to pull some plot-twist at the end with Minna drawing a gun like that.
Much like Sky Girls, it has all we need
Gonzo has been releasing Strike Witches with English subs simultaneously worldwide via sites like Youtube and BOST. Strike Subs aren't "subbing" anything - they just rip the official subtitles and release it as theirs. You probably shouldn't be plugging these guys when the anime industry is trying to actually provide a legal alternative to fansubs.
I can't really argue with some of the points being made here (although I would still expect to see it in HD, and I am not going to accept a censored product), so I can remove the link if everyone is so keen on BOST.
Now can we get back to discussing the distressing lack of not-pantsu...
I'm sorry I know I'm kind of late, but this: "provide a legal alternative to fansubs" just made me rage so hard.
There's nothing illegal about a fansub whatsoever.
The people who watch the shows when they air on tv pay their tv provider and use the access the provider gives them to watch any show airing including anime.
The people who watch fansubs pay their internet provider to have access to the internet and can use that access to download fansubs and watch them.
We both pay and I see nothing illegal taking place.
But I would love to hear an actual reason as to why you think fansubs are "illegal."
The TV stations pay millions to the studios for broadcast rights. ISPs pay nothing to studios, so your argument is rather specious (not that I am intending to criticise fansubbing).
I find that the "official" subs released online like on BOST and Youtube are pure TRASH in quality, and are always the censored version for "American viewing." Whatever the fuck that's supposed to be.
I do not think Strike Subs are stealing the official subs. Unless you can provide proof otherwise, I see this as just baseless argument to try to save your own ass. Because it's irrelevant in the main matter at hand, Who really cares? SSubs released a higher quality on their original release (which can be seen from their site), and THEN did a DVD rip even going as far as redoing multiple episodes for color quality (which can also be found in the archives of the website as well).
As much as it pains me to say this, yes, the official companies are indeed providing a "legal alternative" to fansubbing, but only on select and most of the time POPULAR anime. Not all of it. I wouldn't be able to find half the anime I have on my HD online ANYWHERE to watch, even on megaupload and whatnot.
If they would give quality releases that don't require really fast internet speed / cpu power/speed to load and watch them (which alot of people do not have), They may have more ground to stand on. But they do not.
As Artefact said, most of the anime popularity, in the US alone, is from raw rips and the fansubs that follow. Manga is no exception to this rule, as manga and doujins are released with translations, that's the main popularity source.
Of course, since this was all in 2008, times have changed now. But to this date now, in May of 2010, we still do not have quality subs for most anime. The quality we DO gain is from the most popular anime like bleach/naruto/FMA/ and whatnot. All of that can be found online with HQ and subs, but of course. There are many times more fans who watch mainstream anime then those who watch a wide variety.
It saddens me to see that most websites only cater to those who can easily watch the same anime elsewhere only because there's a huge mass of those not smart enough to delve deeper. That is truly the problem of today. They do not release ALL titles, effectively reducing the anime we are exposed to, making most people, as we call them, "Cartoon Network Junkies". Thus when we don't know about others, do not look them up, and continue to watch popular shows without knowing there's so much better out there. It's a shame.
YouTube does not in my mind in any way constitute an alternative to watching fansubs. Personally, I would never watch an anime on YouTube.
And it should be plain by now that fansubs are the major factor behind the rise of anime in recent years, so frankly I am sceptical of whether there is even a need for an alternative, even from a commerical standpoint, given that no amount of marketing could likely have replicated the success of a franchise like Naruto.
They are welcome to pull their fingers out and start distributing their properties online in HD, but I don't see them making much effort in this direction.
If releasing the episodes officially subtitled, the same day they air in Japan, and making them available for streaming and download is not enough effort for you then I don't know what the hell do you expect them to do. You can even watch a low quality stream and then decide if you want to pay for the HD download.
I'm willing to believe that you didn't know what you were talking about, because there's no way to defend your position otherwise.
And Strike Subs are two weeks behind anyways.
Their download edition still isn't fully HD, and more generally they don't offer DL versions for many titles, but otherwise I accept your point.
Youtube sucks, but I think BOST's releases look quite nice. And it seems a bit self-entitled and greedy to say "RADDA RADDA HD, NO CENSORSHIP!1!!" because that's more than what most Japanese TV viewers get.
The problem is we are not comparing their offering to the TV edition but to what people are commonly downloading... and Japanese TV viewers are getting a wholly different set of offerings. The non-TV viewers are all likely to be watching the HD Gifu uncensored version anyway.
Although I'm sure this episode was made with good intention, I was left highly disappointed. This was not the Pantsu Witches that I'm used to seeing every week. Here's hoping that things will go back to normal soon and that this anime won't try to be too serious.
Oh, and this episode sucked balls. Horny male teenagers is the last thing I want to see in Strike Witches. I hope this is the last time, because it could seriously make me drop the series, as much as I like it.