Thread: Strike Witches

This is a two-part message. ORIGINAL TEXT (13 April 2009, 9:03 pm EEST):

Originally Posted by hinarei

there are lots of shots about with Eila and Sanya together.

Do they also pair Germans with their former archenemies - say, the French - and so on? I mean, I see a certain optimistic "humanity united against a common enemy" ideology in "Strike Witches".

Originally Posted by hinarei

The British character is (...) more clumsy than anything

Bwaa ha haah, *cough* *cough* hee hee! That one would have been a total win back in the glory days of The Pantsu Thread!

Originally Posted by hinarei

Finland is well represented

I must assume it is because of Ilmari Juutilainen's undeniable merits, which the character designer, probably a hardcore fan of aerial warfare history, has been well aware of. Do not get me wrong. As a kid, I considered Finnish flying aces a boring theme, reading mostly about Germans and Brits whom I found cool. It is thanks to "Strike Witches" that I know about this Juutilainen guy today.

I wonder if anyone else here has been inspired to read some military history after checking out this franchise. After all, many nations and many interesting historical people are involved.

***

REPOST/BUMP ADDITION (14th April 2009, 8:55 am EEST):

Sergeant Niina Emilia Katajainen of the Suomus Air Force reporting. Reconnaissance mission accomplished.

Now we know that while episodes 1 and 2 show lots of bottoms and panties, in episode 3 comes in the boobs inspection, Kanako Urashima style at its most extreme. And we get to know sergeant Lynette Bishop of the Britannia Federation especially closely.

As Sarah McDougal once put it (LHm VII:52, p. 25): "The spaz, the titz, and the ditz."

The character of Niina Emilia Katajainen is based on the Finnish fighter ace Nils Edvard Katajainen (1919 - 97; 35 air victories during the Continuation War, 1941 - 44).

Bump.

Originally Posted by Albert_pe

just found this.
Only Good Animes - Strike Witches

This one is down now, as are two other sources I tried today.

After that, I found a piece of news on Sankaku Complex, dated 10th April: "Strike Witches" Licensed in the U.S. by Funimation.

So, my law-abiding friends, no need to watch the bad-quality online rips any more! Just wait and purchase the DVDs! (Sure as heck I am not going to waste my money on this, unless I get an ultra-cheap discount price one day.)

Originally Posted by Khamůl

After that, I found a piece of news on Sankaku Complex, dated 10th April: "Strike Witches" Licensed in the U.S. by Funimation.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY!!!

Originally Posted by Khamůl

(Sure as heck I am not going to waste my money on this, unless I get an ultra-cheap discount price one day.)

i sure as hell am. i liked this. a lot.

Originally Posted by Khamůl

After that, I found a piece of news on Sankaku Complex, dated 10th April: "Strike Witches" Licensed in the U.S. by Funimation.

Curses! Foiled again!

'Licenced' means censored, Americanised and censored o_O Also, it's by Funimation, so all the sense and any nuance in the dialog will be torn to shreds.

This is a sad day indeed

Wait and see the final outcome. In the meantime, I think you can still get your hands on the fansubs if you try hard enough.

Originally Posted by hinarei

Americanised and censored o_O

OT: Sometimes I wonder why other English-speaking nations rarely, if ever, enter the manga and anime business independently. Especially in the manga business, there might be titles to sell well on the British Isles (and in the English-language markets of the Nordic countries, the Far East, etc.) even though they are of no interest to the big U.S. publishing houses.

You mean the original Japanese DVD version has English subtitles?

Originally Posted by Khamůl

Wait and see the final outcome. In the meantime, I think you can still get your hands on the fansubs if you try hard enough.

I asked SK to get me them! His compy packed up apparently... Might've missed me chance now though

The list selo posted I'd already started on. StrikeS group's screens seem to show they've done a reasonable job on the quality, but the eps themselves are huge o_O totally impractical for me to download.

Some interesting online resources on "Strike Witches" (I am including the Wikipedia article for completeness):

Strike Witches - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
List of Strike Witches characters - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
List of Strike Witches episodes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Strike Witches (OAV) - Anime News Network
Strike Witches (TV) - Anime News Network

Strike Witches - Baka-Tsuki
Strike Witches:guidelines - Baka-Tsuki

Strike Witches - Television Tropes & Idioms

Strike Witches TV (Mecha Musume) - AnimeSuki Forum

Okazu: Strike Witches Anime

Bebe2803: Strike Witches illustrations and more (non-English)

Another nice non-English fan site

Aniki: Strike Witches (ja miksei Sky Girls myös) (mainly for my own reference!)

***

An important point:

I have yet to see a "Strike Witches" character to wear garters of any sort. Instead, some (if few) wear pantyhose and over knee stockings without garters, around 1940. In our world, these pieces of clothing did not become widely available until the 1960s. See, the striker unit is not the only innovation ahead of its time in the "Strike Witches" universe! Magic helps inventing lingerie types.

NOOOOO!!!

The Finnish Animecon takes place here in Helsinki on this weekend, together with the older sci-fi convention Finncon, as usual. On Saturday, they have a lecture on "Strike Witches" - and that is exactly when I cannot be there.

Translated from the Finnish program chart of Finncon-Animecon:

"Strike Witches", the hit anime series of last fall by Gonzo, presented an alternate view on World War II - what if the war had, instead of aircraft and tanks, been fought by little girls wearing no pants or skirts? The lecture [by Matias Tukiainen and Heidi Päivinen] will include more or less serious analysis on whether the series is plain fan service or whether it possibly has something of a more profound message to deliver. In addition, a video greeting from Takaaki Suzuki of the "Strike Witches" production team will be seen. After the lecture, the listeners will have an opportunity to send feedback to Japan.

Finncon 2009 - Home
Animecon VII - Etusivu

Sadly enough, the Finnish weeaboos have been too busy sewing their cosplay outfits and have provided no English translations... As far as I can see. The Finncon info pages include bits about Animecon as well, but not much.

of course we know! It would just be of benefit if we could get to twatch the whole of the first series first

[action=Worlds Most Fervent Narunite]shakes fist in the general direction of StrikeSubs[/action]

Wondering what they'll do to progress the second series. Where can our witches go after the delights of the first? What fate does the world hold in store for them? Will there be more crotchsoap? We need to know these answers!

Shame, Kataja >< But this is exactly the kind of thing we could get our teeth in to Any chance of getting a recording or some notes on their speech? A video greeting from the production team I wish I could go! I'd like it even better if I could go and stand a chance of understanding any of it!!

In the A.I.V.A.S. thread, Suigintō asked about the planned second season of the anime. It has been announced, yes, but what do we actually know about it? ANN's latest info seems to date to April this year.

At least it seems the restructuring of Gonzo won't interfere with there being the second season... Something ANN was pretty sure about. I love the idea of a "Nyan-type" magazine too

Got the February and April announcements on ANN and other places, other than that, I have heard no new details, even with my ear to the ground

Originally Posted by Worlds Most Fervent Narunite

I love the idea of a "Nyan-type" magazine too

Ugh, I spent half of yesterday hanging around at the Ropecon (pronounced something like "raw-pay", at least rather than "rope") roleplaying event and heard way too much "nyannn" from various people. It was almost like a meme.

Ropecon | 2009 / InEnglish

coming from you, Ropecon sounded an odd name for a roleplay convention

nothing much that's new regarding it even on sankaku. I'm glad Gonzo hasn't lost the licence to someone else to run with though

Originally Posted by hinarei

I'd like to know more about these, um, secondary characters. I'm not sure if they're in the light novels or if they're going to be animated any time soon (with the hopefully upcoming second season). I'm not so hot on the timeline of the Witches, see? This irks me

I decided to bring your question over here. Posting a few witch pictures can be seen as PR for recruitment, but now we are getting back to discussing the franchise proper.

Most or all "secondary characters" I have seen in illustrations are from the light novels. As the "Iranko Chūtai" series has been running since 2006, someone might as well call them "primary characters". But wait, the "Sōkū no Otome-tachi" manga was launched in 2005... Where are its English scanlations?!

I have been able to track down three good sources on the non-anime characters:

1. Wikipedia describes the major characters of "Iranko Chūtai". The passage is followed by two brief listings of some manga characters.

2. Baka-Tsuki have two comprehensive tables on Strike Witches. I understand that the first table concentrates on "Iranko Chūtai", or, as their fan translation has the title, "Suomus Misfits Squadron"; while the second table includes all strike witches from various sources they have knowledge of. They use the spelling Giuseppina Cenni, probably because Ciuinni is just another mistake by the less-than-scrupulous writer Noboru Yamaguchi.

3. Baka-Tsuki translator Selkirk has published an extensive character introductions article, "Air Infantry around the World Series", on AnimeSuki. It features the most detailed description of Nikka Katajainen that I recall having read.

duh, I forgot this was here thank you for directing me properly

As I know the anime far better than anything else and it's my primary source, I automatically put the girls we see animated as "primary" chars. I didn't know where to put those from outside the group. Even Nikka was a "secondary". Obviously though, the normal course is that an anime has a base, otherwise there might not be enough money to be made from the series for the animation studio. Should have thought of that.

Misfits Squad, eh? I know the anime is looking at being licensed, so why can't the novels be picked up? I want to get my hands on as much of the backstory as possible. I've been a fan of Shimada's work since around 2002 when I first saw his "digital bs tuners" site. I demand English scanlations!

Thanks much for the links. I've glanced at the Baka Tsuki page before, didn't see these. I'll read 'em through

I also like the look of the Pantaloni Rossi

edit: just noticed this today on Sankaku - [Tags: Announcements, Continuations, Pantsu, Strike Witches]

Originally Posted by Sankaku

Government approved pantsu anime Strike Witches has had its as yet untitled second season dated to the summer.

Undoubtedly a huge relief to those concerned they might have to wait until the autumn.

http://fmstudiosamvs.co.uk/images/st...one_avatar.jpg

Looking at this chart (which is the most complete example I've seen of all the factions in the Strike Witches fandom so far), I'm still not certain it's right. The only source listed for it is "imageboard" which makes it rather hard to track down, but it's hard translated too, which is nice rather than having to rely on community translations (which you lose when you save the picture, which is about the only drawback to an otherwise useful tagging feature).

I hope to see more yuri/shoujo-ai in the second season, because it's a shonen series, and there's nary a bloke in sight, so you have to think something's going on. Behold, beyond Eila's infatuation with the fairly oblivious Sanya, there are relations of a sapphic nature elsewhere hinted in the diagram. We go to Fuso for these, and I believe the characters are covered in the light novels, but am not quite sure. Tomoko seems to be involved in broadening Fuso's ties with the Principality of Romagna, while Giuseppina (another Italian crush of mine, along with the gorgeous Francesca) seems to be staring daggers at the reader, while you know that's really directed at Haruka, another tanglement for Tomoko. In the best traditions of teen series, I'm sure an orgy is moments away