Some quick first impressions: Strike Witches, Birdy the Mighty Decode and Yakushiji Ryouko no Kaiki Jikenbo

Strike Witches

Short Synopsis: Our lead character becomes a witch that fights against alien forces.
Highlights: Lacks the style of the OVA.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6,5/10
It’s a shame that the style of the OVA was abandoned for the tv-series. Still, overall Strike Witches did its job, I guess. Ironically, at the moment this seems to be the perfect series for Gonzo to get some of their funds back, because stuff like this definitely sells. There’s lots of fanservice indeed, but it’s nothing when comparing it to Sekirei. This episode was nothing special at all, but it did serve as a good enough introduction, although I wonder whether trucks can violently explode like that. There are lots of characters, which is going to be either this series’ saving grace or doom, whether or not the creators can develop them sufficiently within 12 episodes. I personally doubt it, but I’ve been surprised by such a series more than once.

Birdy the Mighty Decode

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets killed and ends up sharing his body with a female alien cop.
Highlights: Great style, awesome action, fun characters
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
This has been my most anticipated series of the season, and probably the weirdest most anticipated series I’ve ever had for a season. It doesn’t disappoint at all, though. What we have here is a fun action-series, sharing a deep contrast with the other action-series this season (Ultraviolet), which is much darker and melancholic. Birdy the Mighty is sortof like (and it rather disturbed me when I found this out) To Love-Ru done right. We’ve got an alien in a space-ship, but instead of the predictable princess, being chased, she’s a cop, after a bunch of bad guys. When she meets our lead character, she doesn’t instantly fall in love with him without any reason, but instead she accidentally kills him and feels sorry for her own mistake. She also has a dress-up robot, but he dresses up as a strange transsexual. Overall, it feels like much more imagination went into creating this anime, and it’s amazing what a bit of imagination can do to my opinion of a series. And of course, this is being done by the director of Noein, so of course: the fight scenes are bloody amazing. What surprised me the most during the summer previews is the bad reputation this series seemed to be getting, simply because of its name. I mean, what’s so bad about calling your series Birdy the Mighty?

Yakushiju Ryouko no Kaiki Jikenbo

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a policewoman, who gets assigned to supernatural cases.
Highlights: Glamorous look at the way of a detective, but at least the characters are interesting; good luck at explaining that plot-hole at the end of the episode, though.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10
Well, this one turned out to be different from expected. What I expected was a supernatural mystery-series, but what I got was a thriller: it’s pretty clear what the enemies are, and they need to be stopped. I may not work with the police or anything, but I do think that the depiction of inspector Ryouko could have been more realistic: she spends the entire episode buying bras, swimming and in fancy clothes, while doing her investigation that’s in no way systematic. That’s why her assistant is the interesting character in this series: he has to put up with her eccentric character, while trying to do his own job as well. I’d really wish for the bad guys to get some more depth in the next episode, because they were rather boring in this one. Ah well, at least this series is backed up by nice enough graphics and an interesting soundtrack that combines techno with eerie sounds.

12 thoughts on “Some quick first impressions: Strike Witches, Birdy the Mighty Decode and Yakushiji Ryouko no Kaiki Jikenbo

  1. Things to ponder while watching Birdy: how many of Tsutomu’s classmates will turn out to be aliens?

  2. Ah I forgot about Birdy the Mighty Decode, the OAV from a the early 90s sure was entertaining and action packed I remember, hopefully since the series has a good director on its hands it will develop the drama side that the OAV introduced too late since it did it pretty well.

  3. There is no way that the fanservice in Strike Witches is nothing compared to Sekirei. There were crotch shots everywhere for the first 5 minutes, and most of the female characters are wearing no pants. I would like this series a lot more if the characters were, say, fully clothed.

  4. Thumbs down for messing with Birdy’s hair. The old style looked cool, the new one looks just stupid.

  5. I was sure i wrote something this morning… maybe i was still half asleep and hit cancel or back… well, nevermind^^”

    I wanted to spend 2 cents on Loli Witches. I studied physics in school and they said that unmixable elements such as oil and water don’t mix well together and you may end with some disgustin liquid. Well loli and war,child and high tech are like oil and water, only otakus may think they can mix somehow in some random story… but OMG, they actually mix well for some unknown arcane will and series like this or his older sister Sky Girls may end up nice… don’t ask me how that could happen. I am an engineer and am stil not well introducen in magic or stuff…
    this first episode of Loli Witches is nice and entertaining. We have all the things an old pervert otaku may like: Lolis, nekomimi, pantyshots and whatever, but we also have a story that may be interesting. Actually not original at all, as it looks the copy of Sky Girl’s one…
    And Sky Girls was actually nothing special but a nice serie…

  6. I really wish that someone would do a proper manga to anime adaptation of Mahou Sensei Negima. It is, in my opinion, the best fanservice series out there because it actually has a good plot and good characters. Moving on, I think strike witches and sekirei are leagues ahead of last season’s fanservice shows (kanokon and to-love-ru) at least.

  7. Yay Birdy the Mighty Decode! I’ve been looking forward to it as well, as I also quite enjoyed its early 90s counterpart. Between this, Slayers Revolution, and the new Someday’s Dreamers, it seems the anime companies this year are really banking on nostalgia value with their shows.

    Well, Slayers Revolution (the only one I’ve watched thus far) sure turned out well (feels JUST like the old Slayers, if not a bit more manic), so I’m hoping the other two will as well… and based on your reviews, I’m guessing I won’t be disappointed. (:

    -Tom

  8. The first ep of Birdy the Mighty Decode was amazingly fun and nicely animated, particularly the fight scenes (ooh, lookee all the pretty colors!). The character designs are great too and it’ll be interesting to see how our hapless hero adjusts to sharing bodies with a hawt intergalactic cop chick with a sexually-confused robo-servant, heh. It’s sorta like Men In Black mashed together with Ranma, of all things. The music is top notch, and ED was pretty catchy too and reminded me of the ones from Gurren Lagann (in fact, I’m fairly sure it was sung by one of the GL bands). I just hope the show can continue with its high production values.

  9. I can’t wait start Birdy. Seems like a very entertaining show. If Strike Witches has some decent character development that Sky Girls had, I might watch it from start to finish.

  10. tq for the comment i love birdy too.now can anybody help me plz,
    i want to know what the name of the creepy song from this anime when ryunka sometimes awake.thanks before^^.

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