GONZO’s new tv series Strike Witches has begun airing, and GONZO, as it did with Blassreiter and Druaga, is putting the show online with a good translation for the enjoyment of English-speaking anime fans. It’s an mp4 file, approximately 200mb, with hard-encoded subtitles. It’s even free of Digital Rights Management shenanigans, which is a big plus in my book.

Unfortunately, what I’ve heard is that someone has put the episode on bittorrent.

I will acknowledge that it’s iffy to put money into a series you haven’t watched yet, but GONZO is trying hard to reach out to us in the English-speaking anime fandom, and to piss away their good will just makes us look terrible.

If you don’t like Strike Witches, or are afraid of watching yet another GONZO series, then feel free to ignore it. I’m not expecting people to buy something they don’t have any interest in, but if you think you’re going to enjoy it, I ask that you at least try it out.

One thing to keep in mind is that you have 14 days to download each episode so you can’t really wait until the series finishes. That said, this also means you can perform a 3-episode test. I’d also normally say that you could possibly wait for the DVDs if you want to support them with your wallet, but there’s a high probability that Strike Witches DVDs will never see the light of day.

You can purchase episodes of Strike Witches via Bost TV for approximately $3.00 US. Keep in mind you have to spend a minimum of $10 in order to buy the points necessary, which is kind of annoying, but that has less to do with GONZO itself and everything to do with Bost.

Episode 1 Review
Strike Witches is the story of a squad of young and powerful soldiers augmented with technologically advanced armored weaponry in order to combat the alien menace known as Neuroi. Its protagonist is Yoshika, a girl with a strong dislike of war whose father died during the conflict. However, a chance meeting with an old friend of her father’s puts Yoshika in a position she never expected.

All in all, Strike Witches is very cute, awfully fanservicey, and  well-animated. The main appeal is that its important characters are basically Mecha Musume. It’s a simple show that is clearly targeted towards otaku, so don’t expect it to be any more than what it tries to be.