Brave Witches – 10-12 [END]
Salute!
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I’ve beat around the bush long enough. So let’s finish off the series, and start the new year over with a clean slate. |
Series Wrap-up
So yeah, I’ve slapped about three drafts down for this (you’ll be getting grabs and stabs from all of them) ranging from a complete burial of the show, to the hang it, let’s just cheer for it no matter what. The third was a grandish appeal to the almost universal fanblogger hand wringing of, “never has such a series done this to this in this way before”; then I proceeded to complain about nearly everything and add how self-entitled I am to deserve better, and so on and so forth. So yeah, saying goodbye to that and coming clean as best I can on Brave Witches. It was mediocre, and now it’s over. Later folks! See you in the Winter season!
Well I think I might owe the show, and you, a bit more than that. At it’s heart the Witches franchise isn’t that difficult a set of shoes to fill. It’s pretty obvious that two types of fanservice are being administered to from the get-go, and in that context, Brave, follows through with aplomb. Now one type of service, the obvious kind, can be subject to all sorts of arguments one way or another, and it’s not my aim to rehash any of them here; but comments are yours so feel free, keep it civil. The other type of service is the military kind; I’m not at all qualified, or even desiring, to speak at any lengths about that. But it’s there, and I’m sure it’s important to the creators of the franchise, and of equal importance to the those segment of fans.
But after so many installments, I felt that a natural progression of, not only the timeline and the war is in order, but also the method of storytelling. This is the weakest aspect of Brave, and perhaps the most contentious. Overall I felt this show took it safe and merely repeated aspects of the previous shows, and matched those structures point for point. They played it pretty safe, and much like warfare being repetitious, so are the underpinnings of mediocrity. It wasn’t so much the Kanno is Perriene and Hikari is Miyafuji match in character types that made it samey, but it was the overall samnesss of that structure. This Neuroi nest was no different, the progression of discovery, build up, goal making, goal seeking, and resolution were the same as well. I would have loved them to take the less is more approach and only focus on a few characters and keep the rest in the deeper background. As it stood they took a very limited two dimensional approach to most of the characters outside of the Break Witches characters, so not too much would have been lost had they worked with a more limited palette. As it was, this felt like a dump on the previous characters in the franchise; as if they admitted that those ones outstayed a welcome of sorts. Honestly, the merch would have sold well either way, limited or full, new characters or previous…
Well, as has become my normal approach to this show, short order bush beating; the quarry has flown, and there ain’t anything left to shoot at…I enjoyed the show for what it was worth, which was a very bare bones, had limited budget, and was a beat for beat repeat of older material, and I would have wished it would have been more whether I blogged it or not, Of course I had some favorite scenes and character points here and there, but they ended up being few and far between. They didn’t end up making the show memorable, so much as, the best I could get with what I was given. But as for blogging it? Yeah, that was something I didn’t care to do to often, only so much negativity, and sameness thereof, I can dish on a week to week basis; and it’s mediocrity was done in obvious ways, so picking on that would have been more of the same. But thanks for following my rather stunted schedule all the same. So this time, for real, see you for the Winter shows!
Thanks for Watching!
About skylion
All around nerd that enjoys just about any anime genre. I love history, politics, public policy, the sciences, literature, arts...pretty much anything can make me geeky...except sports. Follow me @theskylion
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
I have to agree that this series was completely mediocre. Maybe some of that feeling came from the fact that we’ve already had Strike Witches so there was really nothing new about this show to make it stand out. I couldn’t escape the feeling while watching that “We’ve already seen this” or “Strike Witches was better.” Krupinski was the only character who seemed at all fresh because of her openly yuri nature.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
I had designs on Rossmann and particularly enjoyed the story with Aleksandra, but they didn’t really finish what they started, did they? And oh yes, three cheers for Krupinski, hitting on anything that walked, crawled, or in this case flew! It was a neat balance to her being a very capable soldier and leader.
Thanks for following and commenting this season, I look forward to seeing you for the Winter…
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
Oh, yes, I’ll be here. And I may be following the shows you’re blogging. I enjoy reading your comments and insight on the shows you follow.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
The list hasn’t been settled yet, but I’m looking forward to it regardless…
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
There needs to be an OVA where Krupinski is shot down over an isolated forest area and is found and nursed back to health by a beautiful peasant girl.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
…an entire village of healthy young peasant girls…
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
I’m not sure Krupinski could survive being surrounded by that many girls. One thing for sure, she’d be utterly exhausted by the time she returns to the 502nd!
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
::gets popcorn:: I’ll take that OVA right now….exhaustion for her character should be in those cards…
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
The show was definitely not something to go out of your way to watch, and if you weren’t invested from watching the other versions of Strike Witches, there wouldn’t really be anything that pulled you into this series.
I didn’t really feel it was a beat-for-beat remake, especially because Hikari didn’t struggle the entire time with being useless (like Yoshika did). Once Hikari figured out how to use what power she had, she was fine, and I liked how the story turned at that point to “proving to Takami that she was capable”.
I will say that there was some similarity between Kanno and Perrine in that I don’t really like either character. But Kanno is just too bright solid one-color. I also didn’t like Nipa being reduced to her role as “audience reaction stand-in”. All of the other characters were entirely unremarkable, used for their one plot point and then discarded until we needed their plot point again, with the possible exception of Krupinski, just because she got to actually do some stuff.
I don’t think it was too cynical of a production, I just think that it was done minimally, with old software and models and not too much care and attention lavished on it. Like they figured it was “good enough” and let it go at that. And that’s how it ended up. Good enough to not completely embarrass Silver Link (I don’t know what it would take to embarrass those guys as far as cheap production, tho), but quickly forgotten.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
If I had never watched any of the originals, I would have given this one the chance, but I scratch my head as to whether or not I would have treated it the same. On one hand, I still love the Witches premise, and if I had missed the originals, I would have probably liked this one just fine; not great for certain, but just fine. However, we don’t have that reality that it exists on it’s own, so the comparisons are going to be natural. In that regard, I’m kinda bummed they didn’t advance anything…So I think the same premise that pulled anyone into the original was still there to pull people into this one…
I don’t recall thinking or saying it was a beat-for-beat remake, but that the structure was nearly exactly the same. Hikari’s journey, despite parallel details, was virtually the same sort of awakening that Miyafuji underwent; and the 502 still struggled to find a place she fit on, on many levels, which came to a head with Takari’s return. The “other’s among equals” were pretty much the same as they provided those singular plot points that developed the path Miyafuji walked on. Here, that was the same, just weaker.
…and I agree totally with your third and fourth paragraph…
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
One other thing that kind of got my goat throughout was that they kept talking about “Well, the 501st was able to take down a nest! Why don’t they just tell us how they did that and we can do that again.” I kinda wanted someone to say “Well, they stuffed a whole flying battleship in it and blew it up. Plus we almost completely drained two of our best Witches in the process. We really don’t want to do that again.”
In contrast, their plan for this nest was a lot more reasonable and believable. Sometimes it’s better to reinvent the wheel.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Why is it bad to drain a witch? They lose their powers when they become adults anyway and, as the 502s existence shows, there isn’t a shortage of them – to be precise. That’s a bit cruel to say, but the wheel is war…
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
To my mind, hurting people, especially your comrades, is bad. And there are consequences to it, like we saw with Takami in this series.