Brave Witches

Episode 8

The rotation through various members of the 502nd resumes this episode. Nipa and Naoe seem to have become the regular accompaniments to Hikari, alongside whoever is being featured that week. In this case, it's Waltrud Krupinski, the squad's resident aggressive lesbian, who is named after Walter Krupinski. A Prussian-born pilot and one of the Luftwaffe's highest-scoring aces in WWII, he was also nicknamed Count due to his origins. (He was also one of the first to fly a jet plane in combat, so Waltrud getting a seriously upgraded Striker unit at some point before the series ends would not be a surprise.) The reason for the others' involvement in this episode actually isn't random this time: gung-ho Naoe volunteers for the four-Witch mission, while Nipa and Hikari are brought along because they're among the youngest of the remaining members, and Krupinski wants to make sure that there will be capable, battle-tested, fresh blood around should she have to retire. (She gives the impression of being among the oldest Witches in the 502nd and thus perhaps the closest to aging out of feasible duty.) So their selection clearly doesn't have anything to do with them being in Krupinski's (admittedly broad) strike zone...

Krupinski's concerns about aging out of the 502nd, which are privately voiced to Rossman, account for some of this episode's meat, displaying a rare and welcome serious side to the most laid-back of all of the Witches in the group. Other serious components include whatever is being secretly shipped to the 502nd that requires extra protection en route, mention of the Warlock units brought up in Strike Witches, and the closing shot of the Neuroi retrieving the Striker units Krupinski lost in battle. (The Neuroi have tried to duplicate the Witches before, but to my knowledge, this is the first time that they have actually salvaged those units?) All of that taken together makes for ominous rumblings heading into the series' final third, which gives me hope that a more substantial plot might finally be developing.

Of course, this being Krupinski, a fair amount of time has to be set aside for her to wallow in her proclivities, as well as for Naoe to regularly threaten to punch her over them. She moons over a blonde British Witch (who I couldn't place) and continues to flirt with the others, although thankfully she's not being physically aggressive at this point. She also reveals a taste for “adult grape juice” that borders on obsession. Frankly, I don't get the whole use of euphemism here. While the Witches she's out with are mostly young, they're not little kids and would most certainly be aware of wine, but hey, maybe it's meant to be a cutesy thing. Regardless, those scenes serve as the connective tissue for the episode's semblance of character development and action scenes that are once again pretty sharp.

On the whole, this episode doesn't do anything spectacular (unless you count the animation in the aerial combat scenes) but it does find a reasonable content balance and steady flow. That keeps events moving along at a comfortable, effective pace, and even provides a solid hook for future episodes: a rarity for this series so far.

Rating: B

Brave Witches is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.