*CORNER WEAR*
The second season of the fan service fantasy-adventure Strike Witches (2010) picks up six months after the first season ended. Young witch Yoshika Miyafuji has returned to her native land of "Fuso" (a thinly fictionalized Japan) and completed junior high school. When the alien Neuroi attack Earth again, she insists on rejoining the 501st Joint Fighter Wing, a.k.a. the Strike Witches. Although the Neuroi's flying vessels can easily take out a battleship, they're vulnerable to adolescent witches flying with magic and Striker Units (awkward-looking mecha boots). Not surprisingly, Miyafuji is delighted to be back with all her old friends: their personalities are unchanged, and their adventures are virtually identical to the previous ones. But the point of Strike Witches has never been character development or storytelling. The series is little more than a string of panty shots, jiggle animation, and bath sequences. Even the battle scenes are shot to show the girls' undies, and there are frequent close-ups of tails sprouting from scantily clad rear ends as the Witches transform into their kawaii forms--with cats' ears and tails. Strike Witches may be fun for adolescent boys with raging hormones, but it may bore other viewers cold. The set comes with a box designed to hold both season's discs. (MA TV: violence, violence against women, nudity, risqué humor with lesbian overtones) --Charles Solomon
(1. To the Skies Once Again, 2. The Legendary Witches, 3. Things We Can Accomplish Together, 4. It's Hard, It's Fast, It's Earth-Shattering! 5. My Romania, 6. Higher than the Sky, 7. Creeping About, 8. Please Grant Me Wings, 9. A Bridge to Tomorrow, 10. 500 Overs, 11. To Be Myself, 12. Beyond the Skies to Eternity)
