Today is Memorial Day in the United States, a day of remembrance for the men and women who have served in the military. Spurred on by Alter’s recent unveling of a Yoshika Miyafuji figure, I’ve decided to pay homage to the combat veterans of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing by watching the first episode of Strike Witches.
The opening story reminds me a lot of the beginning of Robotech (or Macross, if you prefer); you’ve got enigmatic, technologically-advanced alien invaders, a young, innocent civilian who shares a tenuous yet deeply personal bond with a high-ranking member of the military, and a wacky, wildly-impractical aviation system. One difference is that Yoshika does decline a chance to take a spin in the Striker Unit, and another departure is that the 501st’s pilots are loli girls. Who wear no pants. In fact, none of the girls in the episode wear pants, it seems. This prohibition on wearing pants is definitely a policy initiative that I can get behind.
One reason that I hadn’t watched Strike Witches when it was first aired are the animal ears and tails. I really don’t like them, and I’m sort of hoping that Alter’s figures have the option of removing them without me having to resort to a Dremel. It’s kind of like when I cook gumbo, I usually add whatever I’ve got. Celery? Sure. Seafood? I never have it around, but if I do, it’s great. Garlic? Absolutely. Baker’s chocolate? Hell no. You can have a great gumbo cooking with a variety of flavors but if you add one wrong ingredient, you’ve screwed it up. That’s how I feel when it comes to shows like this which try to pander to a multiplicity of fetishes; if you don’t like one aspect of the show, it makes it difficult to watch the whole thing. It’s a bit of a shame, as I like a lot of things in this show, such as how they placed the Akagi’s island on the port side and how they based the characters on combat aces, but man, I wish they didn’t have the ears and tails.
On a completely unrelated subject, I’m slowly going through and re-doing some old photos. I’ve got Cammy re-shot, and I’m probably going to re-do Sasara’s gallery next. I’m concerned the whites in my photos are excessively blown out, so I might have to revise my processing techniques.
