It’s been a couple days since this episode got shown, so sorry for a bit of the delay. But I’m here again with the 2nd episode of Brave Witches.
Last we saw of Hikari, she wanted to get across the sea with her magical powers, but failed at it, until she rescued another Witch from drowning. Now that she can do it perfectly, as she shows her big sister Takami, she is now going off with her big sis to Europe to fight the Neuroi. However, Takami is sent to Petersburg, Orussia, while Hikari will get sent to the rear unit at the Kauhava base in Suomus. It’s 3 weeks after they depart from Sasebo, and they’re at the Arctic Ocean. Hikari is a sergeant now, but still wants to be on the front lines with Takami, so she’ll practice a lot. She watches as Takami does a training fight, and it impresses Hikari and all the men on-board. She is flying with her prototype Striker Unit, “Chidori,” which is part of a new line of Units that hope to be mass-produced soon. Why is the Unit named Chidori? Because the Chidori is a bird that crosses a lot of countries, but needs a peaceful world to do so. So, as they beat the Neuroi, the world will be at peace, and Takami will travel with Chidori after it. Hikari wants to try out Chidori too, and it doesn’t go so smoothly.
Hikari learns she didn’t listen to Chidori’s voice at all, which is what Takami can hear whenever she flies with her Unit. Since Witches entrust everything to their Units, their Units are the Witches’s soul. The next day, an alarm goes off signaling that a Neuroi attack is happening. Takami gets ready to fight, as Hikari also wants to fight. But Takami tells her she’s not ready to fight yet as she takes off. There are 10 mid-sized and 30 small-sized Neuroi, but what’s weird is that they’re in a pack. Usually, Neuroi are alone, so the military unit calls for reinforcements from the 502nd Joint Fighter Wing. Takami sees with her magical powers that only the mid-sized Neuroi have the cores (The Neuroi’s central life force) and she will take them all out, as the aerial forces take the smaller ones. It goes well at first, as she takes out a bunch of the mid-sized ones with the aerial forces doing well. But the Neuroi numbers are too much, as they not only take out the planes, but get the ships as well. Hikari gets in an Unit to join her big sis, but the ship she is on gets hit and her Unit gets destroyed. Seeing all this, Takami has no choice. She decides to go with her trump card, Absolute Eye.
Not only does her eyes turn red, but her hair does too. She locks on all the mid-sized Neuroi, but takes an attack to the abdomen. She brushes it off, and shoots down all the Neuroi. However, the injury is too much as she falls back to Earth as Hikari saves her. However, a Neuroi nest forms north of them, causing more trouble. The 502nd Squad is coming in, and the team, one of them named Kanno, who is apparently Takami’s best friend, praises her. But, they get word she is down as the new Neuroi appear.
Hikari will fight in her big sister’s place, and uses Chidori to take off. As she fights the two big Neuroi, she blames herself for what happened to her sister, and tries her best to face them. But it’s no use. Even seeing where their cores are, it doesn’t help when she misses the target. It looks like it’s over for her, but the 502nd Unit comes in and finishes off the Neuroi very quickly.
Now in Novo-Kholmogory, Orussia, Gundula Rall, leader of the 502nd Unit, ask how Takami is. She is somehow alive, but she used all her magical powers to take out the Neuroi, and is using what’s left to keep herself on life support. Quite frankly, they don’t know when she’ll wake up, or if she’ll ever wake up again. So Hikari has a request to the 502nd Joint Fighter Wing Unit:
Kanno hates this idea, but seeing as how Hikari survived for 5 minutes by herself against the enemy, the leader agrees to her her join. But only if she gets stronger.
This was a nice episode that showed off Takami’s power, and Hikari’s resolve to fight. Hikari still has some growing pains, as she did get literally ran over by the Neuroi in the fight, and will have to get stronger to be in the 502nd Unit. But, as we seen the original series, this is where she will try to earn her trust with her new unit. Which by the way, not a good start with one of them in Kanno. I’m taking it we’re gonna learn why she is Takami’s best friend later, but way to treat your “best friend’s” little sister so well. Gundula definitely is gonna take the mold of being like Sakamoto in her leader role, and I can’t wait to see the other Witches personalities as the show focuses on all of them too. A good 2nd episode with a very-stylized Neuroi fight to go with it as well.