Brave Witches – Episode 3 – “The 502nd Joint Fighter Wing”

After the events in the last episode, the 3rd episode starts in Petersburg, Orussia at the 502nd Joint Fighter Wing base. Hikari gets introduced to the crew. There’s the Commander of the 502nd, Gundula Rall, Lieutenant Aleksandra Ivanovna Pokryshkin, Flying Officer Waltrud Krupinski (who wants Hikari to call her “Countess” as a joke), Flight Sergeant Edytha Russman (who others, including the Commander, call senpai), who is also the wing’s instructor.  Then there are the pilot officers, Georgette Lemare, Shimohara Sadako, and Kanno Naoe, who still doesn’t like Hikari. And finally, Flight Sergeant Nikka Eduardine Katajainen, who you can call “Nipa” for short.  They eat after this, but Hikari falls asleep from the fight before, and wakes up from having a dream of the fight seeing the core of the Neuroi. Kanno and Nipa both go outside as they see Hikari do this. They both pass her (with Nipa being very friendly), but it’s not long before they both get tired as Hikari outpaces her with her incredible stamina, which the other Witches notices. Kanno won’t accept Hikari as a replacement for her big sister. She blames Hikari for Takami getting hurt, which Hikari agrees with, saying she needs to get stronger. Nipa tells Kanno she needs to accept Hikari now as a comrade.

Later on, the group gets informed about the Neuroi, and the new expanding nest that is over the White Sea, now named “Grigori”, that is threatening to cut off their supply line. If this happens, they will have to withdraw from their base, so they need to get rid of the nest. They believe this is possible to do since the 501st got rid of the Gallia nest themselves. Hikari will start to train for this soon, but has Nipa show her around the base and town first. Nipa informs her that Petersburg had over 2 million people before the Neuroi attack, but it’s now a front-line base since everyone evacuated. The two also see Kanno training hard to outpaced Hikari.

As Hikari talks to Chidori, the others come to test her. Her grades suck, so they want to see if she’s capable. As they test her out with acceleration, power, and flight with Chidori, she fails at flying it since she doesn’t have enough magical power that the Unit needs. The only reason she flew the last time was because Chidori let her fly. Commander Rall will decide on Hikari and Kanno, who wants to take Takami’s old spot, later. But quite frankly, Hikari is not ready to fight, and they could send her back. The thing that might decide Hikari staying is that she did see the core of the Neuroi. Because of this, the next Neuroi attack allows her to join the others in battle. As they attack the mid-size Neuroi, Hikari tries her best to see the core, but can’t. This leaves her sad. And wide open for the Neuroi to attack her. Kanno saves her, but isn’t please with her at all, as the group finds the core and destroys the Neuroi. Hikari believes she still saw a core, but the leader makes her decision to send Hikari back to Fusou. Before that, she sends her “to make some memories of this base” to help find Nipa, who because of a locust problem hitting her Unit, crashed somewhere near Lake Ladoga. Kanno is there too, and isn’t happy Hikari joined.  They eventually to find her.

It’s okay. She’s still alive. In fact, she fall asleep waiting for help. But since her unit’s broke, she has to be carried home. But when they do, a surprise Neuroi attacks them, and only Kanno can fight it. She goes 10,000 meters in the air, but cause of that height, she has little air and her Unit’s engine fails. The Neuroi knows this, and keeps her up there. Hikrai, even carrying Nipa, decides to help out. As they go high, Nipa shoots at the Neuroi, and gets its attention. This gives Kanno enough time to use her special attack: “Tsurusi Issen.” With a fist glowing white, she gets the Neuroi’s core and destroys it and they head home. Back at the base, Kanno still won’t accept Hikari as a comrade, but the leaders see all 3 worked together, and Russman will train Hikari for a week to see if she’s worthy.

This episode of Brave Witches, while good, I did have a few issues with. One is Kanno, for she is kinda mooty, to say the least. It’s probably gonna be awhile before I warm up to her. We still have no idea why she and Takami were friends, and I really want to see why, when she treats Hikari like crap. Also, the CGI. The CGI was kinda weak, at least when it was on the girls. Yes, the girls were CGI’d at times, but only for flying. It was … yeah, not too great if you caught it like I did. Not Berserk bad, mind ya. But could be a bit better. And then to round it out, what the hell was this moment at the 5 second mark?

For some reason unbeknownst to me, Hikari randomly woofs. I have no idea why. It’s really strange, even by anime standards. But overall, this was still a good episode. Nipa might evolve into best girl for me. The Neuroi attack was pretty good, especially the surprise attack. Plus, we got to see a nice callback to the 501st.

Also, we got to see more of what made the original Strike Witches. And by that, I mean we saw alot of panty shots, and some of the girls, especially Nipa, had some “bounce” to them. Yeah, I know, but what did you expect from a world where girls don’t wear any pants? While this episode wasn’t as good as the first 2 episodes, this episode was still above average for me.

Brave Witches is available on Crunchyroll as a weekly simulcast, Wednesdays at 2:05pm EDT.