It’s time for episode 5 of Brave Witches, and do we really need an episode that reminds me that winter is coming, and it’s gonna to suck? Stupid Great Lakes winters.
The episode starts with Georgette, Shimohara, and Waltrud, all taste-testing food. Hikari arrives, but Georgette leaves cause she’s very shy. So shy, she eats first and alone as the others eat. Also, Shimohara is a very good cook for the 502nd. Later on, Hikari finds her room cleaned up, and finds in another room Georgette was the one who did it. She is part of a family who cleans up a boarding house for a job, and that’s why she’s a clean freak. Also, they’re in Kanno’s room, and she’s not too happy they’re in there. She starts a fight, books fall on her, and she gets healed by Georgette. She says her face gets all red and her body heats up as she heals people. Okay. The group gets informed of a new Neuroi over Lake Ladoga. The lake freezes in December, and because of this, they got less than a month before it can head south towards the base. Georgette and Shimohara are on recon patrol, and will expand their recon to Petrozavodsk. Hikari will join them on the patrol to practice long-distance flight.
As the trio get to Lake Lagoda, it’s getting colder and they know a cold front will be in by nightfall. Hikari, though, is focused on her Contact Eye and how she did it when she made contact with the Neuroi. It makes her look weird since it looks like she’s smacking the air’s ass. Plus, she can’t talk about too. She changes the subject and asks where in Fusou Shimohara is from. She’s from the hills of Onomichi, or land of Aki as it’s called. She’s been in the 502nd for a while now, but all she does is cook. She just wants to fight for her Unit. At least Georgette believes in her. It starts to snow, and very hard. They finally reach Petrozavodsk, but there’s one problem:
Shimohara looks because her ability allows her to see things from a distance, and finds what is causing it to be a winter wonderland: The Neuroi. Georgette tries to contact the base, but can’t get through to them. Shimohara decides they need to fight it, and they launch an attack on it. The Neuroi attacks by emitting cold, and it actually freezes both Georgette and Shimohara’s guns and Units. Hikari didn’t get hit by it, and charges in, but she herself gets hit with its cold spell, and freezes her up. She falls to the ground, as does Georgette and Shimohara as their Unit’s engines freeze up. They crash in the snow, but are okay. Hikari, however, isn’t, as she is suffering from frostbite. Shimohara blames herself for this, but Georgette smacks her because they need to save Hikari first and guilt trip later. They build a shelter for themselves from the blizzard. The 502nd decide to head out to find the group since they won’t respond, but the blizzard hits them too. They can’t go out in this, so they stay at the base for now.
Hikari wakes up to find Georgette healing her. And all of their clothes off. It was to share body heat all night, and not at all a ploy for fanservice.
Georgette apologizes to Hikari, cause she blames herself for what happened to Takami. But Hikari is grateful to her for healing her big sis up as good as she could. A bit later, Shimohara goes out and finds Hikari’s gun. Its barrel is bent, making it useless. She also found a broken tank, and they use that for shelter now. As they make a fire, we learned that Shimohara’s scientist father liked to camp a lot, so she learned outdoors survival from that. At the base, Waldred has made some awful food from freakin’ caviar, and they do miss Shimohara now.
Back with the trio, they know the Neuroi is using the cold air like a cold front to make the blizzard, which is over the base now. They believe the base doesn’t know that the Neuroi is doing this (though Rall and Rossmann have a feeling it is doing it.) Plus, it’s under clouds, so no one can see it and radar can’t find it. So they decide that they will have to beat the Neuroi themselves. Luckily, the snow stops falling, and they can unfreeze their Units. However, they have no guns and no fuel. So, they plan ahead. They get the leftover fuel from the tank, make some arrows from the stones/wood around the forest, and even have a little aluminum fuel bomb that they’ll use to stop the Neuroi. It’s weakness is heat, so just blow it up!
The group takes off, and they notice that the lake is now fully frozen solid. Up ahead is the Neuroi in its cloud protection. It basically looks like any storm you see here up north in the winter. Kinda.
They enter the clouds, but inside, it’s freezing cold, and their Units start to freeze again. They have to hurry it up. Shimohara throws the bomb at the Neuroi and launches an arrow at said bomb. It hits and explodes, affecting the Neuroi, showing the core. Shimohara tries to shoot the core with another arrow, but her Unit freezes up, making her miss. Hikari holds her and tells Georgette to use her healing magic to unfreeze the unit. However, she can’t heal anything unless someone is injured. So, Hikari injures her head on Shimohara’s unit. This allows Georgette to heal Hikari and un-freeze Shimohara’s unit, and with this, Shimohara shoots the Neuroi’s core, destroying it and ending the blizzard. They go back to the base, and the 502nd praise them for their teamwork. And get to enjoy Shimohara’s great cooking to boot.
I know I said in the last recap and others that I want to see more of the other girls, and this is an episode that does show Georgette and Shimohara. And while it was good to get to know them, I’ll be honest: this was so far the worst episode of Brave Witches. Now, don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t awful or the worst episode of this whole series. It was just boring. The food talk, the sheltering, and all that. Plus the Neuroi battle didn’t last too long. It was pretty uneventful, even if the episode title says it wasn’t. Again, I like how we got to know Georgette and Shimohara. Plus, I think Shimohara has the best smile of the group.
It’s a very cute smile. But other than that, there was nothing really to take away from this episode, other than Shimohara is a good cook, Georgette wears what looks like lingerie under her shirt, and that some Neuroi can cause climate change. This was just an average, boring episode and that’s it.
Braves Witches is simulcast at 2:30 PM Wednesdays on Crunchyroll