Brave Witches

As humanity's war with the Neuroi—a mysterious, hostile alien race possessing weapons of unparalleled power—continues being fought across Europe and Africa, a new fighter squadron is formed. The 502nd Joint Fighter Wing, also known as the Brave Witches, operates on the eastern front, scouring the icy vastness of Orussia in search of alien invaders.

However, one of the Brave Witches' members suffers severe injuries on her way to the squadron's headquarters, rendering her unable to participate in any operations. As a result, her sister, Hikari Karibuchi, volunteers to take her place. Though not possessing any special abilities or significant magical powers, she is determined to live up to the expectations of her new comrades and prove herself worthy of the name of a Witch.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Karibuchi, Hikari Main

Kakuma, Ai Japanese

Katajainen, Nikka Edvardine Main

Takamori, Natsumi Japanese

Pokryshkin, Aleksandra Ivanovna Main

Hara, Yumi Japanese

Kanno, Naoe Main

Murakawa, Rie Japanese

Krupinski, Waltrud Main

Ishida, Kayo Japanese

Lemare, Georgette Main

Terui, Haruka Japanese

Rossmann, Edytha Main

Igarashi, Hiromi Japanese

Rall, Gundula Main

Satou, Rina Japanese

Shimohara, Sadako Main

Mizutani, Marin Japanese

Karibuchi, Takami Main

Suegara, Rie Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Nakagawa, Jirou Producer

Herek, Samantha Assistant Producer

Takamura, Kazuhiro Director, Character Design

Reviews

Jul 14, 2023

garkon_icky

Recommended

Brave Witches is the concept of Strike Witches retooled into an actual show. It's an abstract remake of the first season of SW starring Miyufiji with an inverted color palette and hair that goes down instead of up. A gang of magic girls with airplane legs is once again waging war against shapeshifting aliens with the help of their new recruit from not-Japan. Despite that premise it's a very different take on the same basic idea. The characteristics of Strike Witches are mostly inverted: the MC is noticeably underpowered instead of overpowered, she's not competent and nearly kicked out of the 502nd on arrival, and ... her relationships with other characters start as standoffish or antagonistic instead of instant friendship. She's still in a support role like Miyufiji but has no magical ass-pull to lean on, nor does anybody else. Different characters have different traits and defects making it so that nobody can entirely carry the team by themselves. Additionally the Neuroi are now a dangerous threat instead of just a present one: fighting them isn't free, and even when they lose it's after they've caused damage and bent the trajectory of events that follow. All this greatly affects the character interactions because now they're operating from an entirely justified sense of self-preservation. Being a hero will get them killed so there's a limit to how much they'll stick their neck out for each other. However they also need to co-operate to win, and there's a war in the background with a bodycount that will keep rising until they take action to stop it. Strike Witches dabbled with all of this but would eagerly end conflicts on a shitpost or gag to defuse the tension. The main difference with Brave Witches is that it doesn't and plays everything mostly straight.

Ecchi content returns from Strike Witches in a more moderated role. It has the obligatory episode where they took a doujin they liked and made it canon, and contains the biggest horndog character in the entire franchise, but gags mostly wait their turn for the plot to be finished first. This is still a fanservice show, though.

The art for this show got trashed when it was new because the CGI in the TV version was rough and they leaned into using it for every striker flying scene. In re-releases this was cleaned up a lot and now it looks a little more reasonable like Road to Berlin.

On the whole if you want to get into the whole Witches series, Brave Witches isn't a horrible place to start. It has a plot and if you're coming from other anime it'll align with your expectations a little better while not being totally unlike the other shows. If you don't like it then you won't like the other ones. If you're coming from Strike Witches it can be refreshing change of pace from the ecchi gag format.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jan 22, 2018

Christopher_Lum

Mixed Feelings

This is more of a comparison to its parent story Strike Witches.
This anime is very similar to Strike witches and when I say similar, I mean very similar.

Character development and story progression were almost exactly the same with a few minor changes.
Art is similar to Strike witches despite being made by different studios. There are hints of 3D-CGI that slightly throw things off when it appears.
Animation here is an improvement, battles are no longer (how do i say this without spoiling/summarizing part of it) linear. Fight scenes are slightly more inspired is all i can really say without giving too much away.
MAL says this is ... a side story of Strike witches but its also a sequel to it. they tie the 2 stories such that its almost necessary to watch the parent story Strike witches first to know whats going on.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jun 30, 2021

Yemi_Hikari

Not Recommended

Clumsiness is not a flaw.

The mantra repeated over and over in my head despite the fact I knew that in the right hands clumsiness can indeed be a good character flaw, but this often happens when I find myself introduced within the narrative to a character whose main flaw is clumsiness only for said flaw to go away when it is no longer convenient. In this particular series Hikari's clumsiness is explained away by having a lack of magical power, not that this really stops her later on because she's just that much of a hard worker and with that being her counter trait she's ... able to overcome her flaws.

The problem is, this idea that a person simply needs to put in the hard work and they can thus overcome anything is a lie. Its always juxtaposed around this idea that every genius out there doesn't put in any iota of hard work, though in reality the geniuses out there actually are putting in some level of hard work. It's why in any narrative where a persons strength is working hard there is indeed a limit to what they can do and any genius which wasn't putting in hard work now does. I never once felt Hikari truly hit her limits within the series.

After all, this is the girl who didn't pass a test only to suddenly pass said test simply because she saved someone despite the rules being quite clear cut from the beginning. This is the girl whose so called stamina is able to allow her to overcome her initial clumsiness in the first episode and fly as if those issues were never there, because - honestly, her magical limit just kept seeing like a plot device we were told rather than shown, a reason for us to angst over the characters plight of not being able to fulfill her dreams.

This isn't to say the characters weren't interesting - because I do have to admit that I did take some interest in some of the supporting characters for the series, yet I couldn't help but feel they never really got any true growth because the focus was on the main character while they were often used for comedic purposes to lighten the mood and I find myself unsure if I would like the same characters if they didn't have their exccentricies.

The other thing worth nothing is that I - as someone who actually didn't watch Strike Witches before watching Brave Witches and still haven't at the point of writing this review - can see why Brave Witches would turn people away from watching Strike Witches. I know for sure it is low on my priority list right now.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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	Poll: Brave Witches Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Dec 28, 2016	54 replies	by Fail_Man_X »» Sep 16, 7:46 AM
	Poll: Brave Witches Episode 8 Discussion Stark700 - Nov 30, 2016	30 replies	by Fail_Man_X »» Sep 9, 6:39 AM
	Poll: Brave Witches Episode 5 Discussion Stark700 - Nov 9, 2016	39 replies	by Fail_Man_X »» Sep 3, 7:50 AM
	Poll: Brave Witches Episode 3 Discussion Stark700 - Oct 19, 2016	38 replies	by Fail_Man_X »» Aug 19, 7:15 AM
	Do I have to see Strike Witches before Brave Witches? BroskiKyoujin - Oct 5, 2016	13 replies	by Foreall908 »» Sep 7, 2023 5:29 PM