Note: This review contains spoilers for Strike Witches season 1. When we last left our heroes a humanshaped Neuroi had attempted to make contact with Yoshika Miyafuji only for the corrupt navy to use stolen Neuroi technology to create a new weapon The Warlock shattering all attempts at communication. The Warlock was effective at first but was quickly overcome by the Neuroi who transformed it into one of them and turned it against its users. The Witches saved the day they were officially disbanded and the global military decided to try what Yoshika had tried before... Contact with the Neuroi. No sooner do they find their first opportunity however than a larger more powerful Neuroi hive shows up out of the blue to silence the smaller one With this new threat looming over Romagna the 501st Joint Fighter Wing once again unites to save humanity from its extraterrestrial threat Before I go any further I should mention this is meant to serve as a companion to my previous reviewsince the link feature isnt working its https://anilist.co/review/14286. In an effort to not repeat myself too much there are things I said in that review that apply to this season and vice versa. Following the first season Studio Gonzo ran into studiowide budgetary problems so although the bluray sales of this series were excellent they were unable to continue producing the franchise. Therefore the reins were picked up by AIC Classic and there was no drop in quality as a result. If anything the series looks slightly better as the overall animation looks crisper and more consistent. Characters no longer have to go into broken model mode to achieve more complex motion and while theres no shortage of frozen key framesused sparingly and kept out of the way nobodys faces go offmodel in long shots anymore. Director Kazuhiro Takamura also returns and to the delight of franchise fans everywhere his fingerprints are all over the visual style of this sequel series. The CG is used well and while the computer generated flying scenes are a bit more noticeable this time around it never feels like a problem. Theres been no real change in the music since last time... Which is fine if it aint broke dont fix it... But the new opening is cool. The English dub hasnt had to recast anyone and despite there being anecdotal evidence that a few of the actors have come to regret having their names attached to this franchise for the long haul they all sound just as enthusiastic as they did in the first season. Several new actors do appear in small roles this season but the most noteworthy ones by far are Funimation staples Colleen Clinkenbeard and Brittney Karbowski each of whom get to cameo in their own focus episode and theyre a welcome addition to any project. The adaptive script was written by Chuck Huber and Jamie Marchi two voice actors who generally work really well together on the other side of the booth. Ive had issues with Jamie Marchis brand of rewrites particularly with her haphazard use of modern slang but Huber keeps her grounded. In this case the only character she feeds slang to is her own and it winds up working as an endearing quirk rather than a distraction from the material. The approach that Strike Witches used to set up this sequel series is surprisingly more American than Japanese. There have been plenty of cases in western media where a bold new movie was so popular and successful that the studio demanded a sequel but in order to play it safe they forced the team behind it to give people a retread of the first movie even if it means retconning the end of said movie in order to return to the status quo. You may remember this approach from Men In Black along with several entries in the Planet of the Apes franchise. Since the first season of Strike Witches ended with the Neuroi over Brittania being defeated and the team disbanding of course season 2 starts with a new Neuroi hive appearing over a different country and the whole gang returns to fight it. This isnt necessarily a bad approach to sequelwriting but its transparent as hell. There are several episodes in season 2 that if you took them out and placed them in the middle of season 1 nobody would be able to tell the difference. Theyre in a new location and theres been some development since the previous season but plotwise? Pacing? Structure? Its more or less the same as before. As for whether its gotten better or worse the answer is... Kinda both? With the exception of the fanservice which is pretty much the same... Uncensored nudity thats almost completely casual and nonsexual in context and constant panty shots whose justification is as flimsy as the fabric itself... Pretty much everything from the first season has been amplified. The good the bad and the ugly. Starting with the good all the characters are back theyre still the focus of the story and theyre still the cornerstone of the franchise. I didnt mention this in my previous review but one of the reasons they were developed so well is because theyre all paired up. With the exception of Yoshika every witch has a direct counterpart revealed without much subtlety in the openings and when one character gets the spotlight the other often shares it by association. The difference is that this season instead of letting us learn about everyone through her Yoshika takes a small step back this time never exactly fading into the background but still present. Not every episode is about her anymore and because of this were able to enjoy deeper backstories new dynamics and interactions we werent privy to and more. This season we learn more intimate details about the cast and while some of its obvious theres also some thats more subtle. Using Erica Hartman as an example again we learn she has a twin sister serving as a scientist on another team. We also learn although its never directly explained why shes so lazy... Her sister is the responsible one and isnt that always the case? Thats not even counting her focus episode where an old rival tries to pick a fight with her and we find out just how far you have to push her to make her take something seriously. And speaking of focus episodes the best one of this season... Possibly of either season... Features Francesca Lucchini my least favorite character showing people around her homeland. Its no small feat to make me enjoy a Francesca Lucchini episode especially that much. Another standout is the episode where its revealed that Yoshika and two other witches have been slacking since the last disbandment so theyre all sent to an elderly witch to go back to training the basics and the stuff they learn there actually makes some sensewell mostly but well get there. Its a heartwarming episode and you get some pretty funny backstory for Mio Sakamoto. This also kicks off a mini character arc for Yoshika regarding the development of her magic and while I wont go into specifics it does bring me to another detail about the character writing that I forgot to mention before attention to detail. Every character is unique and they all have traits and quirks that seet them apart from each other and I cannot for the life of me think of one example of these traits being represented inconsistently. Well the characters at least are consistent. Unfortunately this episode feeds into another problem I went into in the previous review worldbuilding. I mentioned in my season 1 review that there were details about this universe that didnt make any sense and season 2 did not fix them... Although Im not sure how they could have. I cant think of a single explanation that wouldnt actively make everything worse so I cant blame them for leaning into what theyve created. I can however blame them for making it worse. In this training episode its revealed to the girls surprise that witches rode brooms before striker units replaced them. Only the striker units were invented like what five? Six years ao? These girls are all midtolate teenagers so theres no way they didnt know about that. The finale is a retread of the previous seasons finale but with less build and a little more payoff. Once again the military is mucking things up once again the team faces possible disbandment. It doesnt play out the same way but it comes a little too close for comfort. Even worse is the NEW fanservice episode once again episode 7 and its very deliberately so. Theres even a bit of dialogue where the focal character of that episode calls out its title. In this episode we encounter a Neuroi the size of a bug whos MO seems to be draining electrical devices of their power and crawling up the girls butts. I am neither making that up nor exaggerating it than the slightest. At one point I was going to call Strike Witches the best monster of the week anime since the first half of Evangelion but no you dont get that now. I will not compare you to the epic Angel battles when you have beetle sized aliens anally violating your cast. You lose sir. At this point Strike Witches has become a very popular and successful franchise and it doesnt look like its going to be dying out anytime soon which is fine with me. Its entered the kind of space in my life that Starship Troopers and Pirates of the Caribbean occupy where Im the kind of diehard fan that will seek out every new title in the franchise and love it on principal no matter how shit they get. The first step towards that franchise becoming a reality was the second season and while its both better and worse than the first one for a variety of reasons it proved at least that there was a lot more ground to cover in humanitys war against the Neuroi and there was a whole world of possibilities to branch off into. While it mostly plateaus from the first season it does unfortunately feel like it stumbled a bit in some areas and lost a step as a result. I give Strike Witches season 2 a 7/10.