Manga / Strike Witches

"Even so, I still want to protect them!"^*Clockwise from the bottom right: Charlotte Yeager, Francesca Lucchini, Sanya Litvyak, Eila Ilmatar Juutilainen, Perrine Clostermann, Mio Sakamoto, Minna-Dietlinde Wilcke, Gertrud Barkhorn, Erica Hartmann, Lynette Bishop and Yoshika Miyafuji.

"It's my mission and duty to guide her on her path to becoming a full-fledged Witch, for the sake of my, no, the world's benefactor, Dr. Miyafuji..."

— Mio Sakamoto (on Yoshika Miyafuji)

The one that started it all.

Strike Witches is the first installment of the World Witches franchise created by Fumikane Shimada. Originally a Seinen manga, then a series of Light Novels, Strike Witches became an anime series produced by GONZO; the first season was broadcast between July and September 2008. A second season was released in July 2010 by AIC, following GONZO's bankruptcy. Both seasons of Strike Witches were directed by Kazuhiro Takamura (Mahoromatic, This Ugly Yet Beautiful World, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann) and consist of 12 episodes, with the first half centred around the titular Witches' backstories and livelihoods, while the remainder of each season unlocking more secrets about the nature of the war between humanity and the enigmatic Neuroi. A movie with an original story, also directed by Takamura, was released in March 2012. A new TV anime and an OVA were announced as having been greenlit in October 2013. It was later clarified that neither are continuations of the existing story. The first episode of the new OVA, Strike Witches: Operation Victory Arrow, was released in December 2014, showing what happened to the various groups of witches between Strike Witches and The Movie.

A spin-off that began airing in October 2016, entitled Brave Witches, focuses on another cast of characters, the 502^nd JFW who also assume the self-titled moniker, and is set in the interim between the first and second seasons.

As part of the franchise's 10th anniversary, 3 new anime projects were announced:

• Strike Witches 501st Joint Fighter Wing Take Off , a comedic spin-off released in 2019 animated by Acca effe and Giga Production and co-produced by Production I.G.
• Road to Berlin, the third main season with the 501^st JFW, which began airing in October 2020 with animation by David Production.
• Luminous Witches, a musical spin-off animated by Studio SHAFT with personifications of famous war songstresses slated originally for 2021, but was postponed to July 2022.

Strike Witches depicts the conflict between the extraterrestrial Neuroi and humanity in an Alternate History; in 1939, the Neuroi invade Earth. Despite lacking understanding about the Neuroi's background or motives, it's clear to humanity the Neuroi presents a grave threat to their civilization; this prompts the world's armed forces to mount a counteroffensive, enlisting the help of female magic users known as "Witches" and a newly developed weapon christened the "Striker Unit" (devices which bolster the Witches' magical abilities). Wielding spells and specialized firearms, they take to the skies and strive to repel the Neuroi invaders. Set five years after the Neuroi's invasion, the anime follows Fusoan witch Yoshika Miyafuji, whose desire to learn about her father Ichiro's disappearance eventually leads her to join the battle against the Neuroi and understand what being a "Strike Witch" means.

The anime series is the first entry in the World Witches series. Additional materials includes eight light novels (covering the Suomus Misfits Squadron and the African front of the war), four manga series, five official doujinshi (also covering the African front), four video games, and occasional short stories released on Shimada's Twitter feed which follow the adventures of the 502nd JFW. Most of the early material is available in Japanese only, though more recent doujinshi and light novels have been receiving international releases, and fan translations exist for several of the Twitter releases.

On first glance, Strike Witches appears as little more than a Fanservice-focused series. However, it ultimately presents what is, at heart, a war story about the camaraderie between the pilots of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing (aka the Strike Witches) and their battles against the unknown enemy. Strike Witches shares a superficially similar concept with Sky Girls: both series saw Shimada's contribution as a character designer.

A DMM game called Strike Witches Kiseki no Rondo ^note  (later titled as Strike Witches Kiseki no Rondo Blitz) was released on October 27, 2015 and focused the 501st, the app was shut down on February 28, 2018.

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Strike Witches provides examples of:

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: England's pastures never looked as plastic as in Season 1 Episode 9. Most conventional ships and airplanes in the show are very conspicuously CG as well. CG is also heavily used with the girls several times in the air to create more elaborate but fluid movements.
• The '40s: The series is primarily set in an alternate version of the 1940s.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Mio's Katana in Strike Witches is used to cut the wing of a Neuroi the size of a battlecruiser. She makes an upgraded sword that can bisect a Neuroi in addition to its strongest beam attack in one slice.
• A-Cup Angst:
  • Yoshika Miyafuji experiences this at times early on. Featured most prominently in Episode 5: "Fast, Big, Soft".
  • Averted with Lucchini, who believes with all her heart that one day her breasts will be as big as Shirley's. If Fumikane Shimada's speculative Where Are They Now illustrations set in 1947 are to be taken as canon, then her hopes weren't entirely misguided.
• Adaptation Induced Plothole: The Noble Witches manga is said to take place in March 1944, after the liberation of Gallia, something that was established in Strike Witches as taking place in September 1944. The light novels get it right and has the events of Noble Witches taking place in March 1945.
• Advertised Extra: In the Operation Victory Arrow OVA, despite appearing as the main character in the opening, Yoshika only appears in the end of the episodes receiving letters from her former companions. Sanya, Eila and Mio have only brief scenes.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us:
  • At the start of season one, most of continental Europe has fallen to the Neuroi.
  • A Bomber-type Neuroi successfully pulls one of these off on the 501st hanger in episode 4 of Road to Berlin, puting it out of action for a short period of time.
• Ambiguously Gay: Almost all cast fall in this category. The most notable examples are Yoshika (who has a fondness for big boobs), Perrine (who has a big crush for Mio) and Eila (who deeply cares for Sanya).
• Analogy Backfire: During a big rescue, Kunika compares the Noble Witches to The Seventh Cavalry. Samantha Spade points out to her that the 7th Cavalry is most well-known for getting massacred.
• And the Adventure Continues: At the end of this series, Gallia, Romagna and Berlin have all been liberated. However, according to supplementary material, there are still parts of Europe under the Neuroi's control including Southern Karlsland, Ostmark and Orussia.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: Played for Laughs in episode 7 of Road to Berlin. Lucchini gets enlarged breasts from a cursed idol, and subsequently "infects" other witches by fondling them, giving them enlarged breasts while also making them obsessed with cursing other women. Perrine saves Lynette from Eila and Sanya by tackling them and causing them to flee. She's fine at first, but when they escape into the kitchen, Perrine subsequently develops enlarged breasts and attempts to fondle the other witches.
• Art Evolution:
  • There is a very noticeable change in the artwork between the first season by GONZO and the second season by AIC, with another for Road to Berlin by David Production.
  • The Movie and Operation Victory Arrow OVA have better animation in comparison with the TV Series.
• Artistic License – Gun Safety: Surprisingly averted. In a season two episode newly arrived pilot Hanna-Justina Marseille, during a routine training mission, points her fully loaded and recently fired machine gun at Erica and mimes firing it as a sort of egotistical boast about catching Erica off-guard. Commander Minna witnesses this and is understandably furious, immediately cancelling the training mission and restricting Hanna to confinement to her room, mentioning that she would have thrown her straight into a jail cell if they had one on base.
• Ascended Extra: Heidemarie, a night witch from Karlsland, gets more time screen in the film and in the Operation Victory Arrow OVA.
• Attack Its Weak Point: All Neuroi have a core that is their de facto Achilles heel, and only a few Witches (Mio in Strike Witches, the Karibuchi sisters in Brave Witches) have abilities which can spot it when covered by the Neuroi's body. Without Mio's abilities, the witches would be forced to rip the Neuroi to pieces just to find the core, something extremely difficult considering the kind of enemy they're facing.
• Barrier Warrior:
  • A trademark for all witches. They create magic shields to protect themselves from Neuroi's beam attacks. Yoshika is a notable example since she can cast a bigger and stronger shield than the average witch.
  • Subverted with Eila. She can't cast a shield, but she can predict Neuroi's attacks, so she relies on dodging attacks instead. Played straight in Strike Witches 2 when she cast a shield to protect Sanya in a space mission.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: With magic, anyone can survive the oxygen deprivation and radiation exposure of the upper atmosphere.
• Beach Episode: A few episodes are set on the beach, although the emphasis on typical elements from such episodes is not particularly strong.
• Beam Spam: The Neuroi's weapons essentially fill the combat airspace with beams.
• Beast Man: A Witch's animal traits are a result of synchronizing with their Familiars. In the novels a Witch had her Familiar die as result of a freak accident. The anime glosses over these details, probably for time.
• Beehive Barrier: The Neuroi appear to be made out of a tessellating material, and the Warlock, once assimilated by a Neuroi, can also project a tessellated shield.
• BFG: Most of the girls have heavy machine guns as their primary armament. In Episode 4 of Strike Witches 2, Barkhorn gets new (temporary) weapons: a quadruple-mounted MK 108 30mm autocannon and another MK 214A 50mm autocannon.
• BFS: Yoshika picks up a glowing one of these roughly the size of her in the trailer for the film. She effortlessly slices through a Neuroi barrier and the alien's core with it.
• Big Eater:
  • Georgette Lemare from the 502nd is a Justified example, since her healing magic sends her metabolism into overdrive.
  • Yoshika Miyafuji becomes one in Road to Berlin in an attempt to find a way to regenerate her magic power more quickly.
  • Kunika Kuroda from the 506th is another heavy eater.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Yoshika at the end of Strike Witches holding a berserk machine alone in order to protect Mio, Perrine and the rest of ship crew.
  • Yoshika again in the end of Strike Witches 2. With almost no magic power left, she grabs the Reppumaru and uses all her magic power to saves Mio.
  • Eila and Sanya at the end of Brave Witches episode 7.
• Bilingual Bonus: In the 2nd season, the witches are sent for training with the Venezian (counterpart of a part of Real Life's Italy) Anna Ferrara. The training is hard, and generations of witches left scribbles on the beds of what they think about her in different languages, e.g. Sakamoto left "old hag" in Japanese, and other witches have left other swearwords like "Merde!" (French for "shit").
• Bittersweet Ending: A staple of the series.
  • Strike Witches — Maloney is captured, the witches destroy the Akagi-Warlock hybrid to Gallia has been liberated. However, the witches have to go their separate ways at the end of the battle and the Neuroi are still out there.
  • Strike Witches 2 — Romagna has been liberated and the Neuroi Hive has been destroyed, but Sakamoto and Yoshika have used up all of their powers and the witches once again go their separate ways.
  • Road to Berlin — Yoshika once again regains her powers, Wolf is destroyed and Berlin is liberated. However, the war with the Neuroi is far from over.
• Bland-Name Product:
  • Spem. Which as a product name sounds even more gross than the real stuff is.
  • Also, many aircraft/striker manufacturer has been given alternate names such as Flakwulf, Miyabishi, and Boening.
• Body-Count Competition: While they aren't shown agreeing to one, both Gertrude and Erica count off the number of Neuroi they've shot down in episode 8 of Strike Witches. Gertrude won, with 20 kills to Erica's 10.
• Bottomless Magazines: Averted, their machine guns do have obviously big magazines but they still run out at some point. Shirley complains about this once, considering that even with a fictional extended magazine, her BAR still only holds about half as much ammo at a time as everybody else's MG42s.
• Bowdlerization: Inverted by Fan Sub group "Strike Subs". Because the removal of Censor Steam in the DVD version just revealed Barbie Doll Anatomy below the waistline, they took the liberty to release an alternative version of episode 7 with some digital video editing to make the characters more "anatomically correct" in the groin area. This "uncensored" version got five times as many downloads as the unaltered one.
• Breast Expansion: Episode 7 of Season 3 has Lucchini discover the power of a hidden idol that causes her boobs to grow to much bigger sizes. She then spends the episode spreading it to the rest of the cast by groping them.
• But Not Too Gay: Depending on how you interpret the girls' displays of affection, there are at least two couples, plenty of hugging and plenty of couple tropes. No actual kissing however. See No Hugging, No Kissing below. This trope is finally averted during Strike Witches 2.
• Call-Back: The structure of the second season's first episodes seems to follow that of the first season. For both seasons, the first episode ends in a cliffhanger with a Neuroi attack just as Mio and Yoshika arrive in Europe, the second episode focuses primarily on fighting the Neuroi and meeting everyone else, the third episode focuses on training, with the trainees having to save the day at the end, and the fourth episode has Barkhorn almost getting herself killed. The sixth episode looks to be Eila/Sanya centric. The seventh episode is base hijinks with panties stripping and lots and lots of Fanservice. The last episode Mio tries to make a Heroic Sacrifice, but Yoshika saves the day.
• Calling Your Attacks: Used liberally by Mio and her Death Strike Reppuzan!. Perrine's Tonnerre and Erica's Sturm are less offensive examples than most anime as they're short and actually said in real time, and are dispensed with later on.
• Captain Crash: There's a couple. Standouts include Katharine O'Hare, nicknamed "Crasher O'Hare" for the number of Strikers she's managed to wreck, as well as the 502nd JFW's "Breaker Trio" of Kanno Naoe (whose preferred method of killing Neuroi is punching them with a shielded fist, thus tending to clog her Striker's intakes with Neuroi debris), Waltrud Krupinski (who tends to prioritize lining up a shot over watching where the enemy is firing from), and Nikka Katajainen (who's just plain unlucky - as she says in Brave Witches, she doesn't break her Strikers, they break on their own).
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • In Strike Witches 2, when Mio was talking with Minna, Minna laments on how she is kept busy by their superiors and is one kill away from her 200th kill and a medal for it. What better way, then, to enjoy a furo episode than have everyone chase a butt-loving Neuroi and end it with Minna killing the bug by squeezing it with her butt and getting that 200th kill medal.
  • A literal example in Brave Witches. Hikari comes across a tiny FP-45 Liberator pistol that isn't much practical use, and keeps it as a good luck charm. It is pulled twice. First, she gives it to Waltrud for a dangerous mission. Waltrud is shot, but survives when it hits the pistol. Finally, in the season finale, Hikari uses it to take down Grigori.
• Chromosome Casting: With very few exceptions (most of whom only show up for part of a single episode), the only named characters are female.
• Clingy Jealous Girl:
  • Perrine becomes pretty upset when Mio gives more attention to Yoshika rather than herself, especially if said attention is to force more training on Yoshika.
  • Eila also gets really jealous when Yoshika is assigned a mission to shield Sanya. She even gets Perrine to help her with shield training, but doesn't take it seriously.
• Clothing Damage: During the Beach Episode, Charlotte crashes through a Neuroi at the speed of sound, wiping out what little clothing she had to begin with due to air friction.
• Combat Medic:
  • Yoshika. Like her mother and grandmother, she can cast magic to cure wounds. Defied when she loses her powers, since she continues to act to help the injured ones, but in the traditional way.
  • Georgette fills this role among the 502nd in Brave Witches.
• Combat Pragmatist: This is why the Witches are used. Word of God states that conventional weapons can and have actually defeated the Neuroi, which is why the conventional armies on-screen are shown to still engage the Neuroi instead of running away and waiting for Witch support, not because they're holding the Idiot Ball or setting up The Worf Effect. It just takes a whole lot more firepower and significantly greater losses compared to Witches. As an example, the Afrika doujin/light novels show that the infamous Flak 88 is equally as good at killing Neuroi as it is at killing everything else.
• Comically Missing the Point: The Fuso Navy turned the Yamato into a flying battleship, the ridiculousness of which is lampshaded by the other girls. Mio says that the Rhine was too shallow for the Yamato to sail in, hence the floaters.
• Competence Zone:
  • A Witch's powers typically manifest at around age 12, and are most potent in childhood. By around age 20, almost all Witches will have lost the ability to use a Striker Unit.
  • There have been cases and examples of a witch's magic manifesting and awakening at ages younger then 12; although issues of training and training competence still remain. Their are also cases of witches who are older than 20 who are able to retain their magical abilities without much or any entropy of their magic, and is not necessarily as uncommon as one may think. However, the fact still stands that on average witches do still see some degree of magic weakening, usually to the point that, at best, they are only able to continue careers outside of direct combat like desk jobs, training and instruction roles, or support roles with little actual combat time... or, at worst, have to retire from the military.
• Cool, but Inefficient: Weapons tend to differ wildly in size and caliber between Witches, some more efficient than others against the Neuroi, ranging from heavy machine guns to anti-tank rifles. However, this trope is averted in the sense that weapons with an increased rate of fire corresponds with the speed the aircraft are moving: it is easier to aim at high speeds using such weapons. Since some forms of Neuroi are Zerg Rush drones, the increased rate of fire is also useful. Finally, Charlotte lampshades the fact that they can only carry so much without being grounded or encumbered. Of course, the supplemental material points out that with so many different weapons, logistics are become challenging.
• Covert Pervert: Several characters have these tendencies, but Yoshika and Perrine stand out. Yoshika's eyes and hands seem drawn to every bit of cleavage around, especially after her dream of 'flying in formation' with Lynette, her best friend. When Mio was putting a radio in her ear, she thought Mio was about to kiss her. Perrine has a strong attachment to Mio, bordering on extreme proportions.
• Cover Version: A few of the character songs are tunes from the girls' countries of origin. Notable examples would be Minna singing "Lili Marleen" in the Japanese dub of Season One, Episode Eight, and Shirley singing a rendition of the U.S. Air Force song with Lucchini.
• Crazy-Prepared:
  • Not only does Trude carry several belts and a backpack of ammo, she also has extra barrels for her MG42s.
  • Shirley and Lucchini apparently take their striker units with them even when on leave in areas Neuroi haven't been seen in months. Turns out to be a case of Properly Paranoid.
• Creature-Hunter Organization: The eponymous team along with other witches, being the ones equipped specifically to fight and defeat Neuroi.
• Cross-Cast Role: In Noble Witches, the titular witches put on a very loose adaptation of Romeo and Juliet for a group of orphans to help improve their image, with Wittgenstein playing Romeo and Keera playing Lord Montague.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • The Africa Doujinshi series are also fairly darker and more serious in tone and subject matter as we see witches and their conventional allies of several nations from Liberion, Karlsand, Britannia, Romagna, local forces of Africa (Egypt in particular) and some Fuso troops, face and fight Neuroi on the African Front. Despite the theater being easier for humanity to fight in due to the terrain and the long engagement distances provided to human artillery units, it's still shown to be very serious and terrifying for the soldiers to fight in, with displays of Neuroi hordes swarming allied positions, soldiers getting brutally cut down in graphic manner (one Britannian solider is even shown being cut in half by a Neuroi beam attack early in the series), witches fighting desperately and massive ultraheavy neuroi units pounding allied forces and being hard to take down. And that's not counting the Sphinx Neuroi, considered to be an in-universe living myth and a feared Neuroi of ancient legend.
  • The Fuso Sea incident is as serious and dark if not more so at times, with the Fuso Army and Fuso Navy facing the Neuroi's adaptations and evolution into the terrifying and powerful race they have grown to become in the season 1 anime proper, and the many losses of military and civilian life and the destruction Neuroi were and still are capable of. Some implications hint that some of the military casualties (wounded and KIA) includes witches themselves.
  • Brave Witches is this to the original Strike Witches. The situation on the frontlines in Orussia is grim with Neuroi surrounding and encroaching on the titular 502nd JFW who are barely holding on in an otherwise abandoned St. Petersburg. The usual antics are nowhere near as common, mostly occurring in the OVA.
  • Road to Berlin is also considered to be this, due to the Neuroi Taking a Level in Badass and formulating more cunning tactics against the Witches. Yoshika's Power Incontinence is also a big issue for the 501st.
• Death by Origin Story:
  • Discovering the truth about Ichiro Miyafuji's death causes Yoshika to join the 501st Joint Fighter Wing.
  • In Minna's backstory, Kurt Flachfeld's death caused her to forbid male workers in the base from socializing with the witches.
• Death Seeker: Mio, realizing that her magic is failing due to her age and her usefulness as a soldier on the front lines is nearing its end, seems utterly determined to go out fighting. Even with Minna begging her to step down from duty before it's too late, it takes her a lesson from Yoshika to realize her mistake. As of the first episode of Strike Witches 2, she's still dead set on fighting. It's astonishing she hasn't been microwaved by the Neuroi yet.
• Demoted to Extra: Perrine in 501st Joint Fighter Wing Take Off. She barely appears until the penultimate episode.
• Department of Redundancy Department: When Gertrude is trying to wake up Erica in season one's seventh episode, this exchange occurs:
  Gertrude: For a soldier of Karlsland, discipline comes first! Second is discipline! Third is discipline, and fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth are also discipline!
  Erica: (sleepily) What's tenth?
• Did They or Didn't They?: Krupinsky and Rossmann.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: During the defensive battle of Petersburg, 502nd Joint Fighter Wing member Naoe Kanno, whose magic talent compresses and strengthens her shield, literally punches out a neuroi by using this ability to focus her shield around her fist.
• Distaff Counterpart: The Witches are all Distaff Counterparts of real-life flying aces, and have similar names. The one exception is Sanya, who is based on Lydia Litvyak. Chuck Yeager's counterpart is also the first person in the Strike Witches world to break the sound barrier.
  • Another exception is Ursula Hartmann, who is based on the real life Ursula Hartmann, wife of Erich Hartmann (the model for Ursula's twin sister, Erica Hartmann).
• Doomed Hometown: Practically every character from mainland Europe has seen their homelands wiped out by the Neuroi. The main exception is Lucchini who is from Rome, which has managed to just barely remain untouched by their attacks.
• Dowsing Device: Eila uses one to track down the small, bug-like pants-invading Neuroi, with Sanya's sensors helping out.
• Drinking Contest: In Noble Witches, Samantha Spade has one with The Boss of Marseille in order to get some needed information. Spade wins.
• Drum Bathing: The fourth episode of Strike Witches 2 has an example with two barrels right next to each other.
• Dude, She's Like in a Coma:
  • After rescuing Shirley, Yoshika accidentally grabs her boobs while she is unconscious. She uses the opportunity to start to grope her boobs in front of Lynne.
  • In Strike Witches 2, Eila suspects the bug neuroi is in Sanya's panties. What did she do? Pull off it while she is sleeping. It didn't end well.
  • In 501st Joint Fighter Wing Take Off, Eila straddles Sanya and tries to kiss her in her sleep as a 'Halloween trick.' She's stopped by Erica and Shirley.
• Falling into the Cockpit:
  • During an early encounter with the Neuroi in season one, Yoshika finds a Striker Unit and takes it into battle. Despite being her first time piloting one, Mio is impressed that Yoshika was able to do all the things that she does.
  • Hikari's first actual combat flight in Brave Witches starts out in more or less the same manner, as the only actual combat Striker on hand belongs to her sister Takami, but she ends up getting gravely injured early on.
• False Flag Operation: In Noble Witches, a noble extremist faction bombs the bases at Sedan and Dijon and take Jennifer DeBlanc hostage so that her disappearance will make her look like the culprit, allowing them to blame the United States of Liberion and use it to undermine Liberion/Gallian relations.
• Fastball Special: Charlotte throws Francesca in episode 12, with Francesca using her shield to protect herself and inflict damage.
• Fighter-Launching Sequence: Prior to each sortie, viewers are treated to the mechanics of Witches' pre-flight preparations, whether it be the ignition of their Striker units or their magic circles.
• Fetish: Yoshika seems to have one for big breasts. Fanon often plays it up to Memetic Molester levels.
• Flagpole Challenge: In the Brave Witches episode "The 502nd Joint Fighter Wing", Rossmann challenges Hikari to use her magic to Wall Crawl up an obelisk and fetch down a hat on top within a week's time should she stay with the titular squadron. She just barely makes it within the time limit when Rossmann instructs her to focus her magic onto one hand at a time instead of crawling up on all fours.
• Flawed Prototype: The Me 262 jet striker in season two. It has speed that makes Charlotte jealous, but absorbs way too much magical power to be safe.
• Flying Brick: In addition to their inherent gift magic, their magic also seems to grant them super strength and increased physical endurance. If their shields are counted then they also have nigh invulnerability.
• Foregone Conclusion:
  • Anyone who's watched Operation Victory Arrow knows that the Strike Witches will return in the film.
  • Also, anyone who's watched Brave Witches knows that Naoe, Gundula, Georgette, Sadako, Nikka and Aleksandra will also survive the events of the series since they appear in the film.
• Forging Scene: Mio when she's making her new sword.
• Fragile Speedster: Mio in Strike Witches 2 can't use shields anymore, to compensate she got the Fuso Army to make her the fastest, most agile striker seen yet and made herself a sword that's practically a Game-Breaker: It easily deflects energy beams and can instant-kill enemies.
• Full-Potential Upgrade: Yoshika needed a new Striker in season two because her power was overloading her current one. Conversely, Mio is an inversion, while her powers were growing weaker, she managed to upgrade to a Striker Unit that let her maximize what she still had.
• Functional Magic: A mashup of inherent gift magic and device magic. Every witch inherently has the ability to cast Deflector Shields, which can themselves be used in a variety of ways (e.g. scaling an object or walking over water), and usually one other specific power, which ranges anywhere from the ability to focus that shield around their hand (Kanno), to several varieties of healing (Yoshika can heal others; Georgette can heal others too but at the cost of sending her metabolism into overdrive; Nipa can heal herself rapidly), to Super-Strength (Gertrude), to hitting any target within a specific range with electricity (Perrine), and even the ability to see a few seconds into the future to dodge all incoming fire (Eila). Striker units are hybrid mechanical and magical devices, requiring a witch's magic to function but in turn vastly increasing their magic power, including the ability to raise stronger shields.
• Gag Dub: While not really true of the series itself, the trailer for Funimation's dub gleefully points out the girls' lack of pants at least half a dozen times. Ironically, the "They're not panties, so it's not embarrassing!" line was originally meant not as a justification, but to tell the audience to treat their underwear as if they are wearing something over them.
• Gay Groom in a White Tux: In an Imagine Spot, Eila dreams of marrying Sanya. Eila is wearing a black tuxedo while Sanya is in a white bridal gown.
• Gender-Restricted Ability: Male witches aren't explicitly ruled out, but we've yet to see one; the novel notes that the "vast majority" of them are female, and those are already rare.
• Genre Deconstruction: The series occasionally goes to lengths to point out the realities of a world where A) everyone is forced to set aside their differences to fight an Alien Invasion at a point in time where they probably would have been fighting each other instead, and B) their best defense against those aliens are pre-teen girls with magic powers.
  • When Barkhorn gets reckless due to Yoshika's resemblance to her sister, she gets shot down by the Neuroi.
  • Because witches with Striker Units so hopelessly outclass most existing fighting vehicles, the old guard who use those now-obsolete vehicles tends to look down on them, and two of the anime's three seasons end with a focus on some group or another within the military trying to push out another technology that will itself render witches unnecessary. It's only after both attempts end the same way (the Neuroi quickly hijacks the tech in question, forcing the 501st to destroy it to save the day) that they seem to catch on and start focusing more on projects that allow existing weapons platforms to operate alongside witches safely rather than replace them entirely (e.g. Road to Berlin's climax focused on a thousand-ton tank given special armor that repels Neuroi beams the same as a witch's shield, then deploying it with the support of the 501st).
  • The manga centered around the African front has a story dedicated to the testing of a prototype Striker Unit that is the series' equivalent to the Tiger heavy tank. Its test pilot at one point asks the head mechanic, a former tanker, how she's supposed to feel about risking her life constantly to defend humanity, eventually breaking down in tears from fear of dying. The mechanic is so saddened, both from that he was already asked the same question by another witch years before and still doesn't have a proper answer and that young girls need to even consider such questions, that when a Neuroi later attacks the testing grounds, he takes over the prototype himself and self-destructs it near the Neuroi in an attempted Heroic Sacrifice to protect the witches.
  • Logistics are shown to be important, especially in Brave Witches where the 502nd is closer to the front and doesn't have as well-equipped of a supply chain. The loss of a simple warehouse is enough to noticeably affect them, especially the lost food, and they're already hurting for parts to keep Striker Units functioning even under the best of circumstances due to their ranks including the "Breaker Trio" of Nippa (who makes things go wrong just by her presence), Kanno (whose ability to focus her shield around her fist leaves no protection against the debris of the Neuroi she's punching through clogging up her Strikers' intakes) and Waltrud (who prioritizes lining up shots over making sure she doesn't get hit in return).
• Glass Cannon: Mio in Strike Witches 2 can't use shields anymore, to compensate she got the Fuso Army to make her the fastest, most agile striker seen yet and made herself a sword that's practically a Game-Breaker: It easily deflects energy beams and can instant kill enemies.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: Nikka Edvardine Katajainen, Suomus Witch from the novels/manga/movie and Brave Witches, is a spectacularly unlucky pilot that's destroyed enough Striker Units to earn the nickname "Jinxed Katajainen". An example of this is seen in her appearance in the film. Fortunately, her signature magic is a Healing Factor.
• Gorgeous Gaijin: Charlotte seems to think 100% of the fat a woman consumes goes straight to her breasts, and that this trait is unique to American women. Amazingly, she seems to be entirely correct about this.
• Gratuitous German:
  • The plans for the rocket boosters in Strike Witches 2, episode 6 are written in really bad German.
  • Barkhorn has a few lines in German in the film and one of the CD's.
• Groin Attack: Used to amusingly demonstrate in episode 3 of Strike Witches 2 why broomsticks are no longer used for flight. That and other things.
• Growing Up Sucks: The Witches gradually lose their magical powers when they grow older. Typically they appear at 12, but by 20 their shields become so weak that they can't even stop handgun bullets. That doesn't mean they lose their powers completely, as elderly witches can still use spells and fly. Used inconsistently, as multiple adult witches are shown to almost as powerful as the main characters (though they do not use shields) while Mio by the last two episodes of Strike Witches 2 is almost powerless and can barely fly, and is left completely grounded throughout Road to Berlin.
  • In Road to Berlin this starts to happen to Barkhorn and Wilcke as well.
• Guns Akimbo: Gertrude dual-wields two MG42 heavy machine guns.
• Hammerspace: When a Witch puts on a Striker Unit, their legs are actually transported into a subspace, leaving more room for the different parts of the engine.
• Handicapped Badass: Lieutenant Gundula Rall, to an extent. A stray shot during the evacuation of Karlsland fractured her back, and even after nine months of rehab she has to wear a magic-imbued corset to soothe her old injury during combat. That didn't stop her from securing the title of Karlsland's 3rd greatest ace, after Gertrud and Erica.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Carla Luksic of the 506th Joint Fighter Wing uses her surprisingly specific "ether-conducted cooling magic" ability to cool her M2 Browning Machine Gun to increase and prolong its firing capability. She's also depicted in official art as using it presumably to cool beverages.
• Hero of Another Story: The 501st unit gets the bulk of the action in the anime, but there's a whole mess of other squadrons out there, each doing their own thing. The manga stories do a good job showing off these other units and what they're up to.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • In the backstory, Barkhorn goes through a long one after Chris was injured and Karlsland was destroyed by the Neuroi.
  • Not only does Mio have no shield anymore at the end of Strike Witches 2, but Reppumaru ate up almost all of her magic to the point that she can't even fire off Reppuzan anymore.
  • Kanno goes through a brief one when Sasha gets injured in the Brave Witches episode "Break Witches".
• Historical Domain Character: Magical girl versions of World War II aces.
• Historical Injoke:
  • In episode 6, Minna comments that if the Neuroi hadn't invaded Earth, their superiors (Europe's political and military leaders) would likely be fighting among themselves.
  • Also, Barkhorn referring to the division of hers and Hartmann's room as the Siegfried Line.
  • In the extended canon, Hartmann and Barkhorn, with fellow Karlslanders Waltrud Krupinski and Johanna Wiese, were once given audience with the Emperor of Karlsland, alluding to the real-life incident where, coincidentally, a drunken Erich Hartmann grabbed the Fuhrer's hat by mistake.
• Hitchhiker's Leg: Subverted in episode 11, when Erica tries to get a passing truck to stop, and it doesn't even slow down. Clearly, men have been desensitized by the lack of pants of every attractive female in the world, rendering this method ineffectual.
• Idiot Ball:
  • You may regard Yoshika as holding this in the 10th episode, but think that Mio is holding it in the 9th episode, due to her charging in to attack a Neuroi herself, even knowing her shields are failing, because she refuses to listen to Yoshika's reasons for not attacking and even though she is quite aware that Yoshika has been alone and unharmed by this Neuroi for several minutes already and she can see that it is inviting Yoshika to touch its core, an act roughly equal to a human willingly tearing open its chest and allowing somebody to take hold of their still-beating heart. Even if the Neuroi are the enemy, this one was clearly acting atypically, and prudence would have been better then just charging in blindly.
  • At the end of Strike Witches, Trevor Maloney comes up with a plan to destroy the Neuroi den over Gallia using a prototype weapon injected with Neuroi technology. It goes horribly wrong, and the Strike Witches have to come save the day. At the end of Strike Witches 2, the higher-ups come up with a plan to destory the Neuroi den over Venezia using a prototype weapon injected with Neuroi technology. You can guess how well that goes.
  • With its arguably questionable quality, Brave Witches in general has this in spades but you'll definitely wanna slap Hikari and Takami during the final 3 episodes of the season
• I Call It "Vera": Mio names her new sword Reppumaru, a reference to the A7M Reppuu (fierce wind) fighter, which was intended to succeed the A6M Zero (the basis for Mio's Striker in season one).
• Image Song: In response to the fans, five image song CDs were released covering all the main characters (Yoshika got two solos, though) The CDs also included duets and covers of songs from the girls' home countries from around that era. Except for the Karlslander trio, which has the lyrics rewritten, since a Nazi song wouldn't have flown in this day and age.
• Improbably Female Cast: It is theorized by some fans that only females can use magic. And as the main characters are the magic users...
• Inconsistent Dub: The English dub can never seem to make up its mind as to use American ranks for the pilots or British ranks, sometimes swapping between the two even in the same scene.
• Interservice Rivalry: Between the 501st and the conventional armies. Europe's political and military elites are not too pleased about having to rely almost exclusively on Witch units.
  • Averted in some cases as most witches are friendly towards each other regardless of their serving branches, and are adored by male soldiers and officers generally. Played straight in the Zero manga series when Imperial Fuso Army and Navy generals, and witches from both branches start a three-way argument in an Imperial conference. It goes far enough that during a big operation the Navy actually dispatches a separate fleet not part of plan to steal the credit of killing the Big Bad by deliberately bombarding the area of operation, with witches still in there, posing as friendly fire.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: None of the Witches seem to have any problem going around bare-legged except Perrine. Even Muggle girls go pantless. Though they do draw the line at Going Commando.
• Istanbul (Not Constantinople): Since Strike Witches is an alternate history, this trope is in full effect. The Fuso Empire is Japan, Gallia is France, Suomus is Finland, Orussia is Russia, Karlsland is Germany, Liberion is the United States, Italy is divided into the Romagna and Venezia Ducates, Britannia is the United Kingdom, Belgium is Belgica, Romania is Dacia, and Canada is Faraway Land (It hasn't yet gained dominion from Brittannia, which makes the name... Okay, it's still lame). For some reason, India and Egypt have kept their names the same. The show also refers to real life locations within those countries, and at least two real world currencies (Fuso's yen and Britannia's pounds) have carried over.
  • Ostmark was the official designation for Austria (Österreich) after the 1938 Anschluss.
  • A lot of the names are based on historical terms for the countries. The Nazis stole "Ostmark" from the historical name for Austria before it became its own realm in the Middle Ages, for example, and most of the European nations are based on Roman Provincial names. For (further) example, Spain is Hispania, Bulgaria is Moesia, and the many mentioned above. It seems that the convention carries over to Asia, where Fuso is based on a Chinese term for Japan: Fusang. Suomus is based on Suomi, the Finnish name for their country. Orussia is sorta the Middle Mongolian exonym for Russia (the extra O is caused by Mongolian phonetics, later loaned to China), Karl was probably meant to be Charlemagne or another "Karl" who was Holy Roman Emperor (there were a few), the Italies use the Roman naming convention while not progressing in their unification past getting the North and South solidified, and Liberion is pretty self-explanatory. Canada is a Britannian commonwealth referred to as "Faraway Land", though it seems to have more in common with modern Canada than WWII-era Canada - for instance, Newfoundland is part of Faraway Land in the series' setting, which wouldn't happen in the real world until 1949. Interestingly enough, a couple of Britannian Witches are based on Canadian archetypes, which fits in nicely with the Commonwealth Air Training program in reality and Canada's contributions to the Empire's two War efforts.
• Imported Alien Phlebotinum: Inverted and played straight. Inverted as the Neuroi use humanity's aircraft designs for their purposes. Played straight as humans have tried inventing technology that use Neuroi cores to fight against them. The first one (Warlock) ended in colossal failure when the core took Warlock over, and the second one (magic engine for Yamato) was a partial success.
• Instant Runes: The magical circles that show up when the girls take off, and the shields. Some of these magic circles are massive: in episode 8 of Strike Witches 2, Yoshika's magic circle has a radius exceeding the length of the Yamato when she activates her new unit. Consider that the Yamato is a bit under 3 football fields in length.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: In spite of her close relationship with Yoshika, Lynne is overjoyed for the latter when she received her very first love letter from a boy; full of encouragement and support and doing her best to help that potential friendship blossom into a full romance... until Minna steps in and ruins everything.
• Katanas Are Just Better: By the second season, Mio's gradually-failing magic abilities cause her to put her focus entirely on a sword-based technique where she focuses her magic energy into a sword and uses that to cut down the enemy. By the time she gets a chance to use it in combat, her magic energy has weakened too much to be as effective as it looked in training, though Yoshika manages to put it to good use.
• King Incognito: In Strike Witches 2, Francesca befriends Maria, turns out to be the Duchess of Romagna. The second half of the episode in which this happens is basically an extended shout-out to Roman Holiday, including the moment at the Mouth of Truth.
• Kissing Under the Influence: Mio, plastered on an oversized jug of wine, boldly kisses Minna. She faints from the shock of it and, at the end of the episode, wistfully recollects it.
• Kung-Fu Wizard: As the Witches are the front line soldiers in this war, Strike Witches is one of the rare settings in which a magic-user is also "multiclassed" as a warrior by default.
• Last Episode, New Character: Meet Amaki Suwa! Of course, since there's less than a minute left of the final episode, don't expect a lot of character development. The implication of this was, of course, a second season.
• Lens Flare Censor: This series makes liberal use of this trope. It is most prevalent in episode seven of Strike Witches 2. It has the glare moving around, disappearing, and reappearing as necessary. Somehow, the moon can also produce massive beams of light in all the right places. It's mostly averted in the Blu-ray and DVD releases, however.
• Lighter and Softer: 501st Joint Fighter Wing Take Off! is a comedic spinoff focused almost exclusively on the daily lives of the Strike Witches with almost no Neuroi fighting.
• Love at First Sight: Strongly implied to be the case between Eila and Sanya, with Sanya being the first witch Eila met after arriving at the airfield in Dover after she was first transferred to the 501st.
• Male Gaze: An interesting thing to note is that males in-universe think nothing of the fact that the Witches and women who ascribe to the Witch fashion trend aren't wearing any pants. The lover of one Witch in Humikane's doujinshi actually pays more attention to her ample cleavage rather than her well exposed lower half. This is actually a Truth in Television as during that time culture and gender movements basically allowed women to wear things like bikinis and miniskirts which had previously been considered taboo up until the point where today such things are seen as normal but fashionable.
• Marshmallow Hell: Lynne to Yoshika in episode 3, although doesn't Yoshika really mind it. Charlotte does it to Francesca too, but that seems to be somewhat maternal.
• Meaningful Name: Except for Sanya, the names of the characters are gender-swapped versions of those of their real-world counterparts. In a neat little bit of attention to detail, the "Ilmatar" in Eila's name refers to an ancient Finnish sky goddess, an appropriate name for a flying magic user.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: Three examples:
  • In episode 4 of Strike Witches 2, the witches receive a prototype jet unit, which is capable of traveling much faster than their current ones. Unfortunately, it also drains their magic energy at an alarming rate, which Captain Barkhorn found out when it physically exhausts her to the point she faints after using it for too long. It ends up destroyed in the process and Ursula Hartmann, Erica's twin sister and one of the developers of the jet unit, takes it back to work out the kinks in it.
  • In episode 8 of Strike Witches 2, Yoshika gets a new Striker unit. The reason was her magic was growing much stronger, and as a result, the old unit's limiter was kicking in to prevent damage to the engine, which severely crippled her ability to fly in it. Unlike the jet unit, this one is stable.
  • In episode 8 of Brave Witches, Naoe & the Karlsland trio receive new Units.
• Mildly Military: The Strike Witches don't act much like a military unit in a warzone. Then again, the actual military is a bit better about this so the mildly military attitude of the 501st is probably due to the fact that they are highly valuable former civilian volunteers. This is realistically applicable particularly when dealing with experienced and higher ranking Witches who have actually been training for longer. For on, they're Air Force Aces whom did actually have quite glamorous lives back then due to propaganda among other things. High rank Witches like Minna spend most their time realistically pushing papers while the lower rank Witches are shown to spend most of their time training, drilling or doing maintenance work or catering for themselves and running for supplies. Military law is also carried out such as with Miyafuji's eventual dishonorable discharge despite her heroics and strict hierarchy of command is also maintained, it's just that some punishments have to be lighter because they justifiably can't replace their losses.
• Military Mage: The series centers around multiple Multinational Team military units composed of magic-wielding girls as a way to defend the humanity against the alien invasion.
• Military Moe: The world's air forces are composed of teenage Magical Girls who fly into battle without any pants.
• Minor Injury Overreaction: After their hanger is bombed, Kunika Kuroda is discovered unconcious and is rushed to the hospital where she spends a long time recovering with her teary squadmates looking after her and praying for her recover. It turns out she ate too much and passed out from indigestion.
• Monster of the Week: Lampshaded when Mio comments that the Neuroi no longer adhere to their previously established "once per week" pattern. Early in Season 1, 2 of the girls are sunbathing, when a third calls them on not training they say "A neuroi attack isn't until 8" and then when it happens "it's too early". That's right, the monsters of the week have scheduled, and precalculated attack times.
• Multinational Team: The Strike Witches are an international military unit, with members from their world's equivalents of Japan, Germany, England, France, America, Russia, Finland, and Italy. Supplementary materials show that the rest of the Joint Fighter Wings are also this.
• The Napoleon: In spite of her small stature, Naoe Kanno of the 502nd Joint Fighter Wing is known for her Hair-Trigger Temper. Incidentally, she's described as harboring a great admiration for Gallian (French) language and literature.
• Narrator: Hozumi Gouda narrates the anime.
• Necessary Drawback: Mio's new sword, Reppumaru, is extremely powerful - so powerful, in fact, that it gives Yoshika burns just from holding it - but as Minna explains, using the sword has accelerated the draining of what little magic Mio has left.
• New Meat:
  • Yoshika is this when she first joins the Strike Witches.
  • Shizuka Hattori in The Movie and Road to Berlin, given that her family served as soldiers.
  • Hikari Karibuchi serves this role in Brave Witches.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Breathe deep, and repeat with me: Mecha Fighter Pilot Animal-eared Magical Girls in Powered Armor leering over each other while being roped into conspiracy!
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Strike Witches is primarily set in Europe. Don't look for any of the Multinational Team Witches to sport anything approaching an actual foreign accent, however.
• Not What It Looks Like: In episode 7 of Strike Witches 2, a Neuroi disguised as a tiny bug infiltrates the witches' headquarters. After Shirley's "bugdar" gets destroyed by the bug, Eila runs to her room to fetch two L-shaped dowsing rods. It points towards a sleeping Sanya. Eila seems hesitant to search Sanya's underwear, which the bug had been invading on the other girls earlier in the episode, but then does it just as Sanya begins to wake up. In the next scene, Eila explains to the other girls what happened, and has a big bump on her head.
• No Hugging, No Kissing:
  • Ok there's plenty of hugging, and lots of moments of the girls talking very near each other faces, eyes firmly interlocked, which just makes it the more odd that no actual kissing happens. Of course strictly speaking, the nature of the hugging could be simply camaraderie. See But Not Too Gay above.
  • Averted later in the series. Mio kisses Minna in one episode and Eila tries to kiss Sanya a couple of times.
• No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Yeager spends an entire episode trying to juice up her Stiker so she can hit Mach 1, only reaching Mach .67. Then Lucchini accidentally knocks Yeager's Strikers over one night, and hastily tries to put it back together to cover it up. On her next sortie, Shirley breaks the sound barrier. As Lucchini knows nothing of practical engineering and wasn't taking notes, nobody's sure how she got a 50% top speed increase, and as the Strikers themselves ended up falling into the Channel, nobody can take them apart to figure out what Francesca did so right.
• Odd Friendship: Barkhorn and Hartmann. Barkhorn is a by-the-book neat freak. Hartmann is a lazy slob. They fight constantly, but have remained partners for pretty much their entire career in the military and are famous for being the two best highest scoring aces in the world.
• One-Steve Limit: Inevitably averted as the characters are based on real-like fighter pilots. For example, Sanya's and Sasha's real first name is Aleksandra for both of them.
• Playing Possum: Hattori does this when she comes face-to-face with a bear in the 501st Joint Fighter Wing Takeoff! Movie. It doesn't work as intended when the bear sees she's "injured" and fetches Yoshika to help her who then performs CPR on her.
• Please Put Some Clothes On:
  • Given Hartmann's frequent sleeping in the nude, Barkhorn often tells the latter to put on her clothes when she wakes her up.
  • Sanya wanders outside in underwear in one episode because Eila stole her clothes to put on a dummy so she could makeout with it while pretending it is Sanya. Sanya is quickly reminded that there are many men on base and to put something on.
  • Perrine frantically tries to cover Sakamoto in one episode when she is training outside in the nude.
• Psycho Lesbian: Perrine, jealous over the attention Mio gives to Yoshika, lures Yoshika into a duel carrying live weaponry instead of the usual practice guns, though this is mollified somewhat by the terms of the duel (no rounds — practice or otherwise — were fired, the winner was determined by who could stay on the others' tail for ten seconds). The appearance of a Neuroi stops it early on.
• Public Domain Soundtrack: In the 2007 OVA:
  • The "Dawn and Siegfried's Rhine Journey" excerpt from Richard Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung is played during the 501st JFW's opening flight into the sunrise as well as the opening prologue.
  • Later, Wagner's Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin is heard when the Witches commence their mock battle.
• Putting the Band Back Together: The second episode of Strike Witches 2 brings the original crew of 501st Joint Fighter Wing back together.
• Ramming Always Works: In episode 5, resident speed demon Charlette is called upon to deal with the fastest Neuroi ever seen. After some accidental tampering from Francesca earlier in the episode allows Charlette's striker to go supersonic, she gets too caught up in the high to realize she's about to collide with the aforementioned Neuroi, and just barely manages to get her shield up before gutting the damn thing stern-to-stem. Incidentally, this also marks the fastest time any Neuroi unit is killed on screen, lasting about 10 seconds from first-contact to core destruction.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Laura Toth was a member of the 501st prior to the anime, but was reassigned to the Isle of Wight Detachment Group (a far more out of the way and less prestigious post) due to her inability to get along with anybody. Minna was actually very reluctant to do so, but felt like she had no choice after the other witches (particularly Barkhorn) insisted upon her removal from the unit.
• Red Herring: In Strike Witches 2, apparent decline (due to age) in Mio's magic power, the fact that Yoshika's striker unit goes dying on her begs for a reveal that her magic dwindles as well due to some other reason. Turns out it's the opposite, she's just packing too much magic for the unit to handle. And then the season ends totally depleting all that XXL package anyway.
• Refuge in Audacity: Rather than avoid mentioning the series' infamous gimmick, the english DVD releases promo is in a propaganda style commercial joking about the lack of pants rather than trying to make it titillating.
• Removable Steering Wheel: Barkhorn accidentally snaps off her steering wheel when Yeager is teaching her how to drive.
• Reliably Unreliable Guns:
  • Appears to happen to Lynnette in the OVA, given that it happened on her first shot it's more likely she forgot to take the safety off and panicked into thinking it jammed. It happens to Shirley, too, but she gets caught in a pincer attack with literally no time to fix it.
  • The Himegoe voice albums reveal Shirley has numerous problems with her gun. Like some problem's can't be fixed.
  • And then in the film, Barkhorn and Hartman get one each in the exact same scene. Although they're in an arguably more serious situation... not to mention Crazy-Prepared for it.
  • Nikka also has her MG 42 jam in one sortie in Brave Witches, which is especially troublesome since outside circumstances left her as the only member of the squad who could fly at that point. Fortunately, Eila and Sanya show up just in time to take out the enemy for her.
• Running Gag: There's a few relating to the girls sleeping arrangements. Sanya always seems to flop into Elia's bed when she comes off her night patrols, Lucchini seems to like sleeping in high narrow places (Tree branches and a beam in the hanger roof) and Hartmann generally seems to prefer the floor to her bed.
• Scenery Censor: When Perrine slips on a bar of soap and spectacularly "flies" into the pool, the soap bar serves as the scenery censor to cover her bits in mid flight.
• School Swimsuit: More-or-less a standard part of the uniform for all Fuso Navy witches, along with all the other girls at Yoshika's school.
• Sequel Hook:
  • Not so-subtle hints include The letter from Yoshika's father in the post-credits sequence., a novel about Tomoko Anabuki, and the Afrikakorps and the introduction of the 504th Joint Fighter Wing in Strike Witches 2.
  • Though the 501st succeeded in taking back Berlin at the end of Road to Berlin, their battle is far from over, since Orussia, Ostmark, and Southern Karlsland are still under Neuroi occupation.
• Shades of Conflict:
  • Subverted. It was later revealed that the Neuroi displaying its history to Yoshika was an elaborate and effective psyop tactic on the part of the Neuroi. Not that their wholesale genocide of several continents wasn't a dead giveaway, which excuses the military's unwillingness to negotiate, genuine willingness on the part of the Neuroi or not.
  • It was shown in the novels that the original plan was to capture Yoshika and learn of her reflector shield defenses. Generally, the Neuroi's normal plan was to capture witches and then use them against each other, but that didn't work out so well against them either, as the novel also shows the best way to snap someone out of it is to rip her uniform in two.
• Shaking the Rump: Charlotte does this to a Neuroi to lure it into a trap.
• Shout-Out:
  • The 501st could be named after several real world units, including:
    • The 501st Infantry Regiment, the first airborne unit in the US military.
    • The 501st Heavy Panzer Battalion in the Wehrmacht.
    • Darth Vader's own personal stormtrooper legion and the real-life group of cosplayers that inspired the naming.
    • The Auxilary RAF Fighter Squadrons that served in the Battle of Britain, No. 501 (County of Gloucester) Squadron.
  • The Warlock mech in fighter mode looks vaguely like Vic Viper, especially when it opens to fire its laser.
  • Somebody in the Strike Witches 2 staff really likes GunBuster. In between the SUPER LUCCHINI KICK and the fact the first episode is basically episode 5 of Gunbuster... This may be the Kazuhiro Takamura's choice: he was in Gainax before Strike Witches, so it's probably from that. Also, the scene in S1E2 where Yoshika is on the elevator on Akagi, is definitely a Gunbuster reference too.
  • The second-half of Episode 5 of Strike Witches 2 (set in Rome) is basically a scene-for-scene remake of/tribute to Roman Holiday starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, with Lucchinni (in the role of Peck's reporter character) even re-enacting the famous "Mouth of Truth" scene.
  • The Battleship Yamato being converted to fly as humanity's last hope against aliens. This should be familiar.
  • The manga Noble Witches has references to several films including The Maltese Falcon, An American in Paris, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Stage Coach, and The French Connection.
• Shown Their Work: Despite being a show about 13-20 year old girls fighting an evil alien threat, many WWII references were made in both moefied and non-moefied ways.
  • The example of Erica Hartmann stealing panties was based on a real story where Erich Hartmann (Erica's Ace Pilot archetype) grabbed Hitler's hat after getting drunk the night before an award ceremony and misplacing his own hat. They had to settle for her stealing Francesca's panties since there's no Hitler Distaff Counterpart, though the ensuing chaos over the issue was done well enough to parallel the situation.
  • And in the sound department, each Striker Unit has its own piston-driven propeller airplane sound.
  • Every piece of machinery, including the Neuroi, are based on something from the era. Though later seasons seem to have moved on to include later material and even beyond; Road to Berlin in particular shows more than one Neuroi in a shape that's instantly recognizable as an alien Su-47.
  • Episode 6 of Strike Witches 2 has fan dubbed "Yuri Rocket" referencing Russian Yuri Gagarin who was the first person in space. Note that the launch is exactly how a multi stage rocket operates.
  • Trude's first impression of the Me 262 jet Striker is that she's being pushed by angels, which was exactly what the real Barkhorn said about the real Me 262.
• Shower of Angst: Late in Strike Witches 2, Mio becomes aware that her time as a witch is running out. This is paired with rain when it becomes painfully obvious that her magic has just about run dry to the point that flight is now difficult.
• Sleep Cute: Quite often involving roommates, the most adorable ones being those involving Sanya/Eila and Yoshika/Lynette.
• Slippery Swimsuit: In episode 5, Shirley goes into a combat sortie straight from the beach, breaks the sound barrier, and then flies straight through a Neuroi. When she makes it out the other side, both her Strikers and her bikini have fallen off.
• Space Is Noisy: Averted, interestingly. In Episode 6 of the second series, a battle at 33,333 meters is conducted in complete silence other than a vocal insert song.
• Spanner in the Works:
  • A rare positive example: Francesca accidentally tampering with Shirley's Striker allows the latter to finally reach supersonic speeds, much to the detriment of the Neuroi she was sent to dispatch.
  • Yoshika's attempt to make peaceful contact with a Neuroi prompted the high command to perform their coup on the Witches prematurely.
• Spoiler Title: Subverted. The title of the last episode of Strike Witches 2 is "Beyond the skies to eternity", which heavily implies Mio is going to perform a heroic sacrifice. Yoshika saves her in the end.
• Status Buff: Gertrude's trademark spell greatly enhances her physical strength.
• The Stinger:
  • There was a bunch of new girls during the credits for Group 504, plus the return of LT Takei and the clutzy Fuso messenger.
  • Strike Witches 2 ends with a nice closing shot of Shinden and Reppumaru washed up on a beach near Yamato. And then a shadow approaches them.
• Suicide Mission: In the end of second season. Someone needed to reach the Yamato in order to reactivate the engines, and Mio was the only witch with some magic energy left, but the ship was in the sky with Neurois nearby. Without thinking twice, Mio goes to the ship even with Minna threatening to shoot her down in order to stop her.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: After Yoshika had an obviously NC-17-rated dream abouther teammate Lynne and was awakened from this dream by her, she claimed not to remember the content or having been staring at Lynette's "assets".
• Super-Strength: More apparent in the OVA, where a fourteen-year-old girl easily one-hands a gun so massive that it requires two grown men to carry it. Gertrude can also amplify her strength using her magic to lift and throw objects as massive as a steel girder; she most commonly makes use of that ability to use two MG42s at once. The Super Strength seems to be an ability inherent in the witches, not given (but probably amplified) by the Striker Units.
• Sweeping Laser Explosion: If Neuroi's lasers cut through something, they only explode after few seconds as oppose to blowing up instantly if directly hit with a laser blast. There are also few cases such as in the beginning of The Movie and later on in the Movie when a Neuroi almost kills Yoshika where just grazing the ground will set off an explosion.
• Tank Goodness: A less common type of Witch are the Land Witches, who use Striker Units designed after tanks and use tank weaponry instead of firearms. While originally showing up in manuals and semi-canon works, Brave Witches have showed them in cameos.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Not all the Witches get along, as shown by Perrine's initial antipathy towards Yoshika. Charlotte and Gertrud in particular really don't like each other, and they are not exactly shy about showing it either.
• Tempting Fate: In one episode Eila confidently struts down the hallway singing about how happy she is and how nothing can make her angry. Cue her running into Sanya telling Yoshika that she's going to teach her everything about her body.
• Theme Music Powerup: Sanya and Eila's joint character song, "Sweet Duet" is played as they destroy the awesomely tall Neuroi tower.
• Tim Taylor Technology: Striker Units will shut down if the wearer's magical potential is or becomes too great. Yoshika learns the hard way before eventually upgrading to a model that can handle her, leading to a subversion. This may be an anime only detail, or a newer feature; in one of the manga runs, Yoshika's power ends up overloading and wrecking a two-seater unit she was merely a passenger in.
• To Be Lawful or Good: The sticking point that initially separates Shizuka Hattori from Yoshika Miyafuji. While Yoshika is willing to disregard rules and help out everyone that she can if she needs to, Shizuka doesn't agree with doing so at first, but eventually comes to realize that Yoshika's actions helped the 501st JFW achieve victories.
• Too Fast to Stop: After getting to caught up in the fact that she had exceeded Mach 1 for the first time, Charlotte doesn't realize she's about to collide with a supersonic Neuroi until the last second, and barely manages to get her shield up before rear-ending the unsuspecting Neuroi. And while she comes out unharmed due to said shield, the Neuroi's core is destroyed in the collision, terminating the entire thing.
• Took a Level in Badass: Yoshika in the eighth episode of Strike Witches 2. Not only does she One-Hit Kill a Neuroi, but Minna notes that her magic power surpassed the operational threshold of her old Striker.
• Took a Level in Kindness: In the first season, Perrine is initially depicted as a jealous Jerk with a Heart of Gold. By the time of the second season, she gets over her jealousy, turns her home into an orphanage and helps reconstruct Gallia.
• Translation Convention: Most likely. Perrine and Yoshika arguing about honorifics early in season 1 seems to depend on the fact that everyone is speaking Japanese. This one's fairly easy to handwave by saying that magic also acts as a universal translator.
• Trash of the Titans: Erica Hartmann shares a room with Gertrude Barkhorn. Contrasting the latter's side, her side is so messy that in one episode she can't find her own underwear, so she ends up stealing a pair from one of the other girls who are taking a bath at the time.
• Treasure Map: After sorting through boxes within boxes within more boxes, Perrine, Yoshika, Lynne and Lucchini find one and go spelunking. Hijinks ensue.
• Unusual Ears: Witches gain them when using their magic.
• Vapor Wear: Sanya wears opaque pantyhose and a miniskirt and has massive cameltoe as compensation in the fanservice department.
• Walking Techbane: Nikka Katajainen of the 502nd has unbelievably bad luck, with one side effect of it being that her equipment is practically looking for every conceivable excuse to fail, from one or both strikers giving out for no reason or her gun jamming at the worst possible time. The only things that keep her in the air are the combination of her magically-induced Healing Factor and being in the same squad as another witch with magic-enhanced mechanical aptitude, so neither her nor her strikers are out of action for very long.
• We ARE Struggling Together: Humanity. The Allies are constantly bickering, arguing with, and scheming against each other. It is suggested multiple times that if not for the existential threat of the Neuroi, the various nations of the world would be at war with each other.
• Wham Episode: Episode 10 of Road to Berlin ends with Yoshika defying orders yet again to defend Kiel from the Neuroi's Suicide Attack at the grave cost of her remaining magic reserves, putting herself at a high risk of being unable to use magic or even fly. And then she passed out afterwards, leaving the rest 501st to take back Berlin without her.
• Wham Line: A minor one during episode 5, after "complications" conveniently cause Charlotte's comm-set to malfunction as she closes in on Mach 1:
  Mio: [As Shirley's comms clear up] "Can you hear me, Lieutenant! Answer me!!"
  Charlotte: "Major, I did it! I exceeded the speed of sound!"
  Mio: "Emergency Stop! You're going to crash into the enemy!!"
  [Charlotte takes a few seconds to register the "enemy", then puts up her shield immediately prior to punching straight through a Neuroi like it isn't even there.]
• A Wizard Did It: Magic drives the entire plot, ranging from character development to the function of the Striker Units. From a historical perspective a lot of technology was made possible by using magic to fuel experimentation. Major religions are notably absent as well because of the presence of magic.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: From the light novels, Itokawa. Given that Tomoko fell for her, thinking she was male, when she was already struggling with her sexuality... let's just say she doesn't take it well.
• Workout Fanservice: Mio has a habit of training nude outdoors in the winter time.
• World of Action Girls: The witches.
• Worthy Opponent: Marseille and Hartmann. In the past, any competition would end in a draw.
• Wrench Wench: Charlotte E. Yeager. Before joining the witches she worked on motorcycles and airplanes, consequentially her striker unit is heavily modified. Even after joining the witches she spends her spare time in the machine shop and making further modifications to her striker unit.
• Yuri Genre: In some cases the teasing between the girls appears to be fueled by genuine romantic feelings.
• Zombie Apocalypse: Played for Laughs in episode 7 of Road to Berlin. An ancient fertility statue grants Lucchini large breasts, and anyone she fondles subsequently gets "infected" with large breasts as well. They lose their mind for the duration of the curse, and a Dwindling Party scenario occurs as several other witches are attacked and fondled. Lynette subsequently becomes the Final Girl, and ends up saving the day when she destroys the idol with a well placed sniper shot.

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