You may remember how the first season of Strike Witches managed to hold my interest despite its many problematic aspects: a "fight story" with half-naked little girls, a standard alien menace, and arbitrary magical elements.
We left our heroines on the verge of meaningful communication with the alien invaders, with hopes for insights into their motives and maybe even peace talks. I was then expecting the second season to expand upon these elements, giving us more background on the aliens, on the inventor of the Strikers (and father of the main character), and maybe even on the military hierarchy.
Instead, I got a nearly trope-by-trope repetition of the first season. The human-shaped alien emissary is destroyed by the same aliens before any talks can take place, another territory is invaded (Italy this time, called "Romagna" probably because the capital is Rome; funny since Romagna is the name of a region of Italy…), and everything happens just like the first time around. We get, again, some faulty untested technology; a spunky newcomer who lasts for a single episode; an excuse to force the girls to lose their knickers; even a second attempt at incorporating alien technology into Earth ships (which, of course, backfires, just like in the first season).
There are some new stories, like a training session with an old witch, and a treasure hunt. There's also some back-pedalling on some details that were hinted at in the first season, for example about the correlation between age and magical powers.
All in all, it feels very much like the studio decided to "play it safe", and re-hashed the same plot instead of using all the hooks they had put into the story. I think they wasted an opportunity: they could have developed a rather good story, and decided not to. (And now I've discovered a few hundred non-erotic Strike Witches fanfics… there goes my week).
If you want interesting new stories about the Witches, you're out of luck. If you want more of the same, or you really like having complete series, you won't be disappointed.
