"not your average girl-who-manifested-magic-powers" seems to be a common thread for the three investigating witches. Though I guess Marisa is less investigating and more "where Reimu goes, so do I, and hey this is interesting anyway."

>It could be argued that the Imperial Fusō Army in the 1930s was
>worse than wolves, although they mostly left her to her own devices
>rather than "raising" her as such, apart from the occasional lecture
>in passing from a senior officer (and we saw in the story how
>effective those were). The general idea is that the Hakurei is
>special and will be fine figuring it out for herself for the most
>part. I'm not saying that's necessarily right, but that's how
>they view it.
>

I expect the army mostly expected the current recognized Hakurei to do the raising of the next generation and left her to it, and simply failed to have a contingency plan for one being KIA at such a young age (which given the danger inherent in the position is a pretty glaring oversight on their part.)

>That's true, but--especially toward the end of the first
>series--there's always an undercurrent there. It shows in the way
>non-witch officers act when it looks like there won't be any need for
>their services any longer. As soon as it even looks like the
>WARLOCK is going to work, there's an instant turn against the
>witches by the brass. All at once, they go from being treated as
>valued and privileged military assets to irrelevant annoyances. That,
>to me, says a lot about how sincere that valuation really was in a lot
>of cases.
>

I think the lack of any meaningful interaction with civilians in the first season left me with the impression that the 501st's issues with the brass were more military infighting due to wounded egos than anything more general, but it certainly makes sense that such attitudes, while not universal, could be more general.

>Mind you, the fact that it all went horribly wrong and the 501st saved
>the day in spite of their superiors may have counted for something,
>but it speaks of a societal attitude that isn't going to change
>overnight. (Viz. the fact that the same Allied high command turned
>around and pulled almost the same stunt at the climax of the Venezia
>campaign.) Of course, the writers of the actual show may have had
>none of this subtext actually in mind! It's hard to say, given how
>all-over-the-radar the tone of the show is. Maybe it's all in my
>head! But then, so is OWaW. :)
>

I got the impression that the brass was being mostly the typical "unhelpful higher ups who aren't in the thick of things and so don't get it" during that, but I can see how that could be read differently. At least they learned not to disband the 501st the moment they thought their new superweapon was online this time. And they were somewhat correct that the hive in question required more firepower than the typical witch could bring to bear.

>She hasn't, though I'm familiar with her in passing from artbooks and
>the Strike Witches wiki.
>

She came to mind for having the iron self control to eat food so terrible it could be considered a war crime with a totally neutral expression, only commenting "It's foul" when asked. The Brave Witches spinoff anime is... lesser than the main series (production values are sometimes noticeably lower, fanservice is much less of a focus, though that might be a positive really, and the humor to drama balance is a bit different) but not a waste of time to check out if you've got a Crunchyroll account (should be viewable with even the freebie account.) If nothing else, the 502nd has both Nikka Katajainen the bad luck witch and Naoe Kanno the witch who punches Neuroi to death.

>True, although she's not so much secretive as usually taciturn. One
>peculiar thing about Reimu is that, either despite or because of her
>childhood's bizarre mixture of privilege and neglect, she doesn't
>think she's interesting. Why would anyone want to hear about her?
>She's just a girl who runs a poky little shrine in the arsehole of
>nowhere that no one ever visits, and she hardly ever leaves. OK, when
>she does leave it's generally to engage terrifying supernatural
>monsters in single combat, which she prosecutes with complete
>ruthlessness and somewhat terrifying supernatural powers of her own,
>but that's not as exciting as it looks in the newsreels.
>

That just makes me want to give the girl a hug, which is especially impressive since my first reaction to her was an urge to toss her into the sea. Semi-related I now find myself having some confusion mentally 'casting' her voice, since initially I slotted her as a standard 'haughty anime girl' but now that seems less fitting.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "This Space For Rent."