Awesome / Strike Witches: The Movie

• Yoshika might have established herself as a budding badass in the series but in the movie her balls drop like meteors during the climax. The Neuroi are re-enacting The Battle of the Bulge and the only ones ready to protect a small town on the edge of Karlsland are Shizuka and Yoshika. Shizuka is wounded and out of action and Yoshika is still depowered, so Yoshika grabs Shizuka's gun, which she can barely lift without magic strength, jumps in a jeep and fights the Neuroi on foot. She successfully lures her target away from the village and into the countryside but is then surprised when it submerges into the earth and comes up right in front of her. Well that's no problem at all. RAMMING SPEED! And when even that doesn't work she still gets up one last time and unloads what's left of her ammo at it Rambo and Tony Montana's style and takes out the core, though not without getting blasted and almost killed in return.
  • Wounded, bleeding out, disoriented, and surrounded by Neuroi, Yoshika looks like a goner. But when she hears the voices of the entire 501st, each and everyone of them rushing from their bases to save her, Yoshika decides she wants to be by their sides. So she flies.
• Let's not forget the final battle of the movie. The Yamato has shot the surface of the giant Neuroi and revealed the core, but enemy units are defending in front of it with a dense barrage of lasers so normal fire won't work. What do the witches decide to do? Yoshika activates her giant shield, and Minna orders everyone to do the same. As Yoshika roars, they all charge in for a massive 501st style Lucchini-esque shield drill Dungeon Bypass!
  Mio: Look carefully. That's the kind of Witch you should strive to become!
• There are three crowning moments of awesome in the opening sequence of the film:
  • The first being with the introduction and Establishing Character moment for the Neuroi and the regular human soldiers, with Neuroi ground units first standing tall upon the ruins of a building and advancing forward across an open countryside; closing upon Karlsland and Liberion infantry and armor; steadily, in force, in mass and paying little head to human gunfire and artillery barrages or even with losses to their kin around them. Any damage a Neuroi sustains is quickly regenerated and the formerly damaged Neuroi continues forward stubbornly, beamfire lancing and bombarding the once peaceful and pristine countryside.And then when the pitched battle on the ground appears to be a roughly even fight; a Neuroi heavy air unit crests over the hillside to support it's ground forces Causing the Karlsland and Liberion troops to freeze in shock. The Neuroi air unit proceeds to send a single volley of supernatural alien beamfire into the ranks of infantry and tanks, one beam from either side of it's wings.... all of which vanish in a swath of light and delayed explosion. The air unit proceeds to turn it's attention to the offshore Navy fleet of various nations navel ships that was bombarding Neuroi ground units, and once in range it sends a wild yet deliberate swath of beams to cut through each ship from frigate, to destroyer to battleship; each beam rapidly destroying and sinking each ship in only moments.... sometime after this the same Neuroi air unit fly's over a large city, likely full of people; and with just one long, sweeping beam attack: wipes that whole city away in a red-white light. That alone shows the display of power and the threat of the Neuroi in the 1940's. Powerful, difficult to kill, relentless, mysterious and terrifying.
  • Contrasted is the awesome efforts of the conventional troops, consisting of infantry, armor, and offshore navel bombardment assisting them.These are all just normal men. Half of them are from differing nations and in our world they would have fought against each other bitterly. Yet here, in this world; they fight together, as comrades and brothers in arms against a great and powerful threat what figuratively and even literally dwarfs them. All the infantry have is just their standard kit and small arms consisting (from what we see) is Liberion infantry wielding M1 Garands and Karlsland Infantry wielding MP 40's, maybe some grenades, sidearms and other weapons we either don't see or only see in passing, supported by Sherman Medium Tanks and Tiger Heavy Tanks alongside them and the navy fleet consisting of various nations warships providing support fire. And none of these weapons in the men's hands have any of a witches magic mass; they are all just normal weapons of war that they were built as. Most of these weapons against neuroi armor are little more then a nuisance or a temporary inconvenience, and while the heavyiset of humanities weapons, in the form of tanks and navel artillery can damage and even destroy Neuroi ground units; they aren't always consistent; although with enough accuracy and enough mass of firepower they manage to hold their own, and for a while it seems like they are on even footing.... until the massive Neuroi air unit arrives on the battlefield. But despite all this; these men likely know the gravity of the threat before them, it likely scares a lot of them and they are legit fighting supernatural alien monsters that have been around in history since as long as they remember. They likely know they are under powered compared to the Neuroi .... and yet despite it all these brave men still summon enough courage and nerve to fight despite the limitations of their 1940's technology. They hold the line and in the right conditions can go toe to toe with the Neuroi, and do so alongside men of other nations that they have come to call friends, comrades and brothers.
  • And lastly the final moment of awesome is when the witches of the 501st demonstrating the power and capability of witches and the witch unit in general and Joint Fighter Wings in particular. The same Neuroi air unit that had completely ravaged and decimated allied infantry and armor battalions consisting of troops and tanks from two powerhouse nations in the allied forces (Liberion and Karlsland), sunk a fleet of dozens of warships from various nations and completely destroyed a large European city off the face of the world; causing likely untold numbers of civilian deaths and injuries (assuming it wasn't evacuated). That same Neuroi is then engaged by the witches of the 501st. It attempts to engage the approaching witches: by firing ALL it's beam ports at the incoming band of air infantry witches. The witches to make first contact and receive the incoming volley remain in flying formation, raise their shields and the beams impact but have no effect. The beams are stopped by the witches shields completely. And the three witches (Minna, Erica and Gertrud) don't even flinch and return fire. The rest of the witches follow suit, each witch moving with acrobatic skill, speed and grace, deploying tactics that range from the typical but well executed aerial maneuvers to the more unconventional and creative but never the less effective tactics; all the while the Neuroi is desperately trying to fire beam after beam from its ports to defend itself, even at one point trying to fire multiple beams from a single port in a seemingly frantic self-defense to try and shoot down the witches attacking it. And yet the 501st doesn't let up the assault but continue to pour on automatic gun fire from every direction, covering each other defensively with counter fire or outright shielding each other with magic shields, adding a helping of missile barges from Sanya's Fleiggerhammer and a round from Lynn's Boy's Mark 1, which at last exposes the Neuroi core and gives Mio the opening to draw her sword to dive upon the Neuroi air unit and destroy it's core; where it cries out and bursts into shards of white. To cap this all off; the battle with the 501st engaging and destroying the heavy Neuroi air unit: lasted about 90 seconds. To reiterate: the total time it took the 501st to battle and destroy this very Neuroi air unit, responsible for a staggering loss of life (both military and likely civilian) and causing utter destruction, from making contact with the enemy Neuroi air unit in question to the destruction of it's core: took only about 90 seconds to accomplish. That alone is a crowning moment of awesome not only for the 501st and many other witch units but for all of witch kind; showing the power and capability individual witches bring to bear with their magic, seeing each individual witches magical powers and military training in action; and then seeing all these individuals with their own magical abilities and capabilities come together to be a formidable military unit against a powerful, mysterious and dangerous alien race that threatens mankind; and being able to not only fight as a true equal to their supernatural alien adversaries; but being able and capable of defeating their enemy barrel to beam port. It's little wonder why witches are on average and as a whole are uniformly popularized and celebrated in universe as humanities vaunted, beloved and celebrated protectors, champions and heroes. Truly there is nothing a witch can't do...