This is my story.  There may be many like it, but this one is mine…  And it’s pretty much what it says on the box.

So there I am, sitting in my tiny apartment, in a tiny city in the Middle of Nowhere, Japan, a few weeks before I was to leave for a holiday in the States.  I just finished my dinner of a spoonful of peanut butter and a glass of barley tea, mostly because I was trying to save some money, but also because it was too hot to feel especially hungry.  It was also too hot to go out looking for trouble on a Friday night.  So I decide to just stay in and watch some anime instead.

And what luck—I saved the second episode of Strike Witches 2 for just such an occasion!

I know I’ve said this before, but I love Strike Witches.  Love love love, with zero reservations (well, okay, maybe one).  Yes, it’s mildly exploitative and an embarrassing example of otaku perversion.  Sure.  I won’t contest that.  But it’s also skillfully made, and the material just bursts with energy and enthusiasm of a kind that you don’t see in every series.  The second season, with its higher production values and raised stakes, does this even better.  So I queue it up and proceed to thoroughly enjoy myself.

I get to the climax of the episode, when Yoshika’s been hit by the Neuroi and is spinning out toward her doom.  Then suddenly, a shot from the sky!  The music swells, Yoshika and Mio look up, and…  Oh-ho, it’s Shirley and Lucchini, saving the day!  Not only that, but soon Lynne appears!  Followed by Perrine, who saunters into the scene in her classy way…  Then boom, rockets fly, and who could it be but Eila and Sanya!  And then finally, coming in to finish the job, die große karlslanderen Hexen, Erica, Trude and Minna!

They’re all ready for a big team battle, the orchestral version of the theme song starts playing, and…  Right then, I start to cry.

Not a loud “Uuuuhhhh huh-huh” cry.  That kind of crying would alarm my neighbors, who wouldn’t say anything, but who I’m sure would gossip about me the next day.  No, this is the kind of cry where you sniffle and suck in your breath and wipe your eyes with your sleeve, and if you were Japanese and somebody asked you why on earth you were crying, you’d start with an emotional “Datte!”

Datte, friendship is so beautiful.  Datte, I don’t even know what to say.

I let that continue for a little bit (after pausing the video, because this was a good fight scene and I didn’t want to miss anything from the wet blur of my tears).  It’s a good minute or two before I can compose myself, but eventually I feel okay.  I get up, pour another glass of barley tea, and sit down to finish the episode.

Watashi ni dekiru koto... ;_;

Whew.  Don’t know what happened there.  Well, it’s fine once in a while, right?