Strike Witches

Strike Witches is a Mecha Musume series set in an alternate reality during the Second World War. The first season of Strike Witches is set in the Channel between Gallia (France) and Brittania (the United Kingdom). It revolves around Yoshika as she joins the 501st Joint Fighter Wing and gets to know the other pilots, working with them to fight back against the Neuroi invasion, and eventually reclaim Gallia. The second season (ongoing) is set in Romagna. The 501st is reactivated to reinforce the 504th JFW after the 504th suffers a catastrophic defeat in Venezia at the hands of a new, more powerful type of Neuroi.

In addition to the animated series, there are a number of other media, such as drama CDs and the talk show Starlight Stream. The Strike Witches Universe has also been expanded to include dozens of Aces outside the 501st JFW.

Plot
Set in an alternate Earth in the mid twentieth century, Strike Witches tells the story of a fight to protect that world using a combination of magic and technology in a fictional recreation of events occurred in the World War II with the national armies joining forces to confront an overwhelming alien threat together instead of fighting among themselves. The titular Strike Witches are young women with high magical potential who are recruited into military organizations around the world to fight against the enigmatic Neuroi, which began an invasion of unprecedented scale on human territory in the year 1939. This puzzling enemy force has appeared frequently and without warning in many areas across the world throughout history. The weapons of the Neuroi mostly take on forms similar to aircraft, but their most troubling tactic is the spreading of a corrosive miasma. Not only do normal humans have no defense against this miasma, but the remnants of the land affected by it are processed by the Neuroi into new weapons, crumbling huge sections of former nations into the sea. As the miasma seems to be unable to spread across large bodies of water, humanity has designated such areas as their main lines of defense.

In order to bring out their potential for use in battle, each Witch equips a unique machine onto their legs: the Striker Unit. With the Striker Unit equipped, they gain the ability to fly and their tapped magical potential provides the strength to utilize weapons far too heavy and powerful for a normal person. A defensive field is also created that can protect the Witches from the Neuroi's miasma, as well as other physical weaponry, making them humanity's trump card in the war. The franchise's main media focuses on the 501st Joint Fighter Wing, defending the Britannian home islands, in the first season, as a parallel to the Battle of Britain, and struggling to retake an occupied Italian peninsula in the second season as a parallel to the late stages of the Adriatic Campaign.