Good news: Rie Tanaka receives some lines. Bad news: most of the rest.

Notes:

• "You are I are in the navy, so you don't have to call me Major" -- "Sakamoto-san" seems to be good enough. Kinky Japanese.
• Wilke seems to take the need to herd cats in stride, but I wonder how she is going to address Perrine's insubordination.
• Individual scores are part of the canon. Bizarre. Sure, we *heart* Hartmann-chan, but...
• For all that was said, Rie Tanaka sounds a lot like Aya Hisakawa in this role. Her ability to select an image and stick to it is outstanding, but does she even have her own voice?
• Tons of pairing and clustering is in the group. Obviously Sakamoto and Wilke get along well together, then we have daughters of frozen wastelands, mismatched bonkuras, and the enlisted duo. This pretty much leaves Barkhorn and Hartmann on their own, and Cloistermann forming Strike Witches' Kaorin.

SDB was right as usual:

On the other hand, if the show drops into "team-mate of the week" mode for a while and gives everyone their own focus episode, it could get tedious. And since this is a full-season series, I think that's likely.

We'll just have to suffer through it. Only nine others besides Sakamoto and Miyafuji.

Next episode is Barkhorn, and they even placed a hook for her into this episode, not counting the preview.

UPDATE: Steven observed that I "was less impressed than [he] was." It is true... I appreciate the story, but the nopants was just too much. Also, the way our newbies dinked their Striker Units was terrible, especially since I suspect they are going to be like new come the next episode.