And You cant complain about the fan service, since its a Fan Service Anime. A Fan Service anime without fan service isnt a fan service anime.

This is not just any fanservice show either, but a very focused kind of fanservice. Reminds me very much of Aika R-16.

The only thing that leaves me a bit uneasy is the fact that they use the real last names of real wwII hero pilots as the girls’. If this series becomes too well known somebody might really start protesting.

… how is this a bad thing? I mean, I’m not so shallow as to allow panty content to determine what anime I watch, but I don’t see how it detracts from the experience.

It disappointed me al lot :( It semed that they didn’t have much confidence in the mecha musume concept and looked for some ‘plus’ to make it more likeable to the crowd. Yeah, fanservice, good plus indeed!
The entire concept of WWII aircrafts personification, and thus WWII ace combats were sacrificed for the sake of fanservice and dumbness.
It could have ben a good serie uless they spend some more brain cells thinking about a good plot, instead of the overuberdumer idea of “generic alien enemies”.
Fortunately the serie was character driven, so the substantial lack of a decent plot was partially solved. The plot continuity was spared and there are no major insubstantialities. The chara wer quite likeable unless superficially developed, but we couldn’t frankly expect too deep development for a tiny 12 eps episodes serie.
Just Neuroi are the serie’s major flaw indeed. They are incompatible fot the general WWII setup, being more suitable for a serie like Sky Girls. Neuroi are hi tech aliens, when the serie’s scenario is old tech WWII scenario with elements of magic. Being Hitler taking over Europe with the use of magic or something related could have been a better choiche than those “high thech aliens”. But, pity i am not the screenplayer :P:P

The explanation apparently is the fact that they aren’t panties, and therefore there’s no reason for them to be embarrassed about it, nor point out any attention to that. And for the most part, save for that one episode, there was no direct focus (as in characters observing the situation) as to why it’s the way it is. And because they didn’t focus on it, I didn’t focus on it unless GONZO decided to shove it in our face. :P