Anime I've been watching lately: Strike Witches.

An alternate 1940s Earth is invaded by aliens. When conventional weapons don't work the military is forced to draft in young women with magical abilities to battle the invaders.
So is this a gritty war story? Or an Evanglion-style deconstruction?


  So that would be "No" then.
One of the things I love about anime is the sheer levels of WTF? obtained. Let's take this series as an example.
The main characters are a gaggle of teenage girls, each based on a real life WW2 fighter ace. . Who are witches. And turn into catgirls when they use their powers. And who fly into combat with propellors attached to their legs, wielding a selection of lovingly drawn WW2 machine guns.
At no point is it ever explained why they are unable to wear trousers.

Strike Witches is - mostly - a goofy, fanservice heavy affair where all the cast could have been slotted into a harem comedy or suchlike without much effort. When the aliens show up you do get some surprisingly good dogfights. And there is some attempt to give each girl her own character and something approaching a backstory.  But when an entire episode revolves around the girls stealing each other's underwear  you know that Akira this isn't. It is entertaining, though, in a frothy, vaguely guilty sort of way.
Then, as seems to happen a lot,  Strike Witches suddenly pushes the drama button for the last few episodes and you find yourself watching a final battle that has to be seen to be believed.
 Here's a link to an AMV. Since it does include lots of butt-shots of teenage girls watching it at work is probably a bad idea.