天下制覇

 

I’ll miss you too, Ginga.

First off, I updated the caps for #17, so go poke at that if you want slightly higher quality ones.  

Second, if you haven’t been keeping up with StrikerS Nano as of late, then go wild. Up through 109 translated.
http://rapidshare.com/files/44985181/StrikerS_Nano_1-109.zip.html

Third, the rampant flurry of comments to the StrikerS #17 post spurred me to finally getting around to the long overdue cleanup of the comments area and assorted things. I need to write a quick little spoiler tag for that and rewriting the blockquote format as well, but I’m kind of pressed for time today… notwithstanding that I still have like… two more posts to make between Nagasarete and Melty Blood. Luckily, at least one is already mostly written. Apologies for it taking so long, other projects kept interfering.

With all that out of the way, if there’s one thing that StrikerS has in spades that the first two seasons didn’t, it’s intrigue. The first season had… pretty much absolutely nothing to analyze and think about outside of the sudden “Fate’s a clone” out of nowhere, and the total intrigue of the second season was “who is the guy in the mask?” StrikerS dishes up questions about the Einherjar, Regius’ loyalties, Ginga and Subaru’s origins, the Numbers, Lutecia’s team’s goals, the nature of the Relics, a prophecy of doom, and of course, the Emperor herself, Vivio.

Anon Wrote:

yuribot ftw

Sage on IRC:

Finally I can use lesbot in relation to Nanoha.

And really… isn’t that the important thing here?

Kurogane Wrote:

Sadly, the next few episodes will be “oh we got beaten” emo-ness and recovery time.
StrikerS likes to peak as high as they can, then go back down to boredom.

Likely. That’s how pacing works. I imagine episode 19 or 20 will have the unveiling of the Einherjar and one more cooldown pair of episodes before the last two or three. It’s not like it’s unique to StrikerS though. As did the exact same thing after Nanoha was gutted and against after Fate got the fist through the stomach treatment, but no argument that the drama in the early episodes was kind of silly, especially compared to the recent stuff.

 Kiryuu Wrote:

The whole Ginga/Subaru thing brings up another interesting point.. We saw them both a few/several years previously when they were little. Makes you wonder if they are cyborgs that grow (is that possible?) or if it plays with everything else that is going on behind the scenes that we haven’t seen yet. From last week’s comments I don’t think anyone saw what happened this week coming ^^

Fencedude Wrote:

Anyway, as for Project F and the Numbers…well, there are two distinct types of artificial life here.

First we have the products of Project F; Fate, Erio and Vivio. They are essentially clones, given the memories of whoever’s DNA they were grown from. According to Lindy in A’s, Fate is fully Human, just not born normally.

Now, as for the Numbers and Subaru, they have been referred to as “Sentoukijin”, “Combat Cyborgs”, and it seems that they are (rather obviously) not fully human. They are at least partially Organic, have been shown to bleed, and Ginga and Subaru at least have actually aged. So they are very, very advanced cyborgs.

Now, this raises interesting questions about their “mother” who was apparently killed in an incident involving Sentoukijin, and judging from the fact that she looks just like Ginga, probably DOES have some form of biological connection to her daughters.

Pretty much 100% it. We still also have the incident with their mother floating in the background, and as for cyborgs themselves, we’ve actually seen very little evidence that they’re particularly unusual in the Nanohaverse. I mean, hell, TSAB has facilities for dealing with them, so it’s not like they’re some kind of crazy illegal research. Personally, I’m betting that they became cyborgized due to whatever incident killed their mother. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were the prototype for the Einherjar as well though. Mostly though, this is just personal speculation.

AGear Wrote:

Cyborgs grow up, They say “Fate is like to us” so, Fate is a artificial mage of the Project F and Erio too, so I think, both of them are cyborgs as well and they grow… (Maybe I’m wrong).

We’ve seen quite a bit of evidence that the Numbers are artificial humans, but pretty much none that Ginga and Subaru are, and absolutely no evidence that Fate and Erio are mechanized in any way, so really, the Numbers could claim ‘relation’ to pretty much every main character except Nanoha, Caro and Teana. :-P

Kaito Wrote:

Yay, my theory of Ginga getting killed sort-of came true.

Shame on you! Poor Gin-nee. :sadness: She’ll be back though. Probably reprogrammed and dressed in a Number suit for a rematch with Subaru.

STi Wrote:

Did anyone wonder how they managed to fit Ginga in that small box?

Oh, and Ginga’s Revolver Knuckle was left behind, right?
Hmm…Dual Knuckle Subaru maybe? 

Clearly their research involves Hammerspace. And any time you have things in multiple parts, be they crystals, gloves, or widgets of ultimate doom, before the end of the series, they’ll be brought together. This is an irrefutable truth of anime.

Fencedude Wrote:

This episode says to me that there are people in the TSAB and rich families supporting the development of “combat cyborgs” for replacement death people… And Jail Scaglietti have now a type-0 artificial mage, Maybe he will upgrade the combat cyborgs after analizing type-0, or only he will upgrade Vivio with the type-0 data… 

 My money is on the Einherjar being exactly this. With a small side bet on the Einherjar going berserk, killing a few Numbers, and then Team Lutecia and Team Nanoha having to team up to take it down.

-Z- Wrote:

furthermore, it also continues with the GGG references subaru is often a medium for. 

If Subaru uses Dividing Driver, I’ll probably cough up a lung.

Anonymous Wrote: 

Jail Scaglietti is a combat cyborg too? (he have the same eyes of a combat cyborg)

Huh. That’s something to consider. Being as crazy as he is, I wouldn’t be overly shocked if he had… improved on himself in a few ways. Especially since he really hasn’t shown any kind of combat or magical ability so far. He’ll have to have at least something to pull out of his hat for the final showdown.

Ronin Wrote:

A few notes from watching the fansub (Chinese) :

* Subaru has her own ‘cyborg’ power which is activated by being in contact with an object.
* Scaglietti is technically Fate and Erio’s father, as Scaglietti pioneered “Project F”.

I will look forward to the scene where Subaru combines both of the power knuckles and perform a ‘Heaven and Hell’ attack. Victory goes to the one with Courage!!

Eh. I didn’t really get the first, but my Japanese is far from perfect. And for point 2… yeah, that was pretty much what the Numbers were trying to tell Fate. The power of friendship is strong in her though. Also, joining Scaglietti would mean that she’d have to give up sleeping with Nanoha.

Anonymous Wrote: 

 I had strange idea here: Given that everything in Strikers seem to be interconnected in one way or another, what would the chances be of the 11th Relic core Lutecia is looking for being inside… Subaru?

Well, the incestuous of everything being related to everything else is pretty much a staple of all shonen anime. And I highly doubt a Relic is hidden inside of anybody. Remember that the Numbers can scan for the Relics and we saw nothing but the flower hidden in Caro’s hat.

 *whew*

I promise I’ll get around to updating/correcting/whatever else the Lexicon needs before the next episode since it appears that we’ve finally almost hit the ceiling of the number of characters the show is going to have. Gee… only 12 Numbers? Don’t hold back or anything, Seven Arcs. Have some more StrikerS pictures for your collection as we keep waiting to see where things will go now that Riot 6 is gone.