天下制覇

Shamal’s clandestine acquisition of Teana’s pants is the height of this episode. I wish I was kidding.

I’ve decided to keep episode impressions up here, and move the Great Wall of Text summaries down below the cap barrage. This is mostly just an administrative detail, but now you know, and knowing is 7/8 the battle.

An flv? A freakin’ flv? Good lord, the weekly search for Nanoha raws is starting to wear on my soul. Again, will be updated when a raw approaching not-shit appears. The screencaps are especially inexact because FLVs aren’t kind enough to let me scan them to replace the near misses. Bah.

Sigh. The later raw looks to be about the same quality, only artifically stretched to 640 x 480. This is apparently an exceptionally shitty week for Sunday Nanoha raws. Oh well, they’re not going to change anymore.

First off, for those paying attention to the OP, the relic in it with our naked silhouttes changed yet again. I’m not really certain what to think of it though. Still seems a rather silly and odd change to make. Maybe it’ll make sense eventually.

Anyway, this episode was pretty much a total cop out. About 5 minutes of flashback across the last two seasons of Nanoha and A’s, and then everybody is suddenly fine with Nanoha blasting Teana out of the sky… not to mention Signum punching her. Plus we really learned absolutely nothing about the “Nanoha got herself fucked up” event they keep alluding to other than “magic strains the body.” Whoopie doo. Easily the weakest episode of the season thus far. Meh. I’ma gonna go make myself a sundae.

Teana wakes up in the infirmary under Shamal’s care. The last thing she can remember was being blasted by Nanoha, but there’s no lasting physical damage. On the other hand, she does notice that Shamal has taken her pants. As she gets them back, she notices that she’s been out for pretty much the rest of the day.

Nanoha is off at work on something when Fate walks up. The two start talking about how she handled the situation with Teana, and Fate reassures her and says that Teana and Subaru will understand what she did.

As the two return to the dorm, the alarm goes off. Our generic evil doctor has sent out some Gadget Drone Fliers as a test while Luetcia, sans her babysitter talks with him about these latest versions and the relic. She wishes him luck and then says goodnight while he evilly laughes to himself.

Back at Riot 6, instead of deploying, everybody is standing around and asking each other what the heck the Gadget Drones are doing since they’re not really moving anywhere near a suspected Relic. Hayate gives the go-ahead to Nanoha and Fate to go engage while the rookies are left in the command of Signum.

Nanoha has a few choice words for Teana before they take off and Teana throws everything back into her face before Signum steps in and gives Teana the fist. Poor Teana is not having a particularly good day. Nanoha, Fate, and Vita leave and Subaru starts yelling at Signum for how she’s treating her subordinates.

Shirley steps in this time and talks pretty much everybody down, saying that Nanoha had a good reason for doing what she did and that she’d explain everything. Over in the lounge, we get a quick refresher course on Nanoha’s childhood and receiving Raising Heart as well as Fate’s relation to her and her past with Precia. They’re all pretty surprised that the two had such a past.

We then also get a refresher course on the A’s stuff, complete with them telling about the cartridge system and the Book of Darkness and fighting with the Velka knights. Back at something interesting, Nanoha, Fate and Vita deploy to attack the drones, who have already been engaged. That lasts for about 15 seconds before we go back to boring flashbacks.

As Shamal tells them about the drain magic can have on the body, we see a shot of Raising Heart broken and Nanoha completely bloodied being held by Vita. Apparently she hadn’t recovered from her last mission and was caught by surprise and didn’t have the power to fight back. We also get to see a couple scenes of her trying to recover, apparently she couldn’t walk after the attack, though we never learn what the attack actually was. All we really learned from this extended flashback is that magic drains people a ton, especially prolonged use thereof. Whoopie.

Back in interestingville, Vita charges to the attack and finishes off the last Gadget Drone. And that’s the end of the action for this episode. *sigh* As Nanoha comes back, Shirley apologizes for telling them about their past without her permission, but Nanoha doesn’t really mind.

Teana is moping on the deck later and Nanoha goes to talk to her. Never mind the other cadets plus Shirley hiding in the bushes. The two have a long talk about how Nanoha expects a lot from her and how the entire squadron was specially made, Erio for his speed, Caro for her enhancing magic, etc etc and Shirley as the brains behind it, which is why Nanoha can’t afford to let her lose control of the situation like she did.

Nanoha then takes Teana’s device and releases the limiter, and Teana charges it to the second power level, where it becomes sort of an energy chakram gunblade thing. Nanoha says that she trusts her with the power, and Teana breaks down in tears. Nanoha apologizes to her, and Teana pretty much just continues sobbing.

The next day, they’re back to training with Fate, and Teana’s feeling quite a bit better. Fate tells them about the elite rankings in the Squadron, Aces and Stikers. The gist is that the Aces are the absurdly singly powerful and the Strikers are the veterans that everybody depends on and looks to, and that Nanoha is hoping they can all become Strikers.

Nanoha is finishing setting up the training for the day, and all the cadets come running up all happy again. Fate and Nanoha exchange a glance over their heads and… end credits. Bwa-?