天下制覇

Boo, mock battles.

Impressions:

Well, I wasn’t really expecting much from “Every single character versus an unmanned flying ship,” and well… at least that kept me from being disappointed. Really though… Subaru gets her sister’s gauntlet, is using two magical devices at once… a first I believe for the Nanohaverse… and all she does is knock down some walls. Where’s the justice in that? I’m not certain what I wanted her to do with it since there was nobody left to fight… maybe smack Vivio or something. Bloody annoying little parasite. Most of the rest was the usual wrapup though, ending with an eye rolling mock battle of the young guns versus their elders. Bleh. Maybe if they showed that all the way through… but no, instead we get 5 minutes of epilogue. Oh well.

Final Thoughts:

This was Seven Arcs’ first attempt at a show that actually had something approaching character development and a plot… and it really showed. No, “enemies have appeared, are you a bad enough magical girl to save them?” is not a plot. What happened is that a lot of it felt really haphazardly thrown together. An absolute clusterfuck of characters, no real big bad guy, and a lot of silly attempts at drama when there was nearly no danger to the characters meant that Seven Arcs’ got way in over their head and often times, nobody really seemed to know quite what was going on. 

The show also seemed to lose focus more than once and was unable to decide whether it wanted to be about the cadets or about the old guard and other characters, most noticably Lutecia’s guard, ended up woefully underdeveloped. Hell, I think Wendi had more lines than Lutecia. Hopefully Seven Arcs learned from this and will be able to put together something a lot more tightly focused the next time around. It also suffers a bit from simply coming after A’s. The bar was set pretty damn high there in terms of animation and choreography and it would have been damn difficult to live up to that standard even under the best of circumstances.

All that said, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t immensely enjoy StrikerS anyway. The fights, while by and large nowhere nearly as good as A’s, were still mostly very well done. I find the people complaining about the animation to be rather silly. Not as good as the past, yes. Better than 95% of the other action shows out there? Good lord, yes. The art was occasionally pretty dodgy, I’ll grant that much. I think it was episode 18 before the artists all met and formally defined Teana’s bust size. 

It does also bear saying that for all the pacing weirdness and silly drama, it never went more than a month without a really great episode that psyched me back up for the series. The attack on the train, Tea’s showdown with Nanoha, the first encounter with the numbers, the attack on Riot 6, and then the last battles were all very well done and showed that genius that made Nanoha a popular series in the first place… outside of the lolicon demographic at any rate.

I also have to give it props for handling power creep amazingly well. Some shows manage to have their characters destroying worlds within the first 12 episodes and then end up artificially inventing yet new crazy powers for things to become even sillier… not that I’m mentioning Gurren-Lagann by name or anything… oops. Anyway, it was nice to see the cadets grow while the Aces stayed relatively the same, even if it did mean that all the drama towards the finish ended up being pretty silly with the Aces just slapping around people like little ragdolls.

Overall, I’m pretty sure most won’t think this was a better series than A’s, but I did enjoy it a lot more than the first season of Nanoha, replete with its even more bizarre pacing and the kind of dodgy art at times that makes even Shinchan seem consistent. I’m interested in where they’re going with the franchise though. I would love to see Subaru et all in some kind of spinoff, especially since they aren’t the world destroying monstrosities that the Aces have become. They still have a chance to grow, have adventures and whatnot, while Nanoha has a family and seems well… domesticated.

I’m sure I’ll have another StrikerS related post in a week or so when Nano finishes up and is totally translated, plus one last image dump for great glory. It was fun though. Hope to see you all again the next time Nanoha takes to the skies.

Portals open all over space… the cavalry is finally here. Chrono and all the others are watching in bated breath.

Rein is panicking. Hayate carries Quattro and Nanoha Vivio as the announcement comes about the Cradle being locked down. A door slams shut in their faces.

Scach hands off Sein to some soldiers before heading back in. Acous stops her, saying it’s impossible. Fate then radios in, saying that she’s trying to save the people in the capsules and to give her more time.

In Regius’ office, everybody is laid out. Duo is sightlessly staring at nothing, but it’s not clear whether she’s a live or dead. Signum finishes fixing her hair and says that she’s heading out. Agito stops her and says how much she hates Signum for killing Zest, but that she’s doing what he would do, so Agito will help. Signum holds out her hand and Agito slams her’s down on it, covering both in flames… Agito unisons.

Vice’s copter flies up to the Cradle. Vice tells Subaru and Tea to use Wing Road and her motorcycle to bust in. He’ll provide cover fire for them with Storm Raider and blows some drones out of the sky. He gives them a little peptalk before taking aim at a drone in one of the openings and using a Variable Barrier to destroy it. Subaru charges her Wing Road and they drive into the Cradle.

TSAB has detected an unknown magical signal. They finally resolve it to Lightning 2… Signum, in a fire suit basically. They’re a little surprised by her new look, but she says it’s fine. Agito and her both say “let’s do it” as drones approach. Agito charges her flame across Levantine as Signum switches it to snake mode and they destroy an entire battalion of drones in a couple slashes. Signum thanks Agito for this, but Agito can’t respond through her tears.

Near the lab, Voltair is destroying random drones while Erio flies around on Fried. Caro casts a full Speed Boost on Erio.

Vita is still in the Cradle, destroying things along with a couple random soldiers. Subaru and Tea come riding up, yelling to leave things to them as they drive past. Subaru says to not worry, she can just switch to combat cyborg mode if there’s danger.

The lab is collapsing as Fate finishes her final things. Erio calls in saying that he’s on his way. Boulders suddenly collapse above her, but Erio and his Sonic Move pulls her out of the way at the last second.

Subaru has detached from Teana’s motorcycle and is riding point for her, destroying all the drones as they go. Ginga watches the Cradle from a stretcher as Subaru puts on Blitz Calibur and then uses a one-two punch to blast through into Nanoha/Hayate’s room.

Team Lightning has escaped from the lab with all personnel in tow. The rest of the Stars are also on their way out and soon escape. Chrono orders the fleet to take up full attack positions and be ready. As everybody watches, the fleet opens fire on the Cradle, destroying it instantly. Shari’s a bit too enthusiatic with her celebration and Shamal shushes her… all the Stars are already fast asleep, tired from their day.

Nanoha then gives a voice over saying basically that everything is finally over with the Jail Scaglietti incident.

Later, the most dangerous of the culprits (looks like Jail, Tre, Quattro and Duo) are all confined to maximum security prisons. The rest of the combat cyborgs, including Lutecia and Agito, are living in kind of an insane asylum, but they’re all together and don’t really seem to be too terribly unhappy. Wendi asks Lu what happened with her mother… and we see her recovering in a hospital.

Life continues with the rest of the TSAB normals. Vivio is happily living with her mothers, Acous is still hitting on Hayate as usual. Hayate is kind of sad that things came to this with Regius. He had the same desire to protect them all as well. Everybody else cheers her up.

All the cadets are also continuing their lives as usual.

Signum and Genya go to visit the graves of their friend, Zest. When they get there, they find a bouquet already on his grave, left by EVIL SECRETARY, who salutes them before leaving.

Days later, all of Riot 6 is assembled while Hayate compliments them on how everything went with the Combat Cyborg incident and to continue doing their best.

After the little ceremony, the cadets feel a little sad that they haven’t been seeing as much of their teachers lately. Nanoha and to the forwards to come see something.

They go out to a cherry blossom field. Vita calls them to attention. She and Nanoha tell them how well they did and how well they worked together and exceeded all their expectations. They’ve become worthy of the Striker title. Everybody is fighting back tears… but there’s one more thing to do. All the old guard transforms their weapons for one last mock battle.

Fate apparently wasn’t in on the plans though and doesn’t want to do this. The rest say that it’s okay, and Vivio even gives Fate some cheering and tells her that it’s okay. Erio and Caro tell Fate to try her best and she finally relents.

Everybody gets into their costume and poses for pan overs while the ED starts playing in the background. Hayate and Ginga announce “ready… go!”

“And, afterwards” (yes, it prints that in English) we see all the epilogue stuff (no voiceovers except for Subaru/Nanoha’s part):
–Agito is part of TSAB now and harassing Rein to her utmost.
–Long hair Tea is also part of the administration somewhere with Fate.
–Lutecia has been released and is free and enjoying life with her bugs… and her mother while Garyuu watches over her.
–Vice is macking on the ladies and for some reason has a photo of him posing with his sister, the other pilot… and Signum?

–Griffith is… doing whatever Griffith does.
–Erio and Caro are enjoying life in some floating island world. One of Lutecia’s bugs delivers a flower to her.
–Vivio is going to school… where Yuuno, loli-Arf and Nanoha spy on her and take pictures.

–Ginga is trying to rehabilitate the ‘good’ Numbers. Nove is disinterested… until Genya smiles at her and in her fear of old-man cooties, she snaps back to Ginga’s lesson.
–On a boat somewhere, a pair of children are in danger as it sinks. The flood comes at them, but a magical circle appears… and here’s Subaru to protect and save them.
–Finally, we come to Nanoha, in charge of her own division nowadays, giving them a little peptalk and telling them to do their best.