Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS #26 — Life Goes On…

September 23rd, 2007

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.

Posted in Nanoha | 41 Comments »

41 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • Syaoran Li says:

    One friend told me he felt dissapointed with this end… I can tell I’m a little too, but is Nanoha… so the only thing I really lament was no shoujo ai…

  • loki says:

    err no video to see? from u guys comments, let me felt that this ep. is not worth no see lolz

  • Aroduc says:

    There’s nothing to rip really. Signum attacks some drones and then Subaru attacks a wall. That was really about it for action scenes.

  • thenightsshadow says:

    This definitely won’t help the Nanohaverse in Saimoe, but at least it FINALLY gives a rounded end.

    I think…I’ll have to watch it and see. 4 hours to go.

  • Sailor Enlil says:

    Psst! “Evil Secretary” is actually Regius’ daughter, Auris Gaiz.

  • troyden says:

    well,after watching the final episode.indeed,i m a bit disapponted but strikers did give me some climax for example episode 12,17,21 onwards. i was actually hoping for everyone ulitmate attack for the cradle,but it was destroy by the ashura.

    anyway,if they did show the entire mock battle it will be awesome,but O.owell,finally it end.hope there will be nanoha movie or season4 (:

  • Ronin says:

    Just grabbed the peercast raws this morning, here is a few points:

    * Duo is dead. She doesn’t show up in the ‘prison’ screen. The people in jail are 1Dr, 1, 3, 4 and 7? (the girl with the twin boomerang who fought with Fate).

    * Signum unison with Agito turns her into something ultra powerful. For those who have seem Eureka 7, recall the last episode where Renton becomes GOD and wipes out a sea of alien with the point of a finger. That is HOW powerful Signum has become.

    * Seeing Erio (8) carrying Fate (19) after he rescues her seems kinda wrong.

    I have enjoyed the series immensely, and it looks like StrikerS will be the last anime in the storyline. The Nanoha team manage to create a lot of likable characters, to the point where you don’t particularly care what they’re doing as long as they have screentime :-P.

    While I would prefer a Fate X Nanoha, the series ends with Yuuno x Nanoha because they want to sell to the Western market. (Lesbian couple is a big no-no, whereas beastility is ok..) Let’s all wish the Nanoha DVDs are successful so that StrikerS DVD will be release in English as well.

  • Demian says:

    Subaru finally gets both gauntlets and not even a HELL and HEAVEN makes me a sad otaku.

  • longhaul says:

    most of the iffyness in the animation will be fixed in the dvd’s same as the first two seasons ( tv version vs dvd version )

  • Maestro4k says:

    Definitely sounds like they’re ending things up with Nanoha (and Fate and Hayate), but there might be a chance that they’ll do something with the new characters. They way they’ve ended it though only Caro & Erio seem to be together still, and they seem to not be working for the TSAB anymore. o_O

    Who knows, maybe we’ll end up with a new series staring Vivio. :P

  • darkness says:

    I wish 7arce will produce 4 season soon.

    IMO,Nanoha is one of the best anime.

  • Neo says:

    Dang it. I hope I don’t accidentally download this episode and I’m giving this up now (last watched: ep. 22).

  • nanoha fan~ says:

    awww i will miss teana’s twin tail

  • Anonymous says:

    The ending is like A’s. The most bombastic episode in A’s is also 2nd last. So I wasn’t disappointed. As usual, they did a nice round up of allthe characters.

    I love the part where the usually cool Fate does the kawaii “no no, you guys can’t be serious with the full drive mock battle” scene hahaha

  • vibes says:

    It’s disappointing not to see much teana/vice in the end…

  • dunowho says:

    last ep. hope tat there would be a 4th season…

  • Fate says:

    id say the nanoha strikers series was exelent , its a girls anime and not every girl likes fighting and explosions around every corner i think they ended it very well i loved it and ejoyed every minuet, and i hope they make another ^^ it was super.

  • tzeshern says:

    i wonder the epilogue is how many years later?

  • Benny1 says:

    A few things.

    I prefer short hair Teana.

    But anyways, my disappointment with this show is immense. I held out hope as long as I could. After episode 17, which just made me go holy shit, I kept watching. But the ending just did not help. In the end, we ended up with a ridiculously underdeveloped enemy cast. That just doesn’t happen in Nanoha. As far as I can tell (this is slight guesswork) we never figure out the real deal with Zest, Lutecia, her mom, and so on. I figure all three of them were killed on Regius’ orders, but somebody else I was talking to said everybody only thought they were killed. Overall, I’m confused out of my mind, and there were far too many characters. One of the bigger flaws was keeping the old cast with the new cast. You know when they took off their limiters, finally at the end? They were instantly in an AMF. It’s obvious they just cannot make the seasons coexist.

  • 1chijo Eika says:

    Oh no where is Cinque??

    Guess Scaglietti child will be born from her, and we will have our Nanoha sequel…

  • ashteyz says:

    haiiz.. thot that at least section 6 will still continue and everybody will be together. but who knows… section 6 disband, and everybody go separate ways… haiz… =/ but overall this seasons is damn good… ^^

  • Anonymous says:

    There’s no Nanoha sequel since there are no manga at the moment to make it into a sequel. Maybe one movie would do to back up the anime where it would be Nanoha’s final battle.

  • Frankenstein's Clare says:

    I wish they’d have explained wtf Zest was getting at about Signum and Agito having a common origin or whatever.

  • AGear says:

    It’s sad when an anime ends, but Live must continue. I think an OVA or Movie will fit very well for the series.

  • Fencedude says:

    It’s disappointing not to see much teana/vice in the end…

    Vice/Teana is the cancer thats killing…something

    SUBARU/TEANA IS THE ONLY TRUE PATH

    Vice can get Alto.

    Benny1 Says:

    Not going to quote all your stuff, but I just want to say that you REALLY need to wait till you actually SEE the episodes before coming to conclusions like that. Most of your questions were answered in 24

    Oh no where is Cinque??

    With the rest of the numbers in Rehab. Jesus, watch the episode before making silly conclusions

    I wish they’d have explained wtf Zest was getting at about Signum and Agito having a common origin or whatever.

    Both of them are from Ancient Belka. Hell, its entirely possible that Agito WAS Signum’s UNISON device long ago, before she got co-opted by the book of darkness.

    Also blatant season 4 setup.

  • Benny1 says:

    I sincerely doubt everything was fully explained in episode 24.

    And I honestly believe this is by far the most garbage Nanoha season. There are too many characters, the character development all is horrendous, too much virtually unexplained details around, horrendous action scenes (except for 17. 17 was the single best episode this season and berserk Subaru was one of the top Nanoha moments, if not THE top moment.)

    I will not cave from my position, from saying this is one of the worst animes to ever air. Ever. I am talking, this show belongs in Musashi Gundoh levels of garbage.

  • tan liling says:

    this show is very good.hope there will be nanoha strikerS cd coming in to singapore and i also wish there will be more magical lyrical nanoha show.

  • Anonymous says:

    this show is good hope it will has cd in ingapore so i can buy.i also hope there will be more nanoha strikerS show

  • J says:

    There are only 2 major questions that are unanswered.
    Who made Ginga and Subaru, who have the same DNA as Quint and who are the originals of all 12 Numbers?
    Who killed Teana’s brother?

    Maybe, one additional question is “what happened to the Jail’s clone babies?” which is a very grave one.

    By the way, Nanoha does not have her own division but is a trainer. She says, “I am in charge of all of you for the 3-week combat training session, which I think is a little hard.” How hard is it going to be?

  • Magic Vivio says:

    Maybe Nanoha is not so much of a Boy’s Anime. If I am looking for action stuff, I’ll just stick with Claymore or Gundam, etc.

    StrikerS may not be as good as A’s, but I feel it’s not bad enough to be graded as garbage.

    The colors and arts are much better than Tsubasa Chronicles S1 & S2. At least the DVD release are not “out of shape” LOL

    How the characters use magic are also pretty new ideas. Re-design of weapons are also gives the “think-out-of-the-box” feel.

  • darkness says:

    Just something I really want to say and I said it many times. I am really annoyed with complain of Nanoha StrikerS. Most of them have seen a few espisodes and read review from anime blog.

    I accept that at the begining of season, many bloggers said it’s boring and s*ck but most of them have changed their mind around the second half of the season.

    Not the best of the year, but StrikerS is not as bad as they complain. Rating in Japan was pretty good.

    Actually, I can not find the reason why they think it’s very bad.

    StrikerS has a clear plot and vision, reasonable of the event or action, good character design and complex story. But it is only anime, not reality. Other series have many mistakes, too. But they are not recieved many complain as much as StrikerS.

    I’m all right with some complain but I have found that too much, sometimes.
    Please open mind, if you don’t like StrikerS please drop and don’t have to read any article or post about it.

  • tzeshern says:

    lol. By the way i bet this is the last season of nanoha. Do u guys think the same?

  • Magic Vivio says:

    Are you betting your life on it that this is the last season?

  • tzeshern says:

    of course not. What about u?

  • oto says:

    my guess: there will be a 4th season. Once an anime starts making money, 7arcs will milk the series for as much cash as humanly possible.

  • Anonymous says:

    y do u always hav to put nanoha down!? I’ve been following ur blog, and all i can see is u always having 2 put somthin negitive about the show on it, nanoha strikers was a great series, if u hate it so much y watch it? Even thou its over! U seem to do that with the other blogs iv seen u do. And u make subaru’s punching thing look like a sloppy slap!, Before i had watched it, and when i did see it it was awsome, i mean wat do u expect her 2 do? They can only get threw by going threw the wall anyway, i loved it it was better then wat u made it out 2 be. Go nanoha StrikerS! ^^

  • Ayie says:

    why are they putting nanoha and yunno together? i dont see the chemistry at all.. i really hate it when they ruin a nice shoujo-ai pair just to appeal with the western masses. its just annoying sometimes…

  • […] the return of Ferret-kun. Too bad you’re not a co-parent to Vivio, just an uncle-type person. Aroduc clearly dislikes Vivio but I think Vivio is BRILLIANT because of how she has brought us the […]

  • faith says:

    at where i can play MAGICAL GIRL LYRICAL STRIKERS games???????

  • DKN117 says:

    …Where’s Deed (Cyborg #12)?

  • laeti says:

    je kiff nanoha les images sont super