Am i allowed to be honest?
Well ever since it was confirmed that strikerS would be 10 (9) years after A's as opposed to the speculated 6 (5) years i just had this gut feeling that something was going to happen. I didnt like the fact that a chapter in the life of nanoha, fate chan and hayate was completely missed out for the sake of completeness. And besides? who wouldnt want to see fate chan's high school days?
(i also though that the milf fate chan this was quite a jump and so still remain a forever faithful loli fate chan lover :3)
The main problem with strikerS is the fact that the cast just suddenly got so huge. If it wasnt bad enough to have to develop 4 new stars (lolz what development i ask?) we suddenly got introduced to all the numbers as well. I think this task was just too big for the series as a whole and thus it left a feeling of emptiness - or that the characters wernt being exploited enough for their potential >_<
Onto the development...lolz what development? Oki really this is another point where the series failed to deliver...we were treated to nothing but solid "fillers" for the frist 10 eps. Those pointless training episodes got so pointless that it became forgettable...in fact even now i cant remember where the heck the first 10 episodes went - a vague memory of tea being emo but thats about it
This time would have been better spent developing the new characters the doing any more bull - i would have thought that everyone is smart enough to get the picture after about 2 or 3 training eps but the producers must have second guessed us >.>
The stars -
While i do think that subaru and tea was able to add to the story (with subaru also being connected to the whole case via her unusual birth bla bla) what i thought was a totale waste of space has to be caro and erio. Seriously! the did NOTHING at all that is worth credit...most of the time caro was too busy chasing after lutecia (another useless character with wasted potential) with erio being her lap dog (not that i care as that kid can burn in hell for touching fate chan
)
who can honestly say that they know caro and erio more now at the end of this series than at the start? none...nope and nada...we never got development from these two character and was just given some basic facts to chew on...
yes caro got kicked out of her village but what happened next? not explained at all whereas erio is a part of project F but so what? fate chan got more of an explination about his roots than erio did...no mention of why he was created, by who, how he got to fate chan in the first place. And who in the right mind would want to create a boy? (unless jail is really yaoi like those doujins suggests)
wasted potential >.>
and speaking about character development lets talk about the others. The numbers i wont even bother to mention as they dont have any history to begin with but what about lutecia? she was the other promised loli together with caro yet she also failed to deliver as a character. I dont mind as much seeing caro neglected but goddam not rori rider! O.O
She still has so much left unexplained...i would really like to see at least a flashback on her and zest - how they came to met, how she got her powers or whatever...anything would have done but instead we got nothing...*claps*
side characters arent even worth mentioning...i would say that ferret boy got about 30 words to say in the whole series (YESSSS!!! I DONT WANT TO HEAR YOUR VOICE ANYWAY!!) and zafira for about 10 words...still better than arf who had nothing to do with the story (geez...).
Chrono was the biggest disappointement in terms of side characters...all he did was sit back and drink tea while the others where facing life and death situations...he then pops up late in the party to kill steal all the hard work...its like honor farming! (WoW noob!)
The fights -
er...what fight? *skips*
*skip*
*skip*
*skip*
I duno if the producers are being lazy or what but they really do know how to save budget...by not giving out any fight scenes at all!! geez even nanoha and A's had more drama than this plie of smoking crap!
Id admit that some of the fights between the numbers where pretty good (a la subaru freaking out and smashing cinque) but on the whole compared with the whole series i would say that the amount of proper fight sequence we got was only about 5-10% (of the whole 26 ep series this is a disgrace!...nanoha is a series based on fighting!).
What killed everything was the insane amount of time spent on talking about bull...crap that i dont even care and only wishes for nanoha to starlight breaker someone's ass all the way to hell (it happened but only once...WTF!!! ONCE!!! i am not satisfied at all...). While all the good moves where kept back we reall didnt see any good ones pop up either (besides subaru's devine buster which looks like the kamehameha to me XD)
But not only was the fights not long lasting, they were also too fragmented between each episodes. example being one minute we are at subaru vs gina then the next we have tea against some numbers then we have caro giving out her "why are you doing this?" crap. godamm is it so hard to just make one fight complete without any interruptions? As if it isnt as bad enough as it already is you have to go screw it up by fragmenting everything?
also the skipping of those REAL mock fights are unforgivable! >_<
The plot -
And finally the plot...i feel like getting a blow torch and burning something at this point.
To be honest the plot suxed ass...I wasnt even dramatic right down to the last episode i even thought it was anti climatic! now that is something special.
The whole series was pretty much flooded with explinations, long speeches and manic laugther (provided by Dr spaghetti - lawl). But it would have been better if those talks actually ment something. Even now im having trouble trying to remember what really happened in the first half of the series as to me ive seem to have forgotten all of the pointlessness already. The plot was just THAT bad...
Even when it got to the main meat of the series (where it was still hazy about how things where going to go before the numbers came out that all changed with the intro of Jail) It all seems too relaxed. For what is supposed to be happening we didnt get much drama and even the stuff we got was usually de-dramatised come the next "cool off" episode. I never sensed any immediate danger from this series as we know what to expect. well yea this is nanoha and to expect a happy ending where everyone lives is natural...
Thats what i get for putting my hopes to high...you would think that being grown up, our girls wont mind a little blood shed and to learn the true meaning of loss. the amount of holes in this series is crazy...just to avoid death. Im still pissed that vita didnt die for the dramatic impact...look she was stabbed through the chest! clean through! and she didnt die...so what was all that bull shamal said about the knight's program failing to connect with the book anymore? ie no more haxx heals! but the plot hole is big enough to accept that she was able to live >.>
Also i have to say that jail must be the worse villian in history...for a super genius mad scientist you would thing that he would a) have planned further ahead b) have some trump card hidden c) fcking commit suicide if he had to...
a) he planned ahead with the seeds but what the use is that if they would only activate upon his death...he should be in jail now trying to find ways to kill himself >.>
b) vivio...but she failed so much as the final boss it is unture
c) death still pending...
moving onto vivio *sigh*
ive ranted so much its beginning to affect me health...
vivio is another wasted potential...Vivio had the potential to give our white devil a good old fashioned ass whooping but instead all we got was null...now this was the biggest disappointment of the series to see the best fight go up in flames. We i hoped for was for vivio to force nanoha to use her full power in a one to one face off...epix images that flashed through my mind wasnt realised when all we got was some cheesy crap...vivio should have layed a smackdown on nanoha for all her worth but this challange of providing a decent fight scene proved to be too challenging for the producers it seems...
Overall -
StrikerS failed to impress as where the first and second season did (which is what made nanoha this great in the first place). This series was filled with cheesy counter dramatic fluff and it failed to cast of its "childlike" shell of "nobody dies no matter how much of a beating they take" and the uber happy happy tree friend end...which should have been a thing of the past seen as the girls are now grown up.
Too many time wasted on pointless fillers which would have made this series better if it was condensed into 13 eps. I never like streched out plots anyway
potential to be great was loss with undevelopment (kinda ironic when they had all this time to focus on fillers) and the action was completely almost lost...or at least unfulfilling ~
given all the evidence i will give this series 5/10 but + 1 because of fate chan (which was the motivator which kept me carrying on >.>)
6/10 overall
random notes:
Hayate!!!!!! She failed me also ;___; Dammit 7arcs you just cant have the meister of the legendary tome sitting on the sidelines all the fricking time grrrrrrr
Fate chan <3 I guess her final barrier jacket was the highlight for the whole series for me
*may add more ranting later XD*