[Tk3997]

Originally Posted by LoweGear

Which is one of the things I like about it actually

I think it's one of the things 90+% of fans like about it...

I wasn't really trying to shaft the guys here, it's just that females to tend to get more action than males in magical girl shows, no helping it.

Doesn't really make it logical anymore then how the Hero in like ever RPG is a teenage boy who all the girls want to hang with and all the guys want to be while and in ever FPS they're a burly cigar chomping badass...

No arguments on what StrikerS brought to the Nanoha franchise, and what it turned the series into. For this argument though I was talking about the series as a whole including S1 and A's. I concede the point though.

S1 could be somewhat argued, but A's was already out of the genre IMO after all I mean what ultimately finally defeated the big bad of the season? It wasn't the power of love it was the power of a Wave Motion Gun to the face...

Satisfying answer, since I myself believe in balance of both elements of the series. Though to me, the militarism is but a setting, and not the core of the storytelling aspect of Nanoha, which was my knee-jerk point that made me respond in the first place. The military aspect of the Nanohaverse is something all of us have to acknowledge, but that doesn't mean all your stories regarding the Nanohaverse has to have that. (Heck, alot of my own works don't feature the TSAB at all ). The Nanohaverse is a setting that allows both mahou shoujo fans and military nuts to coexist, and that's another thing I like about it, and why the OC thread has been so successful for the past year.

Eh could be a minor disagreement or even using different terms I tend to feel that anything that can’t really be taken out without drastically changing the work is a “core” story element. You can’t really take the military elements out of Nanoha and still end up with something like Nanoha hence to me I’d consider it a core element. At the same time you can’t get rid of magic or the idealism either so those are also core elements too. You can debate which ones are “more” important, but it becomes academic all of them are vital to making the work what it is so you need all of them in some form or another.

Also it's not even totally about the military Nanoha unlike most examples of it's type has a sort of populist approach to magic it's not horded and the sole domain of a couple of users given it not based on work or merit, but often by cosmic accident. Lots of people can use magic and it's an everyday thing and treated as such by most that know of it. (This is another aspect that nudges it much more toward more classic fantasy) However when something like this becomes widespread and mundane it starts to have mundane issues how do you control the users, what is is and isn't allowed, what kinds of laws govern magic? etc.

Nanoha has a sort of odd Fantastical Realism too it yeah sure some people can fly and shot energy beams, but they also still drive around in cars and go home and watch TV after they get off there shift in the local army... This applies even to likes of the Aces yeah they might be the heroes, but they aren't reincarnated princesses destined to rule the world or something. They're basiclly just people with a talent they've got ALLOT of talent, but there have been people as strong as them before and they'll be people as strong as them afterwards. The Aces and mages in general aren't superheroes or heroes out of some greek myth they're people with a talent, but still people and they still deal with problems people deal with annoying bosses, politics, work etc and they live if a world that's rather like our own with most of the same issues and problems. They just happen to be able to fly and shot fireballs...

Again this is really not your Daddys magic girl show...