Vivid Strike! - Episode 6 Discussion / Poll

[Kairin]

Welcome to the discussion thread for Vivid Strike!, Episode 6.

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[Aetherdraw]

The animation is on point for a short cour series, choosing the right eps to focus their budget on.

Vivio's enemy tasted the rainbows in her fists!

While disciple Fuka went for a speedy combo victory, as expected of a Hegemon user.

My wish for a breaker came true in the form of Miura's Bakken, technically.



Oh my god....
Rinne freaking shattered, not broken, but SHATTERED Miura's ribs!!!! She was even spitting blood with each blow!!! Even Nove tried to stop her but threw the towel way too late!

[Key Board]

It's odd how she could bypass a barrier jacket
isn't that what's its designed to stop?
than again, this is the same girl who broke an adults arm when she was still in grade school

She's a personification of an unhappy child's violent anger
unsettling, but interesting

[Aetherdraw]

Originally Posted by Key Board

It's odd how she could bypass a barrier jacket
isn't that what's its designed to stop?

It will stop the magical and physical impact, but not all of it. I don't think their devices are on the same level of defensive protection as actual Combat mages do. And even then, Nanoha and Fate have to actively deploy Round shield and Protection in battle.

[Key Board]

Miura's device was made by Hayate, IIRC

so it's top of the line.

Then again, Rinne, as said, also seems to be a top of the line progeny

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Key Board

She's a personification of an unhappy child's violent anger
unsettling, but interesting

Based on the visuals, I'm not feeling inclined to blame Rinne real or perceived personality flaws for this one. Miura pressed her hard and if Rinne wanted to win at all, she had to fight at her full strength. Her fist crushed the ribs and that was that.

To be a Monday morning quarterback, if Miura made a mistake, it was probably in not just continuing what she was doing. She was doing well enough I was wondering exactly how they were going to let Rinne win, then I saw her Bakken and I was "Oh."

She didn't need to overpower Rinne's defense. She needs to press her and get in one more down, no matter how superficial the real damage to Rinne is. Instead she exhausted her power reserve on a bunch of boosted blows that did not penetrate the defense, wound up on the wrong half of the curve, and Rinne started to counterattack, and in a last attempt to win she went for another Bakken (which presumably drained power from everywhere else). BJs were never that good against physical attacks anyway and that sealed it.

[Key Board]

Rinne's special ability is she absorbs magic while taking damage
Then at the end the fight she gets all kinds of buffs because of that.
she is built to outlast her opponent

Miura misread the situation, but VIvio seems to have understood it

I'm not sure if Miura could have won normally though.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Key Board

Rinne's special ability is she absorbs magic while taking damage

Is that confirmed or just a theory?

[Key Board]

That's what her trainer said

[Aetherdraw]

All i remember Jill saying is that she trained solely on toughness and being able to take lots of strong hits, basically outlasting the opponent.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Key Board

Rinne's special ability is she absorbs magic while taking damage
Then at the end the fight she gets all kinds of buffs because of that.
she is built to outlast her opponent

Miura misread the situation, but VIvio seems to have understood it

I'm not sure if Miura could have won normally though.

Here's what her trainer said:
｢鍛えてきだのはデフェンスとタフネス。打撃に使う筋肉の鎧は、防御に置いても威力を発揮する。そして、打 たれても耐え続けるタフネスが、リンネの攻撃能力も更に高みへ持ち上げる｣

So while it is true Rinne's plan is to outlast her opponent, it isn't like she absorbs magic. It's just that she's very tough, and that toughness brings benefits to her attacks as well.

Based solely on what is shown onscreen, and assuming Rinne doesn't have a huge reserve of power she can just bring out of her butt like a shonen-manga hero, I'll give Miura a good chance of getting in that 3rd down she'll need to win in the context of this match format, if she doesn't tire herself just hammering against Rinne's defence. Rinne probably attacked when she felt Miura's punches decreasing in their intensiveness and/or rate.

[FlameSparkZ]

Ouch, I'm afraid Miura will be in the hospital for quite a while.

As as mentioned above, Barrier Jackets as mostly designed to protect agaisnt magic damage, and physical damage to some degree.
The problem is that Rinne has outrageous strength, enough to cause actual damage even with the BJ's protection.

Also, though Zafira was her original coach, Miura learned her techniques from Signum, even if changed from sword strikes to kicks, the basis remains the same: Hit hard and fast.

Which reminds me of what Signum said in StrikerS, that all she could teach the rookies was to "get close to their opponent and tear them apart". This possibly means offense over defense and when Miura deployed Bakken, most of her magic shifted towards offensive abilities, pretty much lowering her defenses.

[Boukenxha]

Clearly heard Jill mention "defense" and "toughness" and it was in english as well.

Rinne is just brutal, after Miura it will be Vivio's turn to take a beating, hope she comes out with less serious injuries.

[FlameSparkZ]

Originally Posted by Boukenxha

Clearly heard Jill mention "defense" and "toughness" and it was in english as well.

Yes. From what I understand, since the last match agaisnt Vivio, Rinne has been focusing her training on toughness and defense, so she can take heavy hits and still stand. Even if she goes down, the damage taken is significantly lowered by what Jill called an "armor of muscles".

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Boukenxha

Clearly heard Jill mention "defense" and "toughness" and it was in english as well.

Rinne is just brutal, after Miura it will be Vivio's turn to take a beating, hope she comes out with less serious injuries.

The Doylist perspective
I do too, but what's brutal is not Rinne, who just punched all-out against a clearly competitive opponent, but the writers, who decided on the ribs.

I mean, obviously Miura has to lose for the show, but did they really have to break ribs? Didn't they just dedicate most of 2 episodes trying to repair or at least give some mitigating context to Rinne's reputation after what she did to Carrie in Ep3?

The fact Miura actually did suprising well considering her clearly predestined fate only makes me feel all the more sympathetic.

The Watsonian perspective
Here's the fun one though. Is it even possible to break Vivio's body like Miura? Miura fights using her real body, while Vivio puts on a kind of adult-shaped magic exoskeleton. If Rinne damages the exoskeleton, the damage to the real body inside could be very attenuated (in fact, good design would suggest that's what should happen).

And come to think of it, now that we've seen for ourselves people really do get seriously hurt in this sport, isn't it kind of inhumane? I mean, Vivid proper decided to establish that Midchildra has sufficient magitech to almost completely attenuate the real effect of magic and physical blows (and replace it with high-fidelity simulation), at least within a ring-sized field and with kid-level fighters.

What happened to that wonderful technology? I can see the product differentiation between this sport and the DSAA, but this sport's mono-focus on fists and feet (perfectly valid options in DSAA) should be even easier to protect for. Yet as far as can be seen, no attempt is made to do so. How cheap can the organizers be?

So maybe it's the organizer's fault, too.

[runset]

BTW before the fight, didn't rinne swear or maybe declare that she will not use any grab technique on miura to win? Didn't she just grab miura's right shoulder berfore delivering the final blow? Did that count as a grab technique?

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by runset

BTW before the fight, didn't rinne swear or maybe declare that she will not use any grab technique on miura to win? Didn't she just grab miura's right shoulder berfore delivering the final blow? Did that count as a grab technique?

I'm sure it counted. It means she couldn't stay true to her promise because Miura was better than expected.

[FlameSparkZ]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

I'm sure it counted. It means she couldn't stay true to her promise because Miura was better than expected.

I'm not that well versed in grappling techniques, but to me it looked like Rinne was about to use a grab & throw, but remembered the promise at the last second and instead decided to punch her...given the outcome, a throw might've been better

Either way, she failed to keep the promise...I wonder if Rinne will comment about it next episode.

[ryllharu]

Rinne pulverizing Miura's ribs aside, it's worth noting that while she promised not to use any grappling moves, right before she destroys Miura, Rinne grabs her. Rinne hesitates for a split-second, knowing she did it, but she broke her word merely because Miura was pushing her to the limit.

That's an interesting tidbit toward's Rinne's character. She knows breaking her word to Miura is wrong, but she does it anyway because she's consumed by the need to be the strongest.

As a second aside...uh...Ixpellia is awake?! I guess this is something that happened in the Vivid manga, because obviously the anime never got that far. The scans haven't gotten that far either.

[Rising Dragon]

Spoiler for Ixy Response:

The scans have gotten that far, actually. The translation has also gotten far enough to set that detail up.