Mahou Senki Lyrical Nanoha Force Manga Discussion

[itanshi1]

Sides, its a story with conflict, a body count, and a poison that will destroy the world. They have no intention on being nice, holding your hand, or using kind words. thats why its concurrent with Vivid.

Winning with powers that break... Its called deconstruction, its the only choice a writer has when they nearly wrote themselves into a hole with the first two seasons. They can be killed, just lock them up and starve them to death (like either their poison kills them or malnutrition, which ever comes first)

I'm amazed at this fact cause as a writer, i feel i can only write a really long engaging story by deconstructing the series.

Page grab for a Savory Dish with a lolipop desert
x_x ug did i just say that?

[Comartemis]

Right. That's tremendously in-character for the heroes and is absolutely not a tactic that wouldn't horrify and repulse them.

Look at it this way: any given Huckbein could solo Reinforce with the Book of Darkness fully active by simple virtue of being able to shrug off everything Rein can throw at them. Does that help put it in perspective a little?

[itanshi1]

new season, new villains? Nanoha recently could do the same

Heck rein 1 was weak, she used demonic powers and didn't destroy much of anything. Not even a crater. lazy animators hurt the plot. Even if it was in a barrier, i don't think it was like there wa snothing there to destroy. Also, was she not strong enough to break the barrier? It was faux apocalyptic.

I compared the old seasons to Fisher Price warfare, this is more like toy soldiers with cotton clothing, its improving, but of course its not realistic, of course there are short cuts of course these arguments have been made before.

[Nanya01]

You're using the trope wrong...

Spoiler for God Mode Sue:

God Mode Sue exists purely to show up how pathetically weak the rest of the world is, and how badly they need his or her help. If there's anybody else that is even capable of standing up for themselves, they may lose their abilities for some reason when the character comes into the equation, or become incompetent boobs, or both. They'll probably get captured or find something that they just can't handle. Then the God Mode Sue shows up, saves the day on his or her own at least twice as easily as they usually do when working as a team, and doesn't get his or her ass kicked at all. Then he or she stands around and wallows in their praise a bit.

God Mode Sue is so powerful because he or she often gets New Powers As The Plot Demands, and without any explanation or any of the normal limitations that a good writer will insert. In most balanced fiction, we generally know the hero's going to win, Downer Ending aside (Status Quo Is God, after all), but their abilities may fail them (or something like that) and so we watch to find out HOW they do it. God Mode Sue's powers never fail, nor is there any point where you think, "I KNOW the hero's gotta win, but how are they going to get out of this mess?" The plot and the fight is so blatantly biased towards the God Mode Sue that it becomes rather boring (and sometimes insulting).

It's worthy to note that there is a correlation between Bad Ass and this trope. A proper Bad Ass will frequently break the Willing Suspension Of Disbelief, but they generally sell it through either Refuge In Audacity or just generally being convincing as something that could naturally come up with the character. However, they are still treated as normal characters by the plot and have to face potential repercussions to their actions like anybody else. God Mode Sue... doesn't.

Look up Villain Sue, which is closer to what the Hucks are becoming.

They haven't crossed that line just yet.

And, look, it was either anti-magic abilities or go the DBZ route and make them a bunch of SS and SSS magic users who are against the Bureau.

Honestly, I would have dropped Force if it went the same route that Negima and so many other shonen series have gone.

[itanshi1]

Yeah just upping power levels is weak writing.
Who was it that wanted more mass based weaponry and went on for pages about how much better it'd be if they used them? (not that they were right) but this series does put that into question which makes it good writing. Making the heroes question their very values or letting us see if they can still adhere to those values despite all the chaos is good writing.

[00-Raiser]

Originally Posted by Comartemis

Winning with powers that completely break the setting is what makes them a sue. The enemy is only badass because they can shrug off everything the good guys can throw at them and instantly regenerate from everything that actually does damage.

How does it break the setting? It's not like the magic in the series is the end all be all power of the universe that can do anything. Magic is a system that society has chosen to use because of it's advantages. It has limitations and the functioning of the universe is not reliant on it. That another alternative exists that is a polar opposite is only natural. There is matter, and there is anti-matter.

And they don't exactly 'shurg' things off so casually. They clearly feel pain, it's just that they can regenerate. The fact that they bother to take any sort of defensive measures (like delinking magic) shows that they're not invulnerable. If nothing could harm them, then they wouldn't care if some giant ice block was heading for their ship. But instead they tried to destroy said block of ice.

[Comartemis]

Originally Posted by itanshi1

new season, new villains? Nanoha recently could do the same

Heck rein 1 was weak, she used demonic powers and didn't destroy much of anything. Not even a crater. lazy animators hurt the plot.

Prove that Nanoha has ever been capable of single-handedly defeating Reinforce.

Look up Villain Sue, which is closer to what the Hucks are becoming.

Pretty much, yeah.

They haven't crossed that line just yet.

...and here we disagree.

And, look, it was either anti-magic abilities or go the DBZ route and make them a bunch of SS and SSS magic users who are against the Bureau.

Only if they insisted on focusing on The Continuing Adventures of Takamachi Nanoha. There are a bunch of other things they could have done; StrikerS did a lot of stuff wrong, but one thing it was great at was expanding the scope of the series, why not explore other parts of it? I'd like to see Nanoha get the Universal Century treatment, where the main characters drift into the background for a couple of seasons, get some cameo appearances here and there and then only come back for an apocalyptic franchise-finisher of a Last Season. In the meantime you could do stuff like focus on the Forwards (hi there, SSX!), or Vivio (hi ViVid!) or the Numbers (as main characters, being extras in Vivio's manga doesn't count). Or heck, even make someone completely new like Touma and then don't bring the old crowd into his story! And if you really wanted to focus on Nanoha, why not go back and cover periods from the A's-StrikerS timeskip? There's enough drama wrapped up in Nanoha's injury and rehabilitation to power a whole season about it, and you could plug in interquels and use them to flesh out the backstories of Jail and the Numbers or whoever you wanted, really.

Who was it that wanted more mass based weaponry and went on for pages about how much better it'd be if they used them?

I can tell you with absolute certainty that it wasn't me. I've always preferred this series with more magical girl tropes, not more military hardware.

How does it break the setting? It's not like the magic in the series is the end all be all power of the universe that can do anything.

Everyone who matters uses it, aside from the armchair generals and the occasional mad scientist.

I think it wouldn't bother me so much if the heroes had had other options to start with. Say for instance that there were more ki-users like Kyouya and Miyuki, or if the Numbers had played a larger role from the start with their IS powers, so some people would still be able to fight them normally. The way it is now the Hucks having anti-magic feels like a really ham-handed way of upping their threat index and depowering the heroes by forcing the heroes to use faulty prototype equipment. It's like the anime equivalent of Fake Difficulty in a video game, where the game is only hard because the controls suck.

[Nanya01]

Something you should know about Villain Sues that you're calling the Hucks...

Spoiler for Villain Sue:

Probably the rarest type of Sue, as Villains are always given great powers and abilities to make their inevitable downfall more sweet. A true Villain Sue will probably never have one, however, and even if he does it may be via Only The Author Can Save Them Now rather than any non-Ass Pull method.

The Hucks have been shown to be hurt by magic attacks (Signum with Agito anyone?), so they aren't villain sues yet.

After all, look at Cell and Majin Buu from DBZ... Tremendous power, practically unbeatable and able to regenerate from nearly anything.

Still ended up being beaten.

The Hucks are NOT shown to be more powerful than the Heroes.

They HAVE, however, been shown to have a game breaker power.

[00-Raiser]

Originally Posted by Comartemis

Everyone who matters uses it, aside from the armchair generals and the occasional mad scientist.

Our perspective on that is incredibly skewed. Everyone uses magic because the story takes place in a society where magic is the norm. I'm sure there's plenty of worlds out there not part of the TSAB who use systems other than magic. Earth is one such place.

Just because everyone uses swords, does the introduction of enemies that use guns break the setting?

Who knows, maybe there's another system out there that is the Eclipse's natural weakness.

Originally Posted by Nanya01

They HAVE, however, been shown to have a game breaker power.

When the game is magic, anyways. But it's not like that's a mandatory game everyone has to play. It comes off as "Waaah! My power doesn't work on yours! That's cheating! Play fair and let me win!!!"

[Comartemis]

Our perspective on that is incredibly skewed. Everyone uses magic because the story takes place in a society where magic is the norm. I'm sure there's plenty of worlds out there not part of the TSAB who use systems other than magic. Earth is one such place.

[Abridged Nappa]EVERYONE WHO MATTERS![/Abridged Nappa]

[Nanya01]

Originally Posted by Comartemis

[Abridged Nappa]EVERYONE WHO MATTERS![/Abridged Nappa]

Sein's sitting in the corner, crying about her usage of her IS was ignored in ViVid just to show off Rio's abilities.

[Akiyoshi]

Oh well, looks like Hayate's downfall sends a good chunk of the fanbase into Aki-mode xD. Lets the party begin.

Originally Posted by itanshi1

Were you also one to complain that Jail was too weak of a villain?

Originally Posted by Comartemis

If Jail was weak it was because he and the Numbers didn't get good enough fight scenes and so didn't really get to strut their stuff like, say, the Wolkenritter did (I'm still waiting for Cinque to get a fight scene to herself that doesn't involve Subaru more or less curbstomping her).

What the hell it this? First of all, while it's true that i have some complains about StrikerS, Scaglietti and the Numbers certainly aren't part of those because the're freakin cool and menacing. they put the heroes on the ropes just by virtue of being quicker and smarter than them, and i don't know if you guys remeber that Scaglietti catch Batdiche Zamber's blade with his freakin hand(ok he's using an evil gauntlet but that's still pretty hardcore). they only lost becaue their strategy got twarted. Comparing that with the Hucks who are only laughing over the heroes asses with their invincible powers makes me find the numbers much more endearing and interesting.

Originally Posted by itanshi1

Heck rein 1 was weak, she used demonic powers and didn't destroy much of anything. Not even a crater. lazy animators hurt the plot. Even if it was in a barrier, i don't think it was like there wa snothing there to destroy. Also, was she not strong enough to break the barrier? It was faux apocalyptic.

The world started to collapse just by her mere prescence, yeah, faux apocalypse indeed
[/Sarcasm]

Originally Posted by Nanya01

The Hucks are NOT shown to be more powerful than the Heroes.

They HAVE, however, been shown to have a game breaker power.

True, but they still showed to be able to beat the heroes without even trying, i agree with villains defeating heroes on their first encounter but normally is showed that the hero in question somehow manage to give a good battle represnting the villain and the hero as antagonistic near equal forces. the Huckebein are completely outclassed the heroes(even with the new weapons) in a way that make Hayate's team look like bugs compared to them, so far Nanoha and Hayate are the only ones to give something resembling a challenge to this guys and Karen promptly shrug off that too xDU. But the preview sounds promising, hope that Subaru can finally cash on her hot blooded mecha hero points to do some awesome stuff xD.

Originally Posted by 00-Raiser

When the game is magic, anyways. But it's not like that's a mandatory game everyone has to play. It comes off as "Waaah! My power doesn't work on yours! That's cheating! Play fair and let me win!!!"

But certainly magic has played a pivotal role in the series since the beginning, the trend is that they're powerful magical warriors, it feels a bit strange this sudden subversion of concepts, another set of protagonist would serve better, as the old Nanoha cast looks very unsuitable for a story like this, they're magical warriors, they don't belong here, put someone equally rough to fight that bunch of rockstars called The Huckebein like Spike Siegel or Vash The Stampede, Nanoha and Co. are better fighting in a Slayers Universe or in planet Cephiro xD.

Originally Posted by Comartemis

I can tell you with absolute certainty that it wasn't me. I've always preferred this series with more magical girl tropes, not more military hardware.

Amen bro, amen.

[Laith]

Originally Posted by Akiyoshi

True, but they still showed to be able to beat the heroes without even trying, i agree with villains defeating heroes on their first encounter but normally is showed that the hero in question somehow manage to give a good battle represnting the villain and the hero as antagonistic near equal forces. the Huckebein are completely outclassed the heroes(even with the new weapons) in a way that make Hayate's team look like bugs compared to them, so far Nanoha and Hayate are the only ones to give something resembling a challenge to this guys and Karen promptly shrug off that too xDU. But the preview sounds promising, hope that Subaru can finally cash on her hot blooded mecha hero points to do some awesome stuff xD.

Fate too actually. Also activating the whole anti-magic thingy counts as trying.

[Akiyoshi]

Originally Posted by Laith

Fate too actually. Also activating the whole anti-magic thingy counts as trying.

Thanks for mentioning Fate, indeed she curbstomps nanoha but it works by virtue that Nanoha was pretty much a newbie when she fights Fate and also even when Nanoha got curbstomped on their first encounter she didn't end hurted that much, when she fight a second time Fate is still the superior fighter but is given the notion that Nanoha is holding her own better and that in the future she will be able to fight Fate as her equal, none of that is exeprienced in FORCE sop far(even Nanoha in her fortress mode s given the notion that she only can stall Tohma for an undefinetly amount of time as the kid is shruggin off adn regenerating ewverything the Ace of Aces has launched at him).

Yes, is the introductory battle and yes, thing will probably change from now on(Go Subaru xD!) but at least to this point the heroes didn't have any indicator of being to the huckebein nothing more than punchin bags.

[itanshi1]

I noticed the page count for force is less than that of claymore. This might be one of the complaints we should take note. it's slow, but its also less pages so we get less. Makes it slower.

[Laith]

I am pretty sure that Nanoha is trying to KO Touma because his anti-magic abilities, regeneration and everything else won´t work while he is unconscious.

Also they are not punching bags they are not being meele´d to death they are being stabbed to death. Big difference.

I noticed the page count for force is less than that of claymore. This might be one of the complaints we should take note. it's slow, but its also less pages so we get less. Makes it slower.

This is my main complain of Force, we get half chapters instead of 1 sometimes.

[Akiyoshi]

Originally Posted by itanshi1

I noticed the page count for force is less than that of claymore. This might be one of the complaints we should take note. it's slow, but its also less pages so we get less. Makes it slower.

Quoted for truth.

we can complain about a variety of things here but my main complain about FORCe is the pacing, it's horribly slow, things will be clarified and hate will get less time to be cultivated if only the story starting to move a little bit faster.

Originally Posted by Laith

Also they are not punching bags they are not being meele´d to death they are being stabbed to death. Big difference.

They're cattle hanging in a freezer then xDU

[Justin_Brett]

Originally Posted by Comartemis

Look at it this way: any given Huckbein could solo Reinforce with the Book of Darkness fully active by simple virtue of being able to shrug off everything Rein can throw at them. Does that help put it in perspective a little?

Couldn't Reinforce just punch them to death? And just because they can get through her shields doesn't mean they can do anything to her; a point-blank hit from Nanoha didn't even scratch her.

Besides, given just how many spells the Book had, some of them would have to be able to affect the Hucks just by sheer logistics.

When the game is magic, anyways. But it's not like that's a mandatory game everyone has to play. It comes off as "Waaah! My power doesn't work on yours! That's cheating! Play fair and let me win!!!"

I'd say it breaks the 'being able to hurt us permanently in the slightest' game. Magic? Immune to that. Bullets? Healing factor. Melee weapons? Iron skin. It's a bit silly.

I personally think Force's artist should read Soul Eater, take some cues from its pacing. Granted, it comes out bi-monthly (last time I checked), but it has around thirty pages each time. Point is, if the pacing is going to be this slow, don't fucking waste our time with an introductory battle that goes on for this long for no point. You made your point, they're tough. Can we move on?

[Comartemis]

Originally Posted by Laith

Also they are not punching bags they are not being meele´d to death they are being stabbed to death. Big difference.

Tell that to Isis. And to Nanoha, who Deville came within a hair's breadth of killing on the first blow.

This situation really isn't comparable to previous curbstomps. In past situations the worst damage that's been inflicted on a hero was Subaru or Nanoha being beaten up pretty badly. In just this opening fight Signum's been placed in critical condition, Hayate's been skewered, Nanoha's almost been killed, Vita and Erio both got their asses handed to them, everyone on the Wolfram had a heart attack via Touma, Isis got her fucking neck broken... am I forgetting anyone? Is my point made? And then the one time it looks like the heroes have the edge over the Hucks, Karen the Walking Desu Ex Machina comes in and nullifies it immediately. There's a difference between being competent and being completely fucking unstoppable.

Couldn't Reinforce just punch them to death? And just because they can get through her shields doesn't mean they can do anything to her; a point-blank hit from Nanoha didn't even scratch her.

And break her arm because the Hucks nullified Black Impact? Nope. Shields don't work either.

[Justin_Brett]

If Isis can punch through that, then so can Reinforce. And even when they get through, her body was pretty damn tough in general. They had to petrify her to actually win the first phase of the fight.