Quote:
Originally Posted by Fimbulvetr
The only positive part I remember: in ep25, Nanoha remembered that she once was a fighter who could do a bit more than just shoot down all gadgets within range and actually performed something a bit more sophisticated.
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Actually, the WAS activated on Ep24, so that makes it the first of Nanoha's stratagems that took 2 episodes to come to an end! Makes one wonder why she didn't start her reconaissance when she entered...
Back to commenting about the show, there isn't much left to mention, but I feel betrayed.
The strategic goal for the show is laudable enough. The tactics used in each episode were hit or miss, and I've commented on most of the episodes since Ep17 here. But the worst is the operational art and the art of Operational Troop Control.
Mistake #1: The composition of Maneuver Elements (characters) for both Blue and Red Forces were done poorly. High Capability Combat Maneuver Elements (Aces and Knights) were forced to work with Low Capability Combat Maneuver Elements (Forwards). This is in despite of an Strategic Directive that mandates that all Combat Maneuver Elements be employed. This constraint combined with poor selection led to crappy and implausible tactics (limiters) to ensure the Strategic Directive is minimally met.
Mistake #2: The Troop Control for the Maneuver Elements was done poorly. Given the limited time available, precise scheduling and troop control is required to ensure all of the excessive number of elements have the space and time to correctly deploy (Character Development), and to ensure they pass through required Phase Lines in good order and on time. In the end, too much time was consumed in passing through certain Maneuver Units (Vivio being the showcase) and having the various elements pass through various phase lines. Due to this failure of Troop Control, most characters are inadequately deployed, and one Major Combat Maneuver Unit was permanently damaged.
Mistake #3: The final choice of Decisive Sector was poor, choosing the boggiest, sector, to be spearheaded by the weakest Maneuver Element.
Mistake #3a: Nevertheless, had a slightly different attack sector been chosen (such as making Vivio a little bigger so she can have a real personality), followed by
extensive, time-consuming reinforcement of the Maneuver Element and extensive engineer preparation (episodes of Vivio character development), it could have been made a usable attack route. Instead, too much time was wasted either on indecisiveness or a deliberate deception effort that took up too much of the precious Time resource.
Mistake #4: The allocation of limited supplies was done poorly. This leads to an unstable supply situation as the Elements try to advance (i.e. the varying animation quality). Nothing is more demoralizing than varying rations.
So, with all these failures, and all the tactical goofs, it is either 1 or 2 out of 10. This is despite the fact that most episodes will have gotten over 5 from me. Operational Art decides wars and anime.