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Bloody Hell...
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: International House, Nisshin, Japan
Age: 35
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I know what I'm about to say is pretty similar to what others have already stated, I'm going to rant here because nobody where I live would know what the hell I'm babbling on about. (Also - misvoted: I believe I put in 7 rather than 6)
After doing a marathon of the first two Nanoha series last year, I was anxiously looking forward to StrikerS. In the end, it's not the worst series I've ever seen, but it was far from what I was hoping for and expecting from it.
At first, I liked the addition of new cast members, because I felt that they would help both aiding in expanding the Nanoha universe and bringing some new life to the series by way of personality and actions. While this was somewhat achieved, it fell short of what it could have been. The downside is that too many new characters were introduced, and not enough time was spent actually focusing on who they were. We got one or two episodes focusing on each of their backstories, and then everything continues on as normal, with these revelations affecting very little. The best example I have of this is when Subaru's past and identity are revealed. I was expecting a bit of drama in this, but it turns out to be "Oh, we already knew, sorry for not telling you." Then everyone smiles, accepts it on the spot and all returns to the status quo, except now Subaru has her own deus ex machina (no pun intended).
Likewise, at first I did not mind the training, since they were showing what else was going on behind the scenes as everything built up to the point where the plot was fully unveiled. Looking back though, it would have been much better if the training had simply been implied, the fruits of it shown later, and the focus given to the characters' development and the plot thickening. Essentially, we got about half an episode's worth of that for about the first half of the series.
The character designs in general was okay, but with most of them walking around in a uniform of one form or another most of the time, it was hard to like it as much as the previous seasons where they had much different outfits for each character. Mirroring aspects of the team leaders' outfits in the new cast seemed kind of a cop out as well, but they still looked decent enough. Fate's outfit changed a bit, which was cool, though I think Nanoha's should have as well. The long twin tails didn't really go as well on this adult version.
Also on design, I really enjoyed the weapons used in StrikerS, especially in the end when the final abilities are used (Riot Zanber! WOO!). Unfortunately, Erio didn't get as much playtime with his as I would have liked, especially after seeing him tear so much up in the early episodes. Another gripe I have is that after seeing that Ginga had a left gauntlet for her weapon, I was anticipating Subaru using it in conjunction with hers at some point for massive, pretty, and expensively animated attacks. This got tossed out the window too, as her use of both lasted for about a minute. Rein's uses did surprise me though. I figured she would only be able to fuse with Hayate, but the two unison devices both got used in more than one person. Yay!
Now... as for the old characters, I hated how much they got ignored. They might as well have focused the series on Subaru, Teana, Erio, and Caro and had the former cast show up in the background from time to time. After A's, I wanted to see more Hayate and the knights, but only Vita, Signum and Rein were given any kind of real air time, and even they weren't touched on as much as they could have been. It kind of makes their introduction and friendship with Nanoha in A's seem kind of pointless. Arf and Yuuno getting tossed aside was also a pretty poor decision since they've had pretty big roles in the previous seasons.
Animation quality was... iffy. Most of the time, it certainly wasn't as good as Nanoha and A's, and in one episode (don't have the files with me right now to track it down, it was early on) it appeared as if they weren't even trying. At least the magic circles and spells still looked pretty. And no, the 3D chopper didn't impress me any.
One final note - while the Nanoha before StrikerS (mostly A's) had enough yuri undertones to create a vast number of fanfics, fan art and doujinshi, nothing was ever stated and thus the series could carry on normally while leaving that aside for the fans to have fun with. StrikerS gets rid of that, throws the female partnerships in our faces, apparently tired of undertones and wanting to appease the fans of those relationships (Subaru groping Teana ftw?). Vivio's introduction, creating a somewhat official Nanoha/Fate pairing didn't help that any. I sometimes feel that I was one of the few that wanted to see Yuuno x Nanoha.
Overall - I didn't hate StikerS, despite the image my little tirade may give, it's just that so much of it could have been done much, much better. The story, characters, and promise of the characters' full potential at the end kept me interested long enough to finish. However, if they had chopped off about half the cast and spent a little more time working on the characters that were supposed to be crucial to the story, they might be getting somewhere. StrikerS suffers, as many have said, from poor direction. Ultimately, it didn't feel very much like the Nanoha series that kept me in anticipation of this series. If they do for some reason create another Nanoha series (maybe focusing on what they did between A's and StrikerS, much like the manga they released), I hope they learn from these mistakes and create another series that I can truly adore. Perhaps 26 episodes is too much to work with - the creators seem to do well with 13. Let's go with that, yes?
So again, despite how I (mistakenly - my head is woozy right now) voted, 6/10.
*looks at the post preview* ...holy crap. I think I wrote too much. I don't expect anyone to actually read all of that. ._. At least the rant is out of my system now.
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