This week in StrikerS: Hawt Rein X Raising Heart action!

Another decent episode of StrikerS, though nothing really special, but it’s only the beginning of the series so I guess they’re taking their time building up the story elements. I just hope that this really is a long build up for the action to come, because although I can deal with it now, another 22 episodes of this pacing would not make for good anime.

Oh, and I lied. It’s a tomato.

Episode Rating: 8.5/10

This episode details the startup of Hayate’s unit which has been a long time in the making. Nanoha and Fate arrive in uniform, ready for duty, greeted by Hayate and Rein (lol desk). Another member of the unit interrupts to give his report, Griffith, an old acquaintance of the three who will be Hayate’s adjutant and in charge of logistics. He reports that the staff and forwards of the 6th Mobile Division have arrived and are in the lobby, awaiting Hayate’s address.

After Hayate’s speech, everyone gets to work. There’s a mini reunion scene between Signum and Fate, who used to be rivals. They haven’t met in nearly six months but now find themselves in the same unit, with Fate as Signum’s direct superior. Fate and Hayate head to the central command center to report to their superiors on the 6th Mobile Division’s status while Nanoha immediately begins the forward’s training.

Thanks to the help of central command, a state of the art training facility has been constructed, able to simulate any battle terrain. The site, along with tracking chips placed in their devices by the 6th Division’s mechanic, Shari, will help Nanoha track their progress.

And so they get started right away, summoning replicas of the battle droids shown at the end of episode two. However, the forwards have some trouble dealing with them, they’re too fast to hit with normal projectiles, and even when they connect their magical attacks are dissipated by their Anti-Magic Field (AMF). The forwards are eventually able to destroy them, using various tactics such as binding spells, barrier enchanted projectiles, or in Subaru’s case, just plain brute force.

Meanwhile, Fate and Hayate are at the central command centre reporting the start up of the 6th Mobile Division and requesting their first major assignment. The lost logia that caused the airport fire 4 years ago, Relic, has been missing and is known to be very dangerous. To add to that, someone has created the magic drones (now being used for training, oh the ironing) to search for specific lost logia. The chance of dimensional crime is high, so they are requesting permission to investigate the case.

Back at headquarters, the Velka Knight gang has dinner together for the first time in a while. They discuss the success of Hayate’s unit, which seems to have unanimous support, not to mention forward starters with plenty of potential…who happen to be exhausted from Nanoha’s intense training session that ran through the night.

Thoughts

Another mainly administrative episode, we’ll probably see a few more before getting into any real action.

I’ve noticed a few people commenting on how StrikerS isn’t living up to the standard set by A’s. Well…of course it’s not, A’s threw us right into the line of fire, with Vita assaulting Nanoha within minutes of the start up. But what we have to consider is that A’s already had a story built up for it, the first season was the buildup for A’s, which delivered concentrated, non-stop action.

But as Vita herself notes, the four new characters are “still hatchlings learning how to walk”. In other words, StrikerS (so far) is like the first season all over again. Plot lines must be rebuilt and characters must have their backgrounds fleshed out before we can get to city leveling aerial combat. It may seem slow now, but hopefully StrikerS will pick up later on and be better off having covered boring plot elements in the beginning.

The characters are building up fairly well, though we haven’t gotten any detailed information on them yet. But at least we’re seeing that they can work well together, adapting to each other’s styles in the heat of battle. Kyaro looks like a binding/support type mage, whereas Elio seems to be a Velka Knight descendant (triangle cast and German sounding device). We also see more of Tia’s abilities, being able to use AA rank techniques. And Subaru sticks with her tried and true “if I can’t break it, I’ll just hit it harder” mentality.

More Rein love this episode, I love how they manage to find mini versions of everything for her, the desk made me lol. I wonder why she ended up being such an energetic character though, I remember the original Reinforce being a little more reserved, almost stoic. I guess this was more “moe”.

I don’t think I have to explain why I took this screencap =P Signum is awesome, and as much as FeitoXNanoha has a place in my heart, FateXSignum would be made of all sorts of win.

On a related note…what is up with Nanoha’s bed!? It looks like it can fit around 5 people on it. So does that mean that Fate, Nanoha, Hayate and Rein sleeping together wasn’t just a one time thing o.O? If not, that needs to be animated, badly.

There is one thing that is becoming slightly annoying in StrikerS, the constant use of military ranks. I know that the Time/Space Administration Bureau is basically a military entity, but damn it’s getting annoying having to hear a character’s rank every single time. And some of them don’t even make sense, given age and experience. Oh well, minor detail.

So even though I’ll admit that StrikerS is a little boring at this point, there’s little doubt in my mind that it’ll pick up soon (or at least by the halfway point). Personally, I think I’d prefer they get all the boring stuff out of the way early, leaving nothing but condensed action for the end. That’s the formula they went with for the first two seasons, so I see no reason why they’d mess with success.

~ Shirukii ~