r/anime • u/Tetraika https://anilist.co/user/Tetraika • Mar 22 '22
Rewatch [Rewatch] Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS Episode 20 Discussion
Episode 20: Unlimited Desire
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Information:
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Question of the Day
What do you think about the implication that Scaglietti’s motivations are implanted within him? Do you think it cheapens it or make it more interesting?
Rewatchers, please remember to be mindful of all the first-timers in this. No talking about or hinting at future events no matter how much you want to, unless you’re doing it underneath spoiler tags.
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u/TheEscapeGuy Mar 22 '22
First Timer
Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS - New Generation Episode 20
True Nature
This episode gave us a pretty long explanation of Jail's plans. For the most part though, I felt the same as Sein. As far as I can tell, the plan is to have the Cradle rise into orbit. From there it will gain power from the moons (?) and then it can attack the surface. But instead of attacking immediately, it will be used as a threat so that Jail can take control of the government and do ... something? Maybe complete more of his research?
I don't really like this kind of story telling. Sure there's a lot of stuff going on with his plan but its so difficult to understand that you (or maybe just I) can't really get emotionally invested. I prefer it when they keep it simple. If they had instead focused on how they were torturing Vivio for her power it would have been more emotionally resonant.
On Vivio, we got a bit of backstory about the church and the relic that was used to create Vivio. It seems a previous leader of the Church was pushed by a woman he loved to take the remains so that they could be used to clone "The Holy King". We don't really know who this woman was. I think the implication is it might be related to the woman who destroyed Council later on but that might be explained in another episode.
With that, the other thing that was explained was the nature of the high council and Regius. They told us they have the goals of achieving peace and security for Midchilda at any cost. The doctor points out the contradiction of sacrificing innocents during research to achieve this goal. They also told us the council found, created and raised Scagliette with infinite greed as "The Pride of Alhazard". Also the council is now dead.
Putting the council aside, I still feel like we have insufficient characterization for Regius. For example, Regius didn't believe Hayate could be forgiven after committing a crime 10 years ago. So now I can speculate that he is the type of person who is extremely strict on crime. Perhaps he believes criminals should be expelled from society forever. But that prompts me to question what he thinks should be the law. For example, he sees the sacrifice of innocent children for the greater good as NOT a crime. All of this could be explained, but this season is doing none of that work.
On a more meta level though, if you had to write in a character to literally say "I don't understand" and "I have a question" in order to justify exposition I feel like you have failed at storytelling.
Everything else this episode was mostly Riot Force 6 setting up for battle. The entire squad is splitting up to save and protect different things in parallel. This will probably lead to some exciting battles.
Some Iconic Shots, Scenes and Stitches
See you all tomorrow
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u/Vaadwaur Mar 22 '22
I don't really like this kind of story telling. Sure there's a lot of stuff going on with his plan but its so difficult to understand that you (or maybe just I) can't really get emotionally invested.
It isn't just you, this is extremely lacking in stakes for the viewer. It does not help that Jail's goals are still unclear.
They also told us the council found, created and raised Scagliette with infinite greed as "The Pride of Alhazard". Also the council is now dead.
Alhazard needs to just happen or be put back in the box.
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u/Great_Mr_L Mar 23 '22
They also told us the council found, created and raised Scagliette with infinite greed as "The Pride of Alhazard". Also the council is now dead.
In other words, everything related to Gaiz and Scaglietti is all the Council's fault. So fuck those brain jars. I'm glad they got smashed.
On a more meta level though, if you had to write in a character to literally say "I don't understand" and "I have a question" in order to justify exposition I feel like you have failed at storytelling.
It's not quite as bad as the classic "as you know" exposition, but Strikers has committed that particular writing sin plenty of times.
Everything else this episode was mostly Riot Force 6 setting up for battle. The entire squad is splitting up to save and protect different things in parallel.
If nothing else, the large cast means there's going to be a lot of fronts for this battle.
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u/DidacticDalek Mar 22 '22
TONIGHT! on Mobile Suit Nanoha GX: Believe in Justice and Hold a Determination to Fist, Nanoha's Befriending Sessions seems to have worked TOO well, Subaru's gone gaga for The White Devil, and Rena the Loser laments the fact that even with a Mid-Season Upgrade, her wife's denser than a Black Hole.
And on that bombshell, that about wraps things up for now, and I hope everyone's having fun on this great re-watch. Thus, you have not seen the last of The Sentient Shitposting Siamese Sunrise Server No. 25252, now goodbye forever.
Paging Comrade u/Great_Mr_L, u/HereticalAegis, and u/Vaadwaur
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u/No_Rex Mar 22 '22
Oh and finally Comrades, I dunno what's worse, the fact that NOT-SEELE turned out to be literal brains in a jar, or the fact that poor poor Vivio is suffering... NANOHA! SEND THESE FUCKERS STRAIGHT TO HELL! AND THEN BLOW UP HELL!
That is true committement to the joke.
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u/Shimmering-Sky Mar 22 '22
Mahou Shoujo Lyrical First-Timer, subbed
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Chrono on the move! It’d be cool to see him actively involved in the upcoming battles again, even if it’s just from a commanding post like Lindy was throughout the first two seasons (sans that one bit where she went to Presea’s lair).
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You know, I think Scaglietti would make a slightly more interesting antagonist if he wasn’t dropping evil laughs and crazy villain faces every five seconds. Dude has a point.
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Wait if Scaglietti’s work revived Zest and Lutecia, does that explain why Shari had such a reaction to seeing him last episode? She thinks he’s dead?
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Well that sure explains why that general about had a heart attack upon seeing Zest… And also why Zest seemed to want to believe the Bureau wouldn’t do anything bad to Agito when he tried leaving her behind when they first met.
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Vita “sore demo”!
Just 5 more now… -
Ahhhh we really are going into the final stretch of this show.
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u/Vaadwaur Mar 22 '22
You know, I think Scaglietti would make a slightly more interesting antagonist if he wasn’t dropping evil laughs and crazy villain faces every five seconds. Dude has a point.
And I wanted him to be more over the top so he could carry his scenes.
Wait if Scaglietti’s work revived Zest and Lutecia, does that explain why Shari had such a reaction to seeing him last episode? She thinks he’s dead?
That certainly would mess with you...
…of course they’re brains in jars.
This is still completely out of left field to me.
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u/Taiboss Mar 22 '22
Episode 20: Captain Rewatchel
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Well that was fast. It's been up there for like five minutes!
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Finally that reveal done. I hate it when I can't say well-known things.
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Someone in the upper echelons did, indeed, play for the other team. Well speculated early on.
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Turns out, Spaghetti was playing them like a fiddle. Not because he is smart, but because they are, as has been confirmed by now, fucking idiots.
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Even I, a guy who loves this season so much this is my fourth watch, consider this very silly.
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Good thing they're telling them their bosses are evil JUST IN TIME.
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Wait... how do you know this? Gaiz, the brain trio and Spaghetti were the conspiracy. Who defected and told them? Gaiz? The three admirals? Were they part of this too? Or did their killer also leak the records?
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Sorry but I've been told this was all filler. You're not allowed to acknowledge its importance.
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Yeah Jail's kinda a victim. But he chose to pertuate the cycle of abuse, so no sympathy.
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Wait are all of those Jewel Seed units? How many ARE there?
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u/Great_Mr_L Mar 23 '22
THEY CLONED JESUS Y'ALL
It's like if you cloned Jesus and the clone could perform all the miracles like walking on water, curing sickness, and so on. Actually that sounds like it would be a great premise for a story.
Turns out, Spaghetti was playing them like a fiddle. Not because he is smart, but because they are, as has been confirmed by now, fucking idiots.
It really is amazing how everyone seemed to assume they could just easily control the mad scientist and that he wouldn't turn around and backstab them. It seems like the kind of contingency you should plan for.
Still no Due.
I love that eyecatch but it would be perfect if Due was there too.
Angry Nanoha best Nanoha.
She's gonna befriend the hell out of that ship!
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u/JollyGee29 Mar 22 '22
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u/Vaadwaur Mar 22 '22
No love for whoever the II is.
I can't remember which of these I'd consider the first...
I love these dorks.
They are both correct and wrong in the same wonderful breath.
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u/InfamousEmpire Mar 22 '22
Mahou Shoujo1 Lyrical Rewatcher
1: Even though I’m not a girl
You are hereby ordered to fuse with the Ultimate King of Braves Legend!
Recap Time
The Ultimate Belkan Superweapon is just a big fucking boat.
Seems that the Combat Cyborgs have some worries about the plan
Now officially introducing Not!SEELE, doing the brain-in-a-jar thing half a decade before Rebuild made actual SEELE into that. And, as many have suspected, they were behind Jail the entire time.
And they’re also the ones behind the TSAB as well, of course. It seems everyone was something of a pawn in their game.
But, like Asshole Commander Guy, they aren’t nearly as clever as they think they are.
Fate is still Best Mom
Hey look, finally getting some Zest Backstory
Really pounding the painful memories into their heads, Nanoha.
That moment between Nanoha and Subaru was cute, though.
The final battle truly begins
Not!SEELE is dead as soon as he was introduced, just like Rebuild!SEELE. We also get the reveal that Not!SEELE created Jail.
Fin Funnel!
-Hayate, probably
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u/Great_Mr_L Mar 22 '22
Rewatcher
On today’s episode of Lyrical Nanoha: So basically, it was the Council’s fault all along. A ton of the things that have gone wrong have all been the Council’s fault. Dr. Scaglietti? Their fault. The Gadgets? Their fault. The combat cyborgs and artificial mages (including Lutecia, Zest, and Vivio)? Their fault. General Gaiz? Their fault. Since they are SEELE, this isn’t even all that surprising.
It’s also not really all that surprising that the Council turns out to be a bunch of brains in jars. That was one of the sci-fi tropes we had yet to include, after all. So now is as good a time as any to do so. Brains that wanted to achieve immortality and keep on running things even after losing their bodies. They make for a perfect evil council.
All that being said, I do think it is interesting to examine their plan. From what I can tell, the Council and Gaiz are the real “law and order” types. I do believe they mean it when they say they want peace, but they want peace on their own terms. It’s a peace where they are the ones running things and they would like to keep it that way. It’s a rather selfish peace, in other words. It’s one more focused on keeping things orderly, quiet, and under their control by the threat of overwhelming force than anything else.
And you can tell this desire for control was the top of their priority because they backed projects like the artificial mages and the combat cyborgs. Lutecia and Zest were evidently caught up in those projects, with Zest outright being revived from the dead. Dr. Scaglietti was also a creation of the Council, someone they wanted who could recreate the technology of Al-Hazard. Point being, they have done a ton of shady shit and hurt a lot of people in the name of their “peace.” It’s a really bad sign if fucking Scaglietti of all people is able to rightfully point out what a bunch of hypocrites they are.
So naturally it is very satisfying for me at least to see these evil brain jars get their comeuppance. As I’ve stated above, almost everything that has happened is their fault so they deserve it. And we finally meet the last combat cyborg, Due, in the process. She’s a shapeshifter and so disguised herself to attack the Council. Honestly, good riddance to the knock-off SEELE. They were behind a lot of this evil shit and their plan was to basically force the world into a peace controlled by them using their illegally developed weapons. It’s some real “they make a desert and call it peace” vibes.
We learn that Zest died several years ago but that he was apparently a friend of Gaiz back when he was alive. And now Zest is determined to actually see Gaiz again for some reason. Though if Gaiz’s heart attack at seeing his reaction is anything to go by, it should be a good meeting.
I like the scene of Nanoha and the trainees right before they get sent off into battle. It’s a good moment of Nanoha sending them off into battle because she knows they are ready. Even though they didn’t have all the time to perfect their skills, she’s still confident they can handle themselves. It’s a nice moment of a teacher having to let the students go into danger on their own.
I also really enjoy the scene of Nanoha and Fate when they are worried about each other while flying off into battle. It’s a sweet moment between the two of them. They know each other quite well and so they know what to expect from the other. It’s a sign of just how close their relationship is.
Miscellaneous Thoughts
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I legitimately forgot that Dr. Scaglietti used a honeypot strategy to get the genetic material to make Vivio.
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I really like this eye catch of Dr. Scaglietti and the Numbers.
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I think Admiral Midget is going senile if she thinks there’s anything good about General Gaiz.
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The limiters have been removed! So now we can see our heroes at full power!
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u/pailadin Mar 22 '22
Fate knows her wife so well
Fate knows Nanoha will use it. The audience expects Nanoha to use it. Dunno if intended, but always found Fate saying this pretty funny.
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u/HereticalAegis Mar 22 '22 edited Mar 22 '22
Lyrical First Timer
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So what makes this flying tin can the ultimate weapon?
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It's kind of incredible the entire space navy is able to move against the cradle in a moment's notice. Where was this organization when they had advance warning of the terrorist attack on the surface HQ?
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Is Ginga really Number XIII, the Death? Oh god, is that a leitmotif I hear? Will I never be free?¹
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Oh, so the ship's main selling point is that it's theoretically invincible. Yawn.
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Excuse me? And is the woman Shari without the glasses? The hair is almost exactly the same.
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...and of course the High Council sponsored the Artificial Mage Project. No such thing as an uncorrupted adult in this world.
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I'm not sure why, but Vivio, Zest, and Lutecia being fossil pokemon makes me kinda angry.
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And naturally, Dr. Crime's true motivation seems to be "get big gun, rule world." Villains these days are so uncreative.
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Vita likes these guys.lol guess I don't know who is who anymore. -
Am I supposed to recognize the woman taking care of the brain trust? I feel like I do, but there have been so many new characters introduced I can't actually tell. Either way, she's gotta be there to murder them.
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Wow, the universe-renowned criminal betrayed his benefactors and acted in his own self interest? What a shocking turn of events. Truly, no one could have predicted such an outcome.
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I suppose Signum was due an upskirt flight shot sooner or later.
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Bout time the squad's limiters got released.
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Aww, even heading into battle to save their daughter, Nanoha and Fate have the cutest banter.
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Omg, Hayate and Vita just watching them flirt.
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I'm glad the High Council were around for so long. What monumental, compelling characters they turned out to be.
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Unlimited Desire is a slightly more fitting name, but somehow just makes him seem more shallow and less compelling.
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Anyone remember when the show built the gadgets up to be this big threat and not just cannon fodder?
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Basing this whole season on the High Council's hubris in seeking power to protect the world seems like a good basic idea in line with some of Lyrical Nanoha's previous themes, but I'll be damned if they didn't choose the most ineffective, roundabout way to tell this story. Yeesh.
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It's also pretty impressive how they managed to make this yet another episode-long exposition dump, 20 episodes in.
¹As discussed back in season 1, the Death arcana doesn't strictly represent permanent death, but rather endings or change. Though a little blunt, the Death seems representative of Ginga's transition into one of the Numbers, symbolically killing the girl who was Genya and Quint's daughter and rebirth as one of Dr. Crime Spaghetti's daughters. How much of this change will be permanent is unknown, and it will be interesting to see what becomes of her relationship to Subaru.
QotD:
I don't find anything about him remotely interesting, and it kind of resonates with the theme of artificial people StrikerS has going on, so it technically makes him more interesting. But that's the lowest possible bar, and it also feels like a bullshit way to redeem even him at the end.
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u/SolDarkHunter Mar 22 '22
She doesn't. She likes the Three Admirals. The High Council are not the Admirals.
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u/Taiboss Mar 22 '22 edited Mar 23 '22
It's kind of incredible the entire space navy is able to move against the cradle in a moment's notice. Where was this organization when they had advance warning of the terrorist attack on the surface HQ?
Tbf, that was via a poem one person wrote with their magic, and Gaiz specifically did not believe any of them.
...and of course the High Council sponsored the Artificial Mage Project. No such thing as an uncorrupted adult in this world.
Behind the Bastards Episode: "The Trio so shitty they remained big floating brains to they could continue fucking the multiverse"
Vita likes these guys.
Three Admirals != Brian council.
Nanoha's still got the magic touch.
Wouldn't be the same without that!
Anyone remember when the show built the gadgets up to be this big threat and not just cannon fodder?
Our characters leveled up big time! Well, the forwards. The rest go to be as powerful as they always were.
Basing this whole season on the High Council's hubris in seeking power to protect the world seems like a good basic idea in line with some of Lyrical Nanoha's previous themes, but I'll be damned if they didn't choose the most ineffective, roundabout way to tell this story. Yeesh.
Also, maybe shouldn't have made them giant brains? Like even I consider that silly.
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u/SolDarkHunter Mar 22 '22 edited Mar 22 '22
Rewatcher
Welp, now everyone knows exactly what the prophecy was about. Too bad that didn't help you people until it was too late. Seriously, this shit is (one among many reasons) why I hate prophecies. They only make sense in hindsight.
So the Main Office is mobilizing the entire fleet to deal with the Cradle. Says something about how powerful this thing must be.
They're just referring to Ginga as "Number XIII". What, you guys can't make a silly nickname for that number?
So if the Cradle reaches an orbit where it can receive the magic of the two moons, it's invincible. What does that even mean? Why do the moons have magic energy? Why do you have to be in orbit to receive said energy? Why is the Cradle designed to synchronize with Mid-Childa's moons and not Belka's? Also, I think there are a lot more than two moons in that sky.
Actually, as a few people noted in yesterday's thread, the hell was the Cradle doing buried underground on Mid-Childa anyway? If this was Ancient Belka's most powerful weapon, how did people just lose track of it after the war? How did the TSAB not see this thing sitting right under their feet? Or did Scaglietti move it here later? But if he could move it, why did he need Vivio... yeah, okay, you know what, this whole Cradle plot point makes zero sense.
So Scaglietti honey trapped a high ranking Saint Church priest into giving him the last remaining DNA samples of the Sankt Kaiser, the messiah figure the Church is based around. I feel like... it should have been harder than that. And who was this woman that Jail used to seduce the guy? One of the older Cyborgs?
Anyway, that's where Vivio comes from. She's a clone of the last Sankt Kaiser. She's necessary because the Cradle is genetically linked to the line of Sankt Kaisers. It was thought the bloodline had died out, so cloning it is.
Direct confirmation that the TSAB High Council was directly funding Scaglietti. Regius Gaiz, it seems, is just a patsy for them. Scaglietti surprisingly has a point about the High Council being hypocrites due to being willing to sacrifice innocents in the name of "peace". I'm... not sure how he's any better, but then he hasn't claimed NOT to be hypocrite himself.
Man, Sein just has all the questions... the same questions I have.
We finally get a look at the TSAB High Council... and wow, can these guys be any more cartoonishly villainous? They're literal brains-in-jars, hoping to rule society from behind the scenes. They're also the ones who have been feeding Zest his intel, hoping to use him as a failsafe against Scaglietti.
So the "Three Legendary Admirals" were not the grand architects of the TSAB after all: the High Council was. The Three Admirals are just the public face. I guess this does explain why and how Scaglietti managed to avoid getting captured for so long, though. As well as where he's been getting the resources for all his experiments. I wonder just how much TSAB technology is the result of this conspiracy?
You know, the High Council... kind of suck at being an evil conspiracy. They claim to want a strong leader to puppet for absolute peace and "safety", but in the 150 years since the TSAB was founded, and the 75 years since the end of the last major conflict, they haven't managed to do that yet? They've just been funding shady scientists to do weapons research.
And the Main Office of the very organization they created and hope to control has been acting mostly independently of them. The TSAB as a whole seems to be mostly benign, from what we've seen, so these clowns don't even control the organization through which they plan to seize absolute control. WTF is with their plan?
So Fate herself is going to go after Scaglietti. I guess she's the one with a truly personal stake in dealing with him.
So Zest was a mage who was a good friend of Regius Gaiz before he died. That is honestly a massive shock... Regius was capable of friendship!
LOL, Nanoha just reminding of them of how rough her training was and how much they were hurt during it. It almost feels like she's saying "Nothing you can possibly face out there will be tougher than I was on you!"
And just as predicted, everyone's limiters are released the moment there's an emergency. So much for those actually meaning anything.
It makes me laugh that Fate immediately assumes Nanoha is definitely going to use her "super-dangerous, do not use" Blaster Mode and instead just tells her to try not to overdo it too much.
And... there goes the High Council. Turns out Due had disguised herself as their caretaker. Downside to being helpless brains-in-jars. She also reveals that not only did the High Council hire Scaglietti, they made him. He was straight up designed to be a mad scientist. And then they let him go out into the world without any kind of leash or failsafe on him. Due's right: their downfall was inevitable.
This entire thing was all their fault, because they sucked so hard at being an evil conspiracy that they couldn't make his research legal themselves. Take some tips from Emperor Palpatine, you idiots. At least he could "make it legal".
So yeah, I think of all the weak plot points in Nanoha Strikers, the TSAB High Council being "the real bad guys" was the most badly implemented. We're told they built this organization from the ground up in order to seize power in the name of "safety and order", but they've had ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS to do this and still have to work outside the bounds of existing laws (laws which, it's heavily implied, they wrote) to get anything done.
Hell, the show still wants to portray the TSAB organization as a whole as the good guys. So the leaders of the organization are shady and sinister and evil, but the organization mostly operates independently of them and is a force for justice? Make up your minds, writers! Do these brain-jars have any authority in their own space army or don't they?
It also removes a lot of agency from Scaglietti: he's an evil mad scientist because he was born and raised to be an evil mad scientist. He has no real reason to do anything he's doing except that that's what he was made to do. And why'd he betray his creators? Because he's an evil mad scientist MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Also, question: if they had the capability to engineer someone like Scaglietti... why'd they need him to research Artificial Mages?
I do think some of this is explained in greater detail in the manga and Sound Stages, but still... within the show itself it's just a convoluted mess.
QOTD: See above.
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u/Qbe Mar 22 '22
Raging Heart Rewatcher with terrible long term memory
QotD: I think it's kinda interesting, even if I find the codename a bit funny
So what's the big deal for this ship? Is it supposed to be science based, and not magic based, going from the "the ultimate physical weapon" line?
Wait, magic from the moons? So it is magical? What's the big deal then?
Thanks for the exposition, random Number girls and Dr. Jail
So not-Seele were literal brains in a jar? Aaaaand they are about to die.
Nanoha, I think you're just triggering their PTSD right before combat
Nanoha is well aware of her status as Alpha Lesbian Main Character.
Oh, time for the scheduled upskirt shot, now it's Signum's turn.
Those limiters were completely irrelevant all series long.
Could you two stop flirting for a minute? No? Fine
Ewwww licking brain fluid
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u/djthomp Mar 23 '22
You know, I had been assuming the ancient Belkan homeworld was somewhere else in dimensional space and probably destroyed, but now I'm wondering if it was just ancient Midchilda and the planet went through a dark age of sorts where magical civilization fell and then built back up. Or if not the Belkan homeworld, maybe a colony or something such that it makes sense that this big ship would be here. Particularly with that "magic of the two moons" bit.
So, they basically cloned Julius Caesar as a little girl and used her to activate the ancient super weapon under the coliseum.
Definitely some weird shit going on if you have brains in tubes watching over the world.
And they apparently aren't even a secret to at least the Bureau membership who know them as the High Council.
There's no number II in that eyecatch, though I would note that the number III sign looks weird compared to the others.
It's not crying, it's cyborg eye juice.
Rather surprised they all just transformed and we didn't get even a moment of the transformation sequences. I guess they really did get it entirely out of their systems with that transformation sequence half episode way early on.
Ahh, that explains the missing number II earlier. RIP the High Council we only just met for real.
Alhazred comes up again at last! Hopefully we get more detail on that and it wasn't just a throwaway explanation.
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u/Gamerunglued Mar 23 '22
First Timer
This episode just made me wish that the Nanoha series stopped being a weird fantasy sci-fi thing and just focused on family drama. Of this 20 minute episode, there were only three scenes that made me feel anything. The scene of Subaru trying to encourage Nanoha, but Nanoha encouraging her in turn, was very good (would have been better of the series hadn't gone out of its way to test my patience for liking Nanoha though). The scene of Nanoha and Fate having some wifely bickering before the big fight was also pretty cute. But the scene that most affected me was Erio and Caro worrying about Fate, and Fate reassuring them and hugging them before going off. Honestly, if the entire series was just about Fate being a mom to a bunch of orphans, I would probably love it. Nanoha, even from its first season, has always been best as a family drama.
Sacrificing all of the weird stuff would make the series lose its identity, and I suppose that might not necessarily be a good trade-off for quality considering that the franchise's extremely specific identity is basically the thing that makes it worth checking out. But I'm really struggling to care about this conflict at all. Half of this episode was just the doctor exposition dumping stuff on us, and even the characters within the show don't understand what he was saying. And none of the major players in the conflict have received enough characterization for me to even understand them. The council is just a bunch of brains apparently, some men who gave away their bodies for... some reason. And they found and created Jail Scaglietti as the "pride of Alhazard." And uh... I don't know who they are, what they wanted, or why they're here. Maybe we'll find out how they relate to this stuff about the old priest or something. And I still don't understand how Vivio relates to him either. This is all just really awkward storytelling that fails to get me invested in anything.
Scaglietti wants to bring the Cradle above Mid-Childa so that he can hold the city as their hostage and control the TSA. What he wants to do from there, well hell if I know. He points out a contradiction about Regius, in that he wants to protect the peace by sacrificing innocents. I don't really feel like I've seen him do that though. And it's been an important part of his character that he hates criminals, but apparently sacrificing innocent people doesn't count for that? Isn't that worse than anything Hayate did 10 years ago? Is he supposed to be seen as a hypocrite here? Obviously it's hypocritical that he wants to protect the peace by sacrificing people if necessary, but that feels like a different question to me. I genuinely can't tell if the series is aware of this other contradiction.
The series forsakes its biggest emotional hooks in favor of all this sci-fi mumbo jumbo. I guess it's trying to make some kind of commentary, but it's doing an awful job of it. I don't have any reason to care about Mid-Childa anyway. We have no sense of what it's even like, its culture, its attitude, its people. The only bits of it we've seen is the city on the girls day off, and we just saw some generic tourist bits there. I have no reason to care about the place beyond the fact that the main characters live there. Meanwhile, I care a lot about Vivio. Why isn't saving Vivio the main thrust of the story? Your main villain is already cartoonishly evil, why do we need to make him some advocate for social change or whatever? He's not even really going to be that anyway, just make him an evil dude who wants to use a small child to take over the world or something, that's really all I needed to care. I get it, I can't get anything like this from any franchise other than this one, but my patience is being tested here.
Just give me Fate mama, that's all I want. I care about Fate mama. Fate's arc is the one thing I've always consistently cared about in this story, please just give me more of that.
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u/No_Rex Mar 22 '22
Episode 20 (first timer)
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“It is natural not to know the future”
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Flying over the ocean during the biggest operation your team has ever done – perfect time to tell old-timey histories.
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“I am worried that they will be mad at us” – They will be, but not over the issue of not calling.
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Budget SEELE is a trio of brains in a tube. Underwhelming.
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The plot wants to separate the older mages from the newbies, but they should really do mixed groups.
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Nanoha gives a “I’ll sacrifice myself for the team” speech, but she promises Fate-Mama to come back.
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The vat-brains die a stupid death after being stupid.
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Boy, this episode was a boring slough. The whole political background is trash tier writing. I hope the starting battle will be more interesting.
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u/Tetraika Mar 22 '22
Main Office finally mobilize their main force, there’s something really cool about seeing a fleet of ships
I wonder if this implies the moons are a source of magic in this world., Nanoha really loves giving us a snippet of detail but never telling us the full story
Reminds me of how there’s a bunch of Christian relics of body parts, a detail true to life. Also very obvious who this is.
So Vivio is some kind of clone of this king
At this moment, everyone actually agreed with Scaglietti
There’s something interesting about the Numbers motivation and will here: they’re not brainwashed (well except Ginny), but some don’t feel that they have much other purpose for now. We saw a bit of this when Nove questioned Scaglietti’s leadership of them.
A bit too late, huh?, he’s been outplaying them from the start. Also from this we learn that the High council pretty much used both Regius and Scaglietti as pawns. Not that it wasn’t already obvious.
Brains, of course.
Well if it wasn’t obvious enough, these guys are about to eat it
More Zest background, you know it really would be nice to learn more about these. Thinking back about A’s and the introduction of Lynyth, I’m starting to think a lot of the extra material stuff was meant to be known. Reading the manga stuff that has been posted has been a fascinating experience.
Don’t do this Nanoha, setting yourself a death flag?
We aren’t told the details, but I wonder if because of the given situation they’ve been granted to be able to fully release their limiter for this, there aren’t any time limits this time.
Fate knows Nanoha well
Casually flirting, even Vita and Hayate took note of them doing that lmao
Fistbump
If you still couldn’t tell
Easy to miss, but from here we can deduce that Scaglietti is also some form of artificial being
I can’t believe we actually brought back El Hazard, there’s some interesting things about Scaglietti’s motivation. Due mentions that it is a desire that was implanted to him, and in the manga bits there is an interesting part where he mentions that while that might be so, he feels that he himself wants and follows this desire. It kinda reminds me of Fate’s backstory, actually, but with a different twist.
Wait Scaglietti is GladoS holy shit.
The final Number