1st June 2010, 5:36 PM
(This post was last modified: 1st June 2010, 5:56 PM by A Black Falcon.)
So I finished Nanoha StrikerS, watching the last three episodes. The last couple of episodes were the best in the series, but overall my opinion of the series is largely the same -- it's somewhat disappointing compared to the first two seasons, and they make some dumb plot decisions. I mean, yes, in the original series the idea that giant interstellar militaries have no choice but to rely on a 9 year old (Nanoha) to save them is a little silly, to be sure, but this time it's 'Nanoha is now 19 and a training instructor'. Yeah, the JRPG-style 18 year old grizzled war veteran stereotype, sort of, I think. :) Sure, she can fight too, but she spends a lot of time training the other characters...
(Spoiler!) Only for the entire group to break up in the last episode as soon as they win and defeat the badguys. I mean, we've put together a strong, capable organization able to defeat major threats, spent a lot of time training team members... who'd actually want to keep them all together? Nah, that makes no sense. Everyone go your seperate ways now that we won. ... Yeah, I find that really dumb in concept... Also, why did they randomly drop some of the characters from the first series? Why is Arf pretty much nonexistent? Same question for Yuuno. Why does Chrono do so little? Why is Zafira stuck in beast mode 100% of the time, and never transforms back into a human? It makes so little sense... sure, they wanted to make room for the numerous new characters I guess and thought they couldn't focus on all of them (fair, there is a huge cast), but still, it's annoying. It could have used a bit more focus characters-wise I think, there were so many... this was readily apparent in the last 5 or 8 episodes, as often characters would be skipped for an episode or two because of how many characters they were trying to cover, and how they wanted to cover all the fights in depth... yes, it was exciting and ultimately I liked it, but I don't know if it was the greatest design. Oh well.
Despite my issues with it, I do still hope that there is eventually a fourth season of Nanoha... I know a new comic just started, but the last one (ViviD) hasn't resulted in an anime yet, so we'll see. I think the manga is still quite popular, so something is probably likely at some point at least, beyond the movie retelling of the first series that just came out last year. (On that note, I'd like to see that...)
Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou - Watched through episode eight now. It's kind of predictable and has some fanservice, and the story is pretty confusing for about four or five episodes until they finally get around to explaining everything (and it's only a 12 episode series), but I'm liking it anyway, for some reason. The characters are entertaining and likable, it involves people with magic powers (some traditional magic, some computer age style magic/programming, which is an interesting element), etc. For some reason one of the characters reminds me a little (in design) of one of the characters from R.O.D... anyway, I'm enjoying it and probably will finish it.
Ichiban Ushiro no Daimao ep. 8 - Probably the least interesting episode so far, really.
(Spoiler!) Only for the entire group to break up in the last episode as soon as they win and defeat the badguys. I mean, we've put together a strong, capable organization able to defeat major threats, spent a lot of time training team members... who'd actually want to keep them all together? Nah, that makes no sense. Everyone go your seperate ways now that we won. ... Yeah, I find that really dumb in concept... Also, why did they randomly drop some of the characters from the first series? Why is Arf pretty much nonexistent? Same question for Yuuno. Why does Chrono do so little? Why is Zafira stuck in beast mode 100% of the time, and never transforms back into a human? It makes so little sense... sure, they wanted to make room for the numerous new characters I guess and thought they couldn't focus on all of them (fair, there is a huge cast), but still, it's annoying. It could have used a bit more focus characters-wise I think, there were so many... this was readily apparent in the last 5 or 8 episodes, as often characters would be skipped for an episode or two because of how many characters they were trying to cover, and how they wanted to cover all the fights in depth... yes, it was exciting and ultimately I liked it, but I don't know if it was the greatest design. Oh well.
Despite my issues with it, I do still hope that there is eventually a fourth season of Nanoha... I know a new comic just started, but the last one (ViviD) hasn't resulted in an anime yet, so we'll see. I think the manga is still quite popular, so something is probably likely at some point at least, beyond the movie retelling of the first series that just came out last year. (On that note, I'd like to see that...)
Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou - Watched through episode eight now. It's kind of predictable and has some fanservice, and the story is pretty confusing for about four or five episodes until they finally get around to explaining everything (and it's only a 12 episode series), but I'm liking it anyway, for some reason. The characters are entertaining and likable, it involves people with magic powers (some traditional magic, some computer age style magic/programming, which is an interesting element), etc. For some reason one of the characters reminds me a little (in design) of one of the characters from R.O.D... anyway, I'm enjoying it and probably will finish it.
Ichiban Ushiro no Daimao ep. 8 - Probably the least interesting episode so far, really.