Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS

Distinguished mages Nanoha Takamachi, Fate Testarossa, and Hayate Yagami now work as military personnel for the Time-Space Administration Bureau on the planet Midchilda, having completed their studies on Earth in the last ten years since the "Book of Darkness" incident.

One day, the three end up helping the Bureau respond to a severe airport fire, but their efforts are left unrecognized. A series of unfortunate events motivate Hayate to create the elite unit Riot Force 6, which handles cases involving public safety as well as dangerous magical objects known as Lost Logia. There the trio works alongside promising recruits Subaru Nakajima, Teana Lanster, Caro Ru Lushe, and Erio Mondial, who endure difficult training to fulfill expectations while overcoming hurdles and achieving personal goals.

However, carrying out their mission proves to be a constant struggle. Battling foes who exploit the Lost Logia and facing criticisms from within the Bureau, Riot Force 6 quickly finds itself stretched thin.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Testarossa, Fate Main

Mizuki, Nana Japanese

Takamachi, Nanoha Main

Tamura, Yukari Japanese

Yagami, Hayate Main

Ueda, Kana Japanese

Vivio Main

Mizuhashi, Kaori Japanese

Nakajima, Subaru Main

Saitou, Chiwa Japanese

Lanster, Teana Main

Nakahara, Mai Japanese

Ru Lushe, Caro Main

Takahashi, Mikako Japanese

Mondial, Erio Main

Inoue, Marina Japanese

Vita Supporting

Sanada, Asami Japanese

Signum Supporting

Shimizu, Kaori Japanese

Mishima, Akio Producer

Kusakawa, Keizou Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Kameyama, Toshiki Sound Director

Nakayama, Atsushi Episode Director, Director of Photography

Reviews

Dec 8, 2008

Skadi

Recommended

Well here I have arrived at the final season of Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha. It’s been a nice ride. The final season brings back most of my beloved characters, provides a decent story and action and lets me enjoy grown up versions of Nanoha and Fate. While I did find myself glued to my television watching this there was quite a bit about this series I found extremely disappointing. I will get into that further later, but as a sequel to the Nanoha franchise IMO this series fails. It just doesn’t feel like the originals, it also has a very ... overbearing military theme to it that just feels out of place for a Nanoha show. Taken though on its own merits this is a well crafted drama with good action and is fun to watch.

When you compare the story in StrikerS to the first two series then this show comes up short. When I started this series I thought wow they will do something amazing with 26 episodes compared to just 13! Well yes and no. They were able to construct a much larger and grander story than previously. Tons of new villains though without the shocking plot twists. It does however bring you through the entire spectrum of emotions, I cried at times, I laughed at others, and I was frustrated and angry too.

This reason I knock the rating down for this show is well this show is called Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha. It’s not called Magic Girls and sometimes Nanoha. There is shockingly little Nanoha in this show, sure she appears a lot has a few lines then vanishes from the screen for 10 minutes to make another couple minute appearance. In addition, characters I find to be important to Nanoha's world completely vanish from her life or are given basically cameo roles. What happened to her friends from her hometown? What happened to her family? Why does Yuuno who it is implied that perhaps a romantic relationship may develop there almost complete absent from her life? And talking Fate.. wtf is Arf? She was a very important figure in Fates life.. oh wait there she is in episode 18 or so? uh why is Arf now a loli? Hello! Story?! Can you please explain why the grown up and buxom fox spirit Arf now looks like she’s 8 years old? Oh you’re not going to explain that huh?

This anime is crushed under its own weight of a further explosion of new characters, most of whom are stupid and useless dead weight. The villains are mostly maddenly annoying and overpowered. Further frustrations include a silly restriction on Nanoha, Fate, Hayete, and her knights’ powers. The thing is, that this didn’t need to be a 26 episode story, it could have been told in 13 episodes just as easily and probably had a lot more effect and suspense. This isn’t because of filler really, almost every episode advances the main plot in some way but episodes feel like they are being stretched out for no reason than so they take up an entire episode. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the final battle which takes up about 7 episodes to complete. The action loses its bite and the drama is lessened because of the constant shifting around to all of the characters battles. This is what I mean about there being just too many characters for the shows own good.

Character wise though I still give this a good rating, despite my disappointment with the lack of beloved characters and too little screen time for Fate and Nanoha. The new Strikers are interesting characters though, particularly Tia and Suburu as they get the most development. As I said before I really loathed the villains and found pretty much none of them to be sympathetic in the least. I spent most of my time watching them hoping the episode would come soon that they were horribly and painfully killed by one of the strikers. The crushing weight of characters as I mentioned doesn’t help this show, and many I felt were just a waste of time and would have preferred their screen time go to Yuuno, Arf or one of the others missing from the series.

Voice acting is good not great though, the mains are all well cast but probably contributing to my disdain of the villain characters was that many of them had voice that grated on my nerves, in particular the evil doctor. The music is pretty good too, the first OP/EN themes are great but the 2nd songs for each are noticeably weaker.

Overall as a Nanoha fan I come away feeling a bit disappointed in this series, but still if you’re a fan this is still a show you’re going to want to watch. It was really nice to see Nanoha and Fate grown up and being adults and having adult problems and relationships. But in doing so something of the charm of that 9 yr old mage is lost. Taken by itself though this is a nice magical action drama with military themes. In that role it does a very good job. I think most people will like this series as I did but still feel let down at the same time.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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May 28, 2016

bluerain41

Mixed Feelings

Mahou Shoujo Nanoha first and the A's have been great. The character development, magic upgrades in the dire pinch, and finally working together after the rival fighting have been very attractive. However, StrikerS lacked all of them.
Nanoha is supposed to be a typical elementary school girl with two friends back home on Earth. There's no Earth; there's no family (which she had bother and sister), and a house she lived in. She's already a fully grown adult at 18 years old, living at Magic central station Honbu (Home Station). Nanoha is no longer the main character who we get to feel, listen, and be, ... it's about building the perfect team called the StrikerS against the great scientist. Thus the focus of the story has been on Nanoha building the team, along with stories on all of the other characters instead of Nanoha. The authors should have called it Mahou Shoujo StrikerS. This anime was supposed to be Nanoha's stories and her contributions to the world, not the Team. I have to say, StrikerS has been a huge disappointment.
Next, Nanoha had magic upgrades when raging heart was defeated. In StrikerS, Nanoha already had the powers; all they did was restrict her magic as she (and few others) were far too strong. This already made them out to be a supernatural monster who have enough powers to destroy anyone without training and fighting and challenge. Where's the growth without challenging other more difficult situation? You can't suddenly attain over limits as it has been in the first two series. It's absolutely inconsistent and story lost its quality completely.
Finally, Nanoha had the power to turn the enemy as her own friend and fight with her to the end for the same cause. StrikerS made it clear that their goal was to destroy the plan of the unstable machines that's running amok and stifle his/her plan. She did not have enemies, she befriended nor did she have to help players, nor talk to them. Her goals were clear and straightforward. Build a strong, supportive, and trusting team, so that they do not have to rely on the very slow reaction of kanrikan.
The artwork is great along with sound. But story was just barely decent and characters were mediocre at best. StrikerS is the beginning of a decline of my support for any future Nanoha series if they continue on this road.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jan 18, 2011

slax

Not Recommended

First up, I'll be honest, the primary reason I went into this show is because I heard it had some "mecha" relations, which is true, it does revolve heavily around cyborgs, and the secondary reason was because I heard that Subaru was a pretty awesome character.

But that being said, I'm not an idiot, I realise that being a "Magical Girl" show, this probably had about as much chance as being /m/ as Dragon Ball Z, so I was willing to give it a shot to see if it was good for its own sake. And cudos to the first two seasons, they were ... pretty good. Nothing mind-blowing, but something that even I, despite it being well outside my realm of usual viewing, could watch (and heck, there were even mechs in the first series for a little bit).

But then I got up to this one, the one I actually wanted to watch, and man, it is poor.

Basically, there are no problems with the animation or sound or anything like that, the problem is with the writing. I'll break it down into three categories, 1- the premise of the show, 2- the new characters and 3- the old characters.

I'll start with #1, the premise of the show. First up, the title is abhorrently misleading, despite being called a "magical girl" show, it really isn't. There may be a bit lost in translation here, so I should elaborate, the "girl" in "magical girl" means "young/small/little" girl, so a more appropriate name would be "magical teenager" or "magical practically-an-adult" nanoha. The reason this is somewhat important is because of the themes that are connotated by the genre. Magical girl is all about being cute, gaining new powers and, most overridingly, must revolve around friendship. So much so that it is usually sickening to someone like me, who's not a fan of the genre.

But S1 did this pretty well, sure it was a tad cliche, but Fate and Nanoha's story was one that was watchable, and indeed, it was nothing bad. A's (the second season) was about Hayate, and even though I thought the "poor crippled orphan" plot was a little bit too over-the-top, it was understandable, as there was a good reason that she was a "poor crippled orphan" (explained in the show so I shan't elaborate). Nanoha making friends with them and helping them out was a perfectly good plotline.

But in this regard, what did StrikerS have to offer? None of the antagonists were in any kind of situation where they needed help/friends, bar Lu and Agatio, but both were already getting help/gotten help of their own free will in the series. This means the "friendship" was forced down their throat. I mean Fate having friendship forced down her throat was understandable, considering her circumstances in season 1, but as a gerneral rule, forcing friendship onto someone is just nonsense.

And that's pretty much the problem with this series' premise, it aborts from the themes established in the first two seasons and goes down a completely different track. This might not have been a bad thing, but, as per below, there were some deep writing flaws that turned it into one.

#2 is the most obvious, the new characters. As I already said, there was a good reason Hayate was a crippled orphan in season 2, and Fate in season 1 was the main subject matter, so again, there was a reason to have her in that situation. But what about this one? All the characters (basically) are orphans, with some deep emotional scarring. Why? Well, put simply, it is so that the writers have something to talk about in the numerous incessant personal reflections that go on. I'm all for a bit of backstory, when it is relevant. Entire episodes of nonstop backstory from characters like the helicopter pilot, who, as my description implies, is a completely and utterly minor character, is downright annoying. The only reason I can think that they have so many backstories is because the *actual* story is inadequate. I mean honestly, aside from training, the squad in this series partake in, like, all of three fights (with the last fight being a really long one, admittedly), and the plot is resolved in these three fights. This proves to me that the plot is very, very shallow. Now I wasn't expecting something deep, but good lord, was there really a need to fill the episodes with so much cliche overblown emo crap in the meantime?

This is the second serious complaint. The new characters were, essentially, only there because the plot wasn't interesting enough and the directors had 26 episodes to fill. I can easily see them simply removing half the cast and putting this into a 13 episode anime and it working just as well. The only thing having all these new characters did was to slow down the series to an absolute crawl. The pacing was terrible.

But now onto writing issue #3. The old characters. First up, Hayate didn't really do much in A's, so I can understand why they made her the "main" character and altered her, etc, that's all well and good, its the rest of the cast I have an issue with. Firstly are the "power limiters" they all suddenly got. These were only in there because the plot, which I already explained was stretched thin and needed boosting with new characters, was *so* weak that simply using the recurring characters would end it instantly, so they had to *construct* a reason to use the new cast. What better plot device than weakening the old cast, right? But in the end, what was the point of this? It would have been just as easy to have Nanoha and co. go one way and the others go another. Heck, that is *EXACTLY* what they do anyway. So why bother stripping away the power of the old cast? It was a pointless plot device that served no purpose other than to construct fake drama and pad the series out just a little longer.

Second up is the "overworking" sub-thread that applies to Nanoha. I shan't explain due to spoilers, but basically, there is this whole sub-thread about using too much magic power/effort, etc. Why is this even in there if you already have power limiters? The writers ALREADY padded the plot out with fake weakness to slow it down, but then they put in a fake danger *ontop* of that fake weakness. The writers should've taken this as a sign of way too much filler and not a strong enough plot. Alas, they did not, and I wasted my time with this rubbish story.

Third is the inexplicable removal of the minor characters. Fate's familiar is the most notable. Aside from a few brief shots in the background of the later episodes, and maybe one or two throwaway lines, its made like she never existed in the first place. Nanoha's family and friends are tossed out (understandable, but still evidence of how much this show detracts from the original genre) and Yunno is delegated to an utterly menial role. All this I could forgive if any of the new characters, antagonist or protagonist, (like Hayate or her Knights in A's) were likeable and/or relevant to the plot. Alas, they were not. Aside from Subaru's family, everyone else had nothing to do with the plot, and all the antagonists were, essentially, *troops*, not *characters*.

And finally is the Jewel Seeds. Remember them? Yeah, for being supposedly rare and powerful, for them to be suddenly found in stock grunts was just inexcusable. (Sorry if you think this is a spoiler, but if you watch the show, you'll realise that it isn't actually that relevant at all, which in of itself is part of the problems I'm writing about)

Basically, this show reads like a fanfic. The new characters are all Mary Sue's, despite having no relevance to the plot, and heck, some, like Caro, barley even have any lines (honestly, the whole lightning team, and Lu, could be removed and the story wouldn't even blink), some of the plot devices are retconns, which, depending on whether you think about it or not, usually don't even make sense and finally, the recurring characters were so utterly un-thought-out that they had to make up fake plot devices and introduce new problems just so the writers could fit the titular characters into StrikerS' new story.

And how on earth could they not see the problems with that?

If you're watching this as a stand-alone series, it's probably pretty good. As a franchise, this is a bad piece of writing that pretty much has nothing going for it. Worth a watch if you're a Nanoha fan, because fans can overlook poor writing and still be happy, but overall, Fate/Stay Night or something along those lines is a much better show, since the writers in those shows didn't insist on forcing their characters into a really weak plot and then stretching it out over 26 episodes, when 13 probably would've been too many.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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