Fate-chan, why are you so perfect?
Impression
I will keep this bath scene close to my heart. It was beautiful. I feel like the world has now become a better place, if only slightly. And I’m not even talking about the fanservice, although Fate is a goddess. Nanoha, Fate and Vivio have something really wonderful between them, and it warms my heart. You know, I don’t just want to ship Nanoha and Fate together any more. I… I want to ship this family.
And the best thing of all is that it’s canon. I love this franchise.
I was pretty set on naming the fight between Nove and Einhart as my favourite scene of the episode until I saw Fate in the shower. But the fight was really good too! Nanoha-style combat has made a smooth transition to ViVid despite the change in studio to A-1 Pictures. To an extent, it was always going to be slightly different given the heavy emphasis on Strike Arts, but it’s great that they’ve retained the cool magic circles and binds. And seeing Jet Edge on Nove was really nostalgic as well! Her encounter with Einhart fulfilled two purposes: it reinforced how much Nove has changed since StrikerS, and initiated the history lesson which serves as a perpetual undercurrent in the story. Like Vivio, Einhart has blood ties to one of the rulers of Ancient Belka – but unlike Vivio, Einhart is a distant descendant instead of a clone grown by Scaglietti, and has ‘inherited memories’ from Claus Ingvalt. The current Einhart is someone who is very much attached to the past, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s because she hasn’t had as much support from the people around her as Vivio has. I do wonder why [FFF] have opted for ‘High Queen’ instead of ‘Hegemon’, which I really did prefer. I suppose it kind of fits when Einhart is in her adult form, but when she’s a kid she looks too damn cute to be a ‘High Queen’. I think I object more to ‘Queen’ than anything else, especially as it’s been applied to Vivio too who is now ‘Saint Queen’ instead of ‘Sankt Kaiser’, which is what I’ve gotten used to. I understand why ‘Queen’ might be a better fit, but it just sounds a bit off somehow.
Nove has not lost all of her heated nature, but it’s definitely being channelled better these days. It did look like she’d gotten completely rekt at some point, but it probably helped her pride to learn that Einhart subsequently passed out from her blow. In the end, it was just a single hit for the both of them – and that’s how it really should be, given that it’s never really been a thing for someone to try to actually kill someone else in this franchise. It’s actually the opposite when Nanoha’s concerned, because the closer her opponent gets to death, the closer they get to being befriended! And if she becomes particularly close friends with them, she’ll even offer to wash their hair in the bath and start a family with them.
It was also nice to see Subaru and Teana again. Subaru looks like she’s… gotten younger, while Teana definitely looks more mature with her hair down. Incidentally, my most memorable recollection of Tea is that time when Nanoha solemnly blasted her out of the sky in a training session after saying, “Looks like I’ll have to cool your head a little”. I’m sure today she’d say something like, “It’s tough love, nyahaha!” But yeah, I ship Subaru and Tea fairly seriously. It’s never been as canon as NanoFate has, but they’re stuck together like glue all the time anyway. And rainbows are straighter than Subaru. I was hoping we’d get to see a couple more old characters, but I guess we’ll have to wait for a certain event in the near future that I remember from the manga.
Lyrical, magical, ganbarimasu~!
Given that Nove was calculating enough to stick a tracer on Einhart at the point when she was acting like she was just hitting her all-out in a rage, I belive it’s fair to say she actually lost on purpose. She didn’t go into the fight intending to win, she went into the fight intending to covertly tag the perpetrator so she could call in backup to capture her.
Fair point, that would make a lot of sense. She was one of the Numbers after all! I think my perception of everyone’s power levels have been skewed by the whole ‘friendly tournament’ aspect to things. And by Vivio and Einhart having forms that make them look much older than they actually are!
it will take pretty much many episodes before the next fight will be since many of the season is focus on slice of life moments unlike other seasons
That depends on how you define “fight.” It looks to me like we should get the first sparring match between Vivio and Einhart in the next episode, and we’ll probably get their rematch in the episode after that (I really doubt they’ll try to draw out everyone’s introspection into a full episode). After that maybe an episode of (relative) quiet before things start getting fun again on vacation/training-weekend. But I don’t think that set of events will take us past episode 8, so no matter how I conut it the girls should be starting the Inter-Middle before the end of a single cour… and hopefully this won’t just be a single cour.
I changed the subject there, didn’t I? Next fight, of a sort, should be next episode. Next fight where the girls get to really duke it out will probably be the episode after that. Count two or maybe three episodes further and we should get to see real fun and mayhem unleashed.
I’m looking forward to the mock team battle so much! It’ll be one of the few times when the spotlight is temporarily shone on the now-supporting characters again, with some much-missed aerial combat!
As far as length is concerned, I’m hoping that StrikerS set some sort of precedent. This is still an adaptation instead of an original series though, so it’s hard to tell in the end.