ViVid Strike! Episode 3: Challenge

I want to hug Rinne and never let go.

Impression

So, uh… what should we talk about? Did we… learn anything interesting this episode?

Well, shit. Why is it that almost everything I’m watching is full of suffering? Both this and WIXOSS have just started, and yet we’ve already seen so much despair. Actually, it’s a lot worse over at WIXOSS, but still. Based on what we’ve learned this episode, I’m starting to wonder whether it was a mistake to assume, as I have, that Strike and ViVid are two sides of the same coin. I mean, they broadly share the same cast of characters and have the same focus on martial arts as opposed to magical combat, but I’m starting to see some underlying thematic differences that appear, to me at least, to distance Strike from ViVid and re-position it a bit closer to the original three seasons of Nanoha instead. ViVid gives off a feel of being very true to itself as a spin-off. It was a low-stakes (in the sense that its participants were not in mortal danger) tournament series, and largely had a light-hearted atmosphere alongside a lot of exposition and world-building. With Strike, there appear to be hints of a deeper plot or even a conspiracy. Its setting is far less utopic (although I use that word very, very loosely) and both its characters and we as viewers have been exposed to issues and themes of a kind that were never a focus in ViVid, like poverty and bullying. Even the fights are a lot more brutal than I remember. I think that lewd Carrie girl will take some time to recover her mental health after this episode. Notice that it’s nothing to do with Vivio, Einhart and the rest of the original cast changing in personality or anything like that –  all of this was brought about by the addition of Fuuka and Rinne. Their suffering and irreconcilability (in the absence of fighting) presents Strike as an entry to the franchise that’s a lot more true to Nanoha than its inspiration, the irony being that neither ‘Lyrical Nanoha’ nor ‘Magical Girl’ are in its title.

The most important thing to take away from this is that there’s a lot more to Rinne than what we (or Fuuka) have either seen or assumed. First, can I just say that Rinne is the cutest. She is for hugs and head pats, and maybe even hand-holding. Those rich bitches who made her suffer are terrible people. That being said, I can understand (although not condone) why they were bullying her, and am also starting to get an idea of why she wants to become a good martial artist. As someone who was adopted by the Berlinettas, she was initially an orphan who had nothing at all. That is more than enough reason, from the perspective of a random princess who has had everything she ever wanted in life because of daddy’s money, to be bullied by all the shallow, entitled bitches at whatever fancy school she attended.

I’m sure what we saw this episode wasn’t all, but it’s enough to infer the magnitude of what they were doing to her. It’s therefore also not surprising that she formed a desire to get stronger. Her ruthlessness during matches may also have something to do with the bullying she endured – all these girls competing in tournaments are more likely than not to be rich and affluent. Otherwise, there’s no way they’d have been able to get the resources needed to come as far as they have. I have a feeling that Rinne wants to prove that she’s better than all the rich girls who once tormented her – not the same girls specifically, but rather girls with similar standing. I don’t think her reason for fighting is a benevolent one, in other words. She’s taking it out on people now that she can. It’s more like a form of catharsis or revenge, or at least that’s what it seems like to me at this point. I’m sure she’s a good girl at heart (and she must be because she’s the cutest) but there’s no way her experiences didn’t end up twisting her.

A few things don’t fit in too well with that theory, I will have to admit – I’m not sure why Rinne would treat Fuuka as harshly as she has if her grudge is with rich girls. Fuuka is basically her except without any money. There’s also the death of her grandfather, which may or may not be of significance in the future. And then there’s this Jill person. There doesn’t seem to be much discord in the Berlinetta family, which gets rid of my Berlinetta family conspiracy theory, but now there’s a whole new shady person to speculate about. Please tell me it’s not just me. Something is really unsettling about her, and I don’t know whether her influence on Rinne is as good as everyone thinks it is. She feels like a Quattro. In fact, everything that happened (including the public announcement made by Rinne as to wanting to crush all the Nakajima Gym members) must have been orchestrated by her, right? Even if they’re going to the Winter Cup anyway, it felt like they’d been conned somehow. Rinne’s tactics feel like her fault as well – I’m sure Rinne’s own resentment is part of it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Jill has been taking advantage of it to mould Rinne into a ruthless martial artist. The cruel words she spoke to Carrie at the end were already bad – ‘I’m glad I didn’t break you’? And yet Jill actually wanted her to toy with Carrie a bit more. In fact, the entire fight with Carrie was just a platform from which she could use to challenge Einhart, Vivio and Miura. I’m actually reminded of that video Nove showed the girls last week where Rinne was sitting on some poor girl and repeatedly punching her face. I also want Rinne to sit on me, but that is currently beside the point.

What I was most surprised about was that the episode did really well in making my opinion of Rinne fluctuate throughout. I wasn’t really happy with how she conducted her fight with Carrie, and thought she definitely overreacted when choking poor Fuuka against the wall for seemingly no good reason, but so much changes once you get the bigger picture. I went from starting to dislike her to wanting to adopt her. Rinne needs hugs. But first, she needs it beaten into her by Fuuka that hugs are what she needs. She’s like Fate-chan. Fate-chan was still worse off though, which says quite a lot about what her life with Precia was like. Anyway, the main issue for now (if or until a wider plot reveals itself) is how exactly Fuuka is going to get good enough in a mere few months to stand a serious chance against Rinne. I don’t think there’s something about White Fate that makes her almost unparalleled like Sieg, but nor do I think that a couple of months is enough to catch up with the years of training that Rinne and the rest of the girls (whom Fuuka must be on the same level as if she is to beat Rinne) have undergone, no matter how much talent Fuuka has. Let’s see how things progress.