Cruel Angel Theses

Been ages since my last StrikerS post, but that’s got nothing to do with how I found the Teana-emo arc immensely entertaining. Yeah, if it isn’t apparent already, I’m not one of those whiners who constantly rag on StrikerS for being “boring”, because it’s been gaining considerable momentum, and what better way to get things going than to remind the viewers of its roots with episodes 07 to 09? I still stick by my prediction of no proper action till the halfway mark.

Of course it isn’t a real arc per se, I’m just sayin’. I mentioned returning to its roots because the past three episodes were marked by a not-too-obvious return to the emotional side of things, which originally was all about Nanoha wanting to befriend the shit out of her enemies. Only that this time the cast has been doing mostly nothing but training and all that administrative crap since StrikerS began, interspersed with two short battles. How’s there a back to basics then?

I thought the setup for the Teanemo arc, as I’ll now call it, was great. Those railing against the White Devil’s antics in episode 08 need to remember this: Teana and Subaru are 16 and 15 respectively. That’s the age where almost everyone acts retarded in some capacity thanks to that dirty word called puberty, and as a result you act on your emotions more; there’s not a lot of long-term thought capacity. And there’s the proverbial angst. All because they can fly and shoot lasers coloured to match their hair doesn’t mean they’re any more mature than their high school counterparts — heck, that makes them a lot more dangerous because they’ve got magical powers, actually.

the other great thing about the Teanemo arc was the One True Pairing meeting up again, screw you Fate x Nanoha shippers; the ferret is CANON pairing dammit

Back to what I said about setup. The magic of the first two seasons lay in Nanoha’s simple naivete; if you weren’t for her you were against her, and she wouldn’t hesitate to show you the error of your ways. There were no bad guys (or girls in this case), only misguided ones that could be turned to allies — and what’s more, during the second season she already had a new-found friend and battle partner from the first to back the applicability of this modus operandi of hers up.

It’s what makes the Nanoha series an effective amalgam that took the best of conventional mahou shoujo and shounen, discarding the weaknesses of both in favour of the strengths. Mahou shoujo as a genre is driven by the aesthetic of a (young) girl’s innocence and beliefs, lolicon fetish notwithstanding. Shounen emphasizes hard and fast action driven by conflict. On the flip side, the genres’ shortcomings lie in how they alienate other demographics through their respective natures; mahou shoujo, being steeped in female aesthetics come off as “too girly” for the average male to stomach. Conversely, shounen has the annoying habit of having numerous, shallow, two-dimensional characters made to fulfil a single role, level-up arcs that take forever, and never-ending, bloated plot digression.

This makes Nanoha flawless in both theory and execution — the dual nature ensures that no part of the demographic is shunned through supporting both sides of the fence with their respective strengths. While shounen has the traditional reasons for conflict, like Man v.s Man, Man v.s Nature, and Man v.s Himself, mahou shoujo eschews all this in the name of non-conflict, and an emphasis on the brighter side of things through friendship, love, and all that jazz. Nanoha, in turn, literally fuses the two concepts together — we’ve got Man vs Man, only it’s not driven by an innate desire of conflict on either party’s end; in Nanoha and Nanoha A’s it was made clear that the antagonists of each season would rather not do battle. Instead of burning hatred antagonism we’ve got characters thrust into conflict by means of circumstance, and Nanoha herself makes this even clearer by constantly reaffirming her desire to be friends with the very people doing battle with her.

So we’ve got harsh conflict tempered by the little girl aesthetic. It isn’t mutual hatred here that drives the battles, more of a mutual understanding that they each have to do their duty, and it just so happens that they’re in each other’s way. The end result is something a lot easier on the palate than the norm, also no thanks to Nanoha’s consistently amusing plea of “just wanting to be friends” that was repeated throughout.

But that isn’t the only conflicting interest of both genres. The dreaded, always drawn-out process of the protagonist gaining powers as per shounen tradition here is pushed aside in favour of a simpler mahou shoujo approach. Watching scenes from the first two seasons being replayed in episode 09 made me all nostalgic, not to mention warm and fuzzy inside, for it reminded me of everything I loved about the series all over again — namely, how Nanoha as a character started off with powers so immense that she could take on her more experienced counterpart as equals; how she managed to refine that power to reinforce her beliefs and principles; the considerably epic, nail-biting encounter that was the first episode of A’s, and all manner of fights in-between.

Having Nanoha A’s pick up where things left off right after Nanoha was a welcome touch, too. It’s been lamented time and again that one of shounen’s shortcomings lie in its inability to properly develop a character without introducing five more into the mix. Here Nanoha succeeds again through breaking the shounen mould — Fate and Nanoha had ample character development in the first season, and this allowed the story in the second season to focus instead on the Velka knights, ensuring well-rounded development overall.

Keeping the above in mind, it’s possible to then reconcile the lack of understanding within the fanbase at the moment (”it sucks” “this is boring” “it isn’t like A’s at all”) to a dramatic shift in dynamics and structure. It isn’t so much the change that’s at fault here; rather, I’d like to think that too many fans at the moment can’t see the long-term benefits of developing the new characters at the expense of immediate gratification and quick action.

Let’s face it: the structure of Nanoha and Nanoha A’s was getting old. I’m actually pleased with how they turned things upside-down instead of applying the old formula from the first two seasons onto StrikerS. If the English-speaking community (no clue as to what the Japanese think) had its way, the vocal minority would have StrikerS doing a copy and paste of what A’s was. Nanoha, Fate, Hayate, and her knights would be going about their normal lives, till- wham! A new enemy appears. Time for more befriending. Cue a shitty, rehashed, third season, which would be what a lot of people want. But it’s got action from the get-go, so it should be okay, right? That’s what you want, right?

I’ll admit that StrikerS is markedly showing its shounen roots more than its mahou shojo ones at the moment. It’s a disconcerting change — I’m of the opinion that this doesn’t sit very well with the fans at the moment because they can’t seem to accept the paradigm shift, which is for the better, if you ask me. This isn’t a syndrome peculiar to fans of StrikerS, or anime, it’s a behaviour characteristic of fans everywhere — I’m sure this isn’t the only time that fans have wanted the latest instalment of X series in Y format to be like Z.

Being resistant to changes like these seem extremely short-sighted if you ask me. I’m unflinchingly optimistic about it picking up in the later half because I can appreciate StrikerS for what it is — a brave and admirable attempt to ensure that an excellent franchise doesn’t go down the drain by rehashing the same things that made the first two seasons popular, fanboy sentiment or not.

Episode 08 and 09 demonstrated this perfectly well — while the average age group was 9 years previously, StrikerS’s setting has characters from the age of 10 to 19 this time, and with the age difference comes change; for instance, in the way the old characters think and behave. There’s a dynamics shift in how the cast interacts due to the formal setting, thanks to authority (markedly more than before, because everyone’s under the same roof now) and the accompanying behavioural changes that come along with them. There’s protocol and standard procedure to follow (the limiting of powers, having the backups on standby).

How is this good in any way, you ask? What this does is it thrusts the well-loved and known list of characters into a more regulated and defined setting that allows the writers to bring out a side to each character that we haven’t seen before. There’s rules to follow, people to answer to, and a sense of duty that wasn’t present as much as before. A look at Vita and Nanoha’s respective attitudes towards Tea, for instance, say a lot — their views on matters of discipline and teamwork, while ultimately under the same banner, differ in their implementation by virtue of their nature; Vita’s knight origins make for a harsher, almost militant approach, while Nanoha, having virtually no background in formal training in her youth, chooses a softer, kinder approach that also reveals her insecurity in being a leader as episode 08 demonstrated.

In the middle of writing this I chanced upon NegativeZero’s entry about Nanoha, so I’ll also try to to address the points he raised in the later part of his post regarding StrikerS’s apparent shortcomings.

Strikers feels very unfocused and poorly paced in comparison to its two preceding series, I believe, because it does not follow the same structure.

I personally think that it seems “unfocused and poorly-paced” at the moment because of the structural changes that I mentioned earlier, which you agree with too. It’s a different ball-game here, it isn’t operating on the same template anymore. Notice how Nanoha and Nanoha A’s had the protagonist and antagonist camps being closely involved with each other due to a common goal; this goal was the very conflict of interests that led to them being embroiled in battle later, but do we have that here now?

Reading Zyl’s summary of episode 10 convinces me that I’m on the right track. Caro and Elio apparently find a girl chained to relic cases on their day off, and what if she’s related to Scaglietti and his plan? There’s a thousand and one ways to go about this from here; the addition of a new character could be for anything, from a spy or potential conflict catalyst, to a time-bomb of the most surprising variety (Priscilla @ Claymore) later on. It’s still a bit early to speculate endlessly about what’s going to happen in the second half of StrikerS, though, so I’ll refrain from saying anything more on the matter for now.

Back to the matter of it being unfocused and poorly-paced. I beg to differ, for as I see it, it isn’t the fault of the structure itself, but the backdrop of which the structure’s entrenched in. There’s so much more that the viewer has to digest now that the cast has doubled, tripled even in capacity since A’s. Not only has the viewer got to deal with a ton of side-characters that occasionally bring up incidents only present in the A’s to StrikerS manga, there’s also the sticky problem of giving a solid introduction to the four main stars of the show. Coupled with the task of settling the old team in their places, it’s more than understandable in my opinion that things might appear to be slow-going unfocused, but it’s really setting the stage for the actors to perform on later, if you get what I mean.

Let�s assume that Subaru is the hero, Nanoha the wizard who gives her the call to adventure, and the trial in episode 1 takes the form of her threshold guardian. She receives her supernatural aid in the form of Mach Caliber, gained allies and passed her first trial. But that was at the end of episode four. Her journey has not progressed from there. Instead the focus jumped to Teana. Suddenly the character we assumed is the driving focus of the plot is� not. Or maybe she is. Or maybe Nanoha is after all�

Again, the change in structure answers this quite well. Your assumption lies in how Nanoha is supposedly finished and done as a character and that the Monomyth is the only possible structure applicable to StrikerS; taking the LOTR and Earthsea books as examples, the mentor role has traditionally adopted limited development in favour of the newer, younger protagonist. Like you also mention here:

More importantly, the characters also need to have weaknesses, especially in Nanoha�s case. She seems to have no fears, no flaws, and capable of doing anything. As long as she�s practically invincible, none of the characters will be able to get into a situation where they will be able to grow, because she�ll always be along to bail them out. Additionally, a flawless, invincible Nanoha is not compelling.

I disagree with this on all counts. Nanoha has not been engaged in battle seriously enough to be warranted as “practically invincible”, and in addition to that episodes 08 and 09 clearly demonstrated that while Nanoha might be at the height of her powers, she’s prone to doubting herself and her leadership role, and isn’t totally at ease with it. I mentioned LOTR and Earthsea — Gandalf and Ogion respectively have little to no appearance or development, and show no weakness whatsoever, but can the same be said of Nanoha herself?

The issue of the focus jumping from character to character can be best explained as the screenwriters being as efficient and ambitious as they can be, trying to cram in as much development to each character before the real action begins, because I can’t really think of any other way around it. What’s more, it works, surprisingly. Nanoha, as I’ll say again, isn’t quite yet wizard status due to her surprisingly vulnerable side. There was no point in any of the LOTR or Earthsea novels that Gandalf or Ogion questioned their role ascribed to them, yet we’ve had Nanoha’s demeanour change in that instant, showing the viewer in one glance the hurt, vulnerability, and insecurity that came with Teana not following her instructions.

She proceeds to wonder aloud if “her training’s been that wrong” — how is that typical of the wizard role? I’m curious, because as far as I see it it seems like StrikerS doesn’t completely fit the Monomyth structure, although it might have been the case previously. I see it as being a step up, or the consequence of the Monomyth being taken a level further, and although I’m not familiar with Campbell’s work, one look at how the writers managed to fit in both Teana and Nanoha development in the Teanemo arc should say it all.

I’m quite satisfied with the events of the Teanemo arc, and it’d be nice to get more development in that vein as StrikerS progresses. Right now for me it isn’t an issue of “wait and see” anymore — I’m convinced that the team behind it have done their homework and have everything down pat. It’s just a matter of time to wait for the subs to come out. Oh, and mad props to yesy for getting 08 and 09 out in double-time.