I haven’t noted this in the past couple of entries I’ve written, but I think that the art quality has been fairly decent these past couple of episodes. I do catch a few oddities here and there when I pause the show to take a screen capture, but since you probably wouldn’t catch these while you’re actually watching the show, I’d say that the production team’s been doing a pretty good job.

It seems like we should either be getting a major battle in the next episode or the one after that with it starting at the end of the next episode (for the creation of a cliffhanger atmosphere). With nobody available, I don’t know what Vivio’s going to be doing. I guess letting her cry her heart out shouldn’t really have any adverse effects. I mean, they all stop crying at some point, uh, right?

Will Regius be able to dig up any dirt on Hayate and friends? The most likely thing that he’ll probably point out about would be Vivio since such experiments have essentially been banned. Although, you would think that the council must surely be sane enough to not simply act on that since it’s not like they don’t have a “good reason” for keeping her around (instead of sending her off to some orphanage). Well, we’ll just have to wait and see how it goes…

So it seems like the series is slowly moving towards something extremely big. I don’t really care if the base is going to be attacked from the inside or the outside as long as I can get some decent fight scenes, really. I think we’ll probably get a large scale battle although it’ll probably just be against a bunch of lame gadget drones as I don’t think that Dr. Scaglietti is going to send off his cyborg cronies given how laid back he’s been.

Fate’s conversation with Vivio at the end of the episode was rather disturbing if you ask me. The yuri undertones of there being “two mothers” was much too great to be ignored. I think it’s damned creepy even if Nanoha and Fate really were lesbians. That’s really something that we’ll probably never be able to confirm. And until we get a confirmation, I’ll keep praying for a Nanoha x Yuuno pairing…

With the viewers learning that Subaru’s mother was killed by cyborgs, we should ask ourselves when will be getting that emo Subaru scene. It never came after the Teana incident, but since Subaru was pretty pissed over that (on the spot at the time), I think there’s a good chance that she might be incapable of controlling her emotions upon the possibility of avenging her mother’s death.

Well, this episode was really quite funny. It’s nice to be able to get a few laughs after all that seriousness we’ve had for the past couple of episodes. Vivio’s tantrum over Nanoha and Chrono blushing over Fate was hilarious. Teana’s tsundere blush during her conversation with Subaru also drew out a hearty laugh from me.

That said, the ending of this episode did get a little emotional in my opinion. It seemed like Gil Graham has passed away since the epilogue of A’s, and of course, seeing flashbacks of Reinforce’s departure was also a little depressing. From what Auris noted and what Hayate said, it sounds like she’s going to put her life on the line if she has to. I don’t personally think that StrikerS is a show that’s going to kill off anyone, but eh, you never know.

From the looks of it, the Saint Church certainly doesn’t seem like the bad people I made them out to be in my last entry. The prophecy’s all rather vague at the moment but since the cause of the disaster is going to be the Lost Logia, I’m wondering if it’s going to be caused by the relics that have been secured thus far. It’s quite possible that Regius will try to get a hold of them and use it improperly, bringing about the downfall of his own department. Or maybe Auris is going to pull something since she’s such a suspicious fellow? Who knows, who knows.

Wow, so I was sorely mistaken about the assumption that there’d be no fighting in this episode because there was a fair bit of that. We also got to see a couple of the faces of the antagonists and it seems that they’re not really “clones” in the literal sense even if they are rehashing some of the seiyus. If we’ve got an enemy for every person, the final fight’s going to get a little messy. We’ll see how that turns out when that comes along.

When I was watching the helicopter scene, I couldn’t figure out if Nanoha or Vita was going to get hit. I figured that Vita might fly over to try and take the hit, but I guess there was really no way for her to fly there in time. Afterwards, I was really hoping to see Raising Heart transform when the limiter was unlocked, but that didn’t happen. :( We got some broken English for compensation though.

I have to say that I’m quite impressed by Teana and Caro’s sleight of hand. I was wondering what they were up to when they were talking about, but I soon forgot about that as the scene shifted out of the sewers with them going up against Lutecia and company.

Well, this episode more than made up for the filler that was episode 10. There weren’t a lot of real “fighting” per se but there was still plenty of action scenes. Nothing could’ve pleased me more than seeing both Hayate and Ginga on screen kicking ass. The art quality was also quite respectable in this episode, thankfully. :)

We saw a bit of the Saint Church again this episode and again I can’t help but have this suspicious feeling lingering on my back. Every time I see them, I keep thinking that they’re going to backstab the protagonists later in the game, I can’t explain it. Maybe it’s because they haven’t really fully explained what ties they have with the Administration Bureau, but I just find them to be awfully suspicious. I mean, Carim has enough authority to release the limiter on Hayate, but she’s not actually affiliated with the Bureau but is with the Saint Church or something or another, what’s that all about?

I don’t personally think we’ll be getting more fighting next episode. While Agito may be doing a bit of trash talking, I don’t feel that Lutecia is going to want to bother wasting time dealing with the Subaru and friends. With any luck, we should get some decent plot advancement next episode to move things along. Maybe we’ll even see Amy? I mean, we’ve seen Chrono after all, so Amy’s got to be around, right?

Well, this episode was really quite a filler minus the bit at the end. It’s good to know that them newbies have gone up another level as I’m rather interested in seeing what their weapons’ “second mode” is (except for Teana’s which we all saw last episode). With the series’ episode count going into the double digits, I think that this new discovery of the girl and (what is most likely) a relic, we might be going into “main plot” mode.

I’m really craving for some Hayate fight scenes here. They teased us with the mention of a unison this episode, but will we ever be able to see it in action? It would be much too cruel if they never showed us anything. But, if it’s going to be in the form of the awful boss fight that we had in A’s, I think I might have to consider passing on that.

One thing I noted from this episode was that the person that Dr. Scaglietti was talking to had the same voice as Subaru. I guess this could be hinting back to that whole “Project F” thing he was talking about back at the end of episode five. Having people fight their “clones” is pretty commonplace in the anime world, so I can only hope that they’re going to play this out properly.

This episode reminded me of why I like Nanoha and also reinforces the thought. Beyond the fact that she can be totally badass, Nanoha is also a wonderfully selfless character. Now I’ll admit that there have been cases here and there throughout the series (as a whole including the first two seasons) wherein there were some touchy scenes that ended up being utterly lame, but the message itself doesn’t change. Nanoha is a caring person that puts others before herself and the back story presented this episode helps put further emphasis on this notion.

I’m really glad that they actually showed what happened to Nanoha with regards to her injuries since I was really worried that they’d just kind of lead in to it and then kind of fade back in without revealing anything. I felt that the entire storytelling scene was played out very nicely and I felt that the seiyus did a really good in voicing the characters.

Of course, this episode was just too perfect so they had to add oddities like this one to wake everyone up so they could shrug their shoulders at each other. Seriously, what the hell is that? Maybe it just looks stupid because she’s holding to it with one hand or something, I don’t know. I can’t say that I saw this coming despite the fact that Raising Heart and friends all have an “alternate” mode that they can transform into like how Bardiche can turn into a big hunking sword. Whatever, complaining isn’t going to fix anything, so I’ll reserve my final judgment until I see it in action I guess.

Wow. This episode was nice. You don’t get to see a decent fight scene or a ticked off Nanoha every day, that’s for sure. We all know how badass Nanoha can be from the first two seasons, but she was just harsh this time around. Sometimes you just got to do what you got to do, I suppose. You can really see the different in skill levels here given that Nanoha was able to stop Subaru and Teana’s attacks with her bare hands. Scary, just scary. I’d love to see what Hayate is capable of although I’m not sure if we’ll be getting much of that since she’s at a more senior commanding position.

Yuuno’s appearance in this episode was cut extremely short although this scene somewhat compensated for it as I’m a huge supporter of this pairing. Given what happened this episode, I can’t decide whether Hayate likes Acous or not. I kind of got that vibe when I was watching them talk this episode but I really can’t say. Personally, I don’t find him to be particularly good looking in the face of the other male characters in the show, but anyway…

I didn’t check out the previews so I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next episode. I guess that Subaru might turn emo or something and run off somewhere, possibly home. Teana will be bedridden and I’m pretty interested as to what she’s going to do when she regains consciousness. This ought to be the last of Teana’s stubbornness and I hope to see her lead her comrades into the fray of the battle. I thought we’d get some of that last episode when she was giving out orders but that didn’t really happen.

This episode was not bad although I think it could’ve been better. The fights were way too one-sided which, well, quite simply, makes them not look like actual fights. Episode 5 was better in that regard since it was the new characters doing the fighting instead of having the veterans slaughter everything with ease. I was hoping for a dragon fight this episode but that never happened since Lutecia didn’t summon such a thing.

Now that Caro and Teana have both had their emo episodes, I’m wondering as to whether we’ll be getting two more episodes of that from Subaru and Erio each. Erio doesn’t seem like the kind to pull something off like that but I could definitely see Subaru getting all teary-eyed and stuff. She did a bit of that in the first episode already but I think that’s just a small teaser preview of what’s yet to come.

One thing I liked about this episode was the appearance of Yuuno and I hope that we’re going to be seeing more of him in the future. I suppose that it would be kind of pointless to have this brief cameo of him and then have him subsequently removed so my wish should be granted. The fact that he’s on the character page on the official site does translate into some comfort for me. Unfortunately, Amy doesn’t seem to have the same treatment. Since Chrono’s going to be around, I think she should at least show up here and there on occasions.

So this episode really didn’t bring much onto the table beyond revealing and implying some additional information about some of the characters. We see a return of the jewel seeds from the first season here although I’m going to guess that it’s not really going to be playing much of a role. They’re probably going to elaborate on Fate and some stuff from Mid-Childa which will obviously tie in with the events of the first season but I doubt that the jewel seeds themselves will be of much importance. After all, the relics have taken on this season’s role of the “jewel to have”. ;)

The training sequences that were presented left much to be desired for when compared to real action sequences, really. I think I’m just going to give up on expecting anything cool from these scenes because the series seems to be busy developing the plot instead at the moment, though this is completely fair. You can’t be running around fighting things for no reasons after all. My faith in this series is still strong and I believe that StrikerS will top A’s at the end of the day.

We saw another reference to Nanoha’s injury again this episode from Vita further implying that things may go awry at some point in the series. I’ll be happy with any developments so long as it’s reasonably sensible and not something that’s horribly lame. Yuri scenes would fall into said “lame” category and they’d have to try pretty hard to make me do anything but laugh.