So before I begin I’d like to say that I’m currently watching yesy’s subs and not DamagedGoodz’s as they are now on hiatus. It’s unknown as to when this’ll end, but that’s that. I hadn’t blogged a single episode from this series since work started as we are not to use peer-to-peer applications on our notebooks and since DamagedGoodz doesn’t have bots, I had no way to get my hands on the episodes. yesy does have bots so I was able to pick episode five up and here we are.

I know I shouldn’t keep complaining about the art quality with StrikerS when you consider the first two seasons, but when you’ve just completed a series like sola that really had little issues, it does irk you a little. I’d say that it’s generally acceptable but there are some places that just makes you wonder how they managed to approve the shot.

Art aside, I think the small bits of fighting that we had in this episode were handled quite well. It’s still a little hard for me to get used to the fact that they’re fighting machines instead of, let’s say, regular humanoid objects. I know it’s probably all part of some grand plot and everything, but I can’t help but think that they brought in machines instead of “real” enemies because there are just way too many protagonists in StrikerS and that it is not realistic to create an antagonist counterpart for each one of them.

I’d say that this has been a good episode amidst the “nothingness” that occurred in the last three episodes. The preview seemed to imply that there’s supposedly more training next episode, which isn’t horrid as that translates into action. I’d be happy if we could get just a slice of the awesomeness that we had in episode 1 but that probably isn’t going to happen.

Wow, how to start…I guess for starters I should note that while the raw for the fifth episode has been released, I have not actually watched it for fear of biasing my “first impression” of this episode.

This episode’s art sucked hard. Things seemed to have improved slightly by the conclusion of the third episode, but this episode was just packed with crappy art all the way through. A few acceptable faces were drawn here and there, but for the most part, it was bad on the eyes.

This episode’s brief fight scene was also kind of…what? I find it rather sad over how utterly incompetent Nanoha was during the training session. Even if her abilities were restricted due to her rank having been docked, I still find it a bit ridiculous as to how she could just allow Caro and Erio to stand by idly charging up for an attack. I mean, it’s not like they were hidden or anything, they were standing right there behind her! How hard is it to direct those little pink balls of light in their direction?

All bets and complaints are off next episode though (I hope), since it looks like it’s going to be packed full with action (although, regrettably, it seems to be concentrated on Erio and Caro). I’m not particularly complaining about the lack of “real” fighting, really. With the episode count in the twenties, the current pacing has been just fine in my opinion. None of the episodes so far has been “filler” episodes like some of the earlier ones that from the first season, so that’s always a plus. Art quality can always be fixed in the DVD releases as many instances have been in the previous two season’s releases, so I’m not too worried that.

Well, if you talked to me at all prior to this blog post about StrikerS, you’ll know that I’ve been complaining about the drop in quality of the art, primarily centred around the faces of the characters. DamagedGoodz’s encoding came out really nicely in my opinion, so part of it might have just been a bad case of raws. I downloaded two of the four raws that I could find, and both was bearable for viewing purposes, but was pretty bad otherwise. Of course, since I’m an impatient person, I’ll keep downloading the first raws that come out even if it’s in the flv format.

So, we got a bit of action again this episode, although it’s really got nothing on the first episode. I didn’t think I would’ve thought too highly of Erio and Caro, but they seem to be aright. So really, the only person that sucks right now is Subaru, and given how she has been portrayed in the episodes so far, maybe this was what the writers intended from the start. ;p

Since this series is going to be twenty-six episodes and the next episode is called “First Alert”, it leaves you wondering whether it (or this potential “mini-arc”) will really has anything to do with the actual plot. With the past two seasons, there was really no time for filler episodes (though they still threw a few in in the first season), so the ball got rolling pretty quickly (or instantaneously, in the case of A’s). No one likes filler episodes, but if done correctly (like most things in life), they can add some more bang for your buck. When it comes down to it, as long as I get plenty of Hayate and Reinforce II, I think I can forgive them. Crappy endings, however, are generally unforgivable, but let’s not go there because I always get pretty riled up when talking about endings.

If there’s one thing that I remember most clearly about this episode after having watched it four times (besides how amazingly moe Reinforce II is), it’s got to be how amazingly badass Hayate has become. To be honest, I really hated her in A’s because of her Kansai-ben. Times sure have changed though, especially when you consider that she currently outranks both Nanoha and Fate with a rank of SS (whereas the other two are at S+). I don’t particularly like her barrier jacket, but if the opening animation is any implication of what’s going to happen later (unlike Fate/stay night), I’m going to be seeing Hayate order people around a lot (which is exactly what I want because she was really cool in the airport scene). I will note that the “transformation scene” that occurred as she ran away from the truck was really cool and I will heartily approve more of that.

This episode appeared to have gone on the wayback machine, playing some familiar background music of the previous seasons in addition to hinting at one of the events in the manga where Nanoha came close to dying. There’s a lot of potential in this material although the actual outcome will obviously depend on their execution. If they’re going to have Nanoha in a life-and-death situation or some psychic breakdown, the obvious saviour that’s going to hit the scene is going to be Subaru. This is of course clichéd and expected, but if done properly, it shouldn’t be that bad. An alternative would be to have Nanoha actually die (yes, literally die) directly or indirectly because of that past injury. This of course has an adverse effect of there not being anymore Nanoha series to sate my undying lust, but I would give it a nod if done right. Doing it “right” would entail not having her come back to life. “People die when they are killed”, as Emiya Shirou noted in Fate/stay night, let’s keep it that way. Given how the resurrection bit turned out in the first season, things just might go my way for once.

As you can see below, former characters from A’s have reappeared. I don’t know when they’ll give some screen time for Amy or Yuno, but there better be some. What’s interesting to note at the end of the series is that Vita, Zafira, and Shamal were actually fighting against machines. In the past two seasons, there has been basically zero fights against machines besides the last bit of the first season when everyone rushed into Precia’s little “spaceship” (or island?). It seems like we’re going to see a lot more mechanical critters if the opening actually means anything (oh, here we go again with this opening foreshadowing business). Only time will tell as more episodes of StrikerS is aired. Damn I wish I had a time machine and could just go off into the future when the whole series has aired already. :(

StrikerS airs at 1210. It’s past 2130 now. Last week, the raw was released at around 1512. All we’ve gotten so far is a 70 meg flv (flash) file in a horrendous 320×240 quality. Of course, I naturally downloaded and watched it after it completed to get my fix (because else I might’ve forced myself to stay up all night until a real raw came out), but come on, give me a break here, people.

Well, it seems that two different groups, yesy and DamagedGoodz, has made releases to StrikerS. Triad has stated that they are currently waiting for better raws. If you’re like me and can’t be bothered to wait, it would probably be in your interest to catch one of the two groups above. I have watched the episode three times already, the first run in raw format and the two subsequent runs over the two aforementioned fansubs.

Without further adieu, let’s get on with this episode’s review and a subsequent subbing analysis.

I’d say that this first episode is a very good opener for the series. There’s plenty of action to be had as you can tell from the screencaps that I took but it is also balanced out by your average whiny parts that all anime just has to have. I often laugh hysterically during those scenes since I can’t take it seriously, but of course, it wouldn’t be a Nanoha if they didn’t have these scenes.

The action scenes are all well done and you can tell that they’ve got a pretty big budget at their disposal, although it is questionable as to whether it rivals Haruhi’s or not, since lord knows that was a huge production. Subaru, the blue-haired one, for your information, brings nothing new to the scene what with her fists, since that was what Arf and Zafira fought with in the earlier seasons. She also plays the role of your average crybaby. In contrast, Teana is much more outspoken and apparently is using a gun, both attributes of which are essentially unheard of in the Nanoha universe. Teana also gets bonus points from me since Mai Nakahara is voicing her.

All three main returning characters are still there usual self (minus the whole ten years older aspect of course). Nanoha and Fate still talk in soft little voices and Hayate still has her oh-so-annoying Kansai-ben. Donna Burke is still bound by her contract to read out grammatically incorrect lines for Raising Heart. The whole Nanoha works is here that reminisces of the past seasons, so I have no qualms about it really. If you were worried that they might all have disappeared, be at peace that this is not the case. To wrap up this episode’s review, I’d like to point out that Reinforce Zwei is super cute, by the way.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s take a look at this subbing business. The pictures on the left are from yesy and the ones on the right are from DamagedGoodz. Before we get started, I’d like to note that both fansubs has opted to use ‘Raising Heart’ instead of ‘Raging Heart’. ‘Raising Heart’ is the name that is on some official item (that was included with the A’s DVDs I think) and as a result is the one that is adopted in Wikipedia articles. Triad has noted that they will stick with ‘Raging Heart’. If you have a problem with this whole naming thing, well, pick your subs accordingly. Oh, and if anyone cares, yesy did karaoke whereas DamagedGoodz didn’t.

In the first scenario depicted above, the gibberish that the firefighter says is pretty hard to listen to. However, I’m pretty certain that I heard こども (子供), which means children, so yesy would be correct in this regard.

The second and third comparisons presented here are a question of accuracy and taste. In both cases, I can hear that the literal words voiced by Donna Burke are ‘A firing lock has been cancelled’ and ‘There is no dangerous object either’. Of course, it would make more sense if she was saying ‘My firing lock has been cancelled’ and ‘There are no dangerous objects either’. Pick at your discretion.

リインフォース II: でわ、スタートはあと少し。ゴール時点にが会いましょう？ですよ！

I may have been off by a little in the transcription above, but that’s the general idea. I can see where yesy’s coming from by putting in the ‘ですよ！’ as ‘Okay!’, but the line ‘Let’s meet at the finish line, okay? Okay!’ just sounds way too awkward. I think DamagedGoodz was the one that handled this one properly by not having appended it at all.

Crossfire’s a real world and the first definition that Merriam-Webster provides is firing (as in combat) from two or more points so that the lines of fire cross. Which, of course, is exactly what this move Teana and Subaru is using entails.

スバル: だから！こんな所で。。。私の目の前で！

I personally liked how DamagedGoodz handled this scene with by adding ellipses and the exclamation marks and am curious as to why yesy didn’t do likewise. Both translations work obviously, but yesy is the one that used the literal meaning with ‘in front of my eyes’.

This one is another handling issue. If you actually listen to the audio you can see that Subaru is stuttering and trying to correct herself and all that good stuff, but yesy just sits there with stale monotonous subtitles.

So there you have it. I hope you enjoyed reading my analysis of these two fansubs. I think I’m going to go with DamagedGoodz since I don’t care about karaoke and I’d rather have the text follow what’s going on with the audio. Most of the translation issues aren’t huge (obviously), and if you don’t speak Japanese, it wouldn’t even bother you anyway.

I may do another one of these for the second episode (or for a different series entirely) but that may have to wait a while since I’ve got some exams on Wednesday and Thursday and doing these comparisons takes a bit of time. I will continue to review Nanoha StrikerS even if I don’t do anymore subbing comparisons for groups, so be on the lookout for that if you’re going to be watching this series.