Easily the most painful part thus far is the live-action music video under the end credits featuring some Japanese idol tied up like a dog.
The cringe, it’s too strong. This is even worse than the final season of Shugo Chara. This is so. Much. Worse!
I’m not sure I’m going to survive this. The world-ending Magical Girl Apocalypse can’t come soon enough. Please, I need some mass-murdering magical zombie robots to blow up this world and create a new one out of the ashes of the old. Pleeeeaaaase …
Speaking only for myself, I’m ready for the “dark” fad in magical girl anime to end. It’s been seven years now, guys.
Magical Girl Site is a twelve-episode anime series that came out this year and made a name for itself as one of the gruesomest and most depressing shows to appear during its season. The title has come up a few times during the controversy over the current (as of this writing) series Goblin Slayer, so I thought, given that I just recently finished up Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, now would be a good time to give Magical Girl Site a look-see. I doubt I’ll write an individual review for every single episode, but having watched the first, I wanted to put down some preliminary thoughts.
My initial impression is similar to my initial impression of Magical Girl Raising Project: that is to say, not very positive.
What you’ll want to do after an episode of Magical Girl Site.
This anime is based on a manga by Kentaro Sato. Although I have not read the manga, I have read Sato-sensei’s other major title, Magical Girl Apocalypse, which is a genre mashup of magical girls and zombie survival horror—and of which Magical Girl Site is usually described as a spin-off. If Magical Girl Site is similar to its predecessor, then we can expect a lot of blood and guts, a lot of tasteless humor, a lot of cringey fanservice, and a regular round of violence and sexual assault approaching the level of torture porn.
Magical Girl Apocalypse summed up in one screenshot.
I just made progress on Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites! So far, I’m 98% complete on the Writing phase, based on a projected 90,000 words. I’m at 88,393 words and I can easily see that the book will actually extend well past 90,000, which means this volume will be considerably longer than the first one.
I’m in the same position I was in while drafting the first book: I thought I’d get my protagonists into a restaurant by chapter five, but that ended up becoming the climax of the whole novel around chapter twenty. I’ve been trying to build to a certain scene I thought would happen around chapter four of book two, and I’m just getting to it in chapter sixteen.
Seven Weeks remain until the (arbitrary) deadline.
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS,directed by Keizo Kusakawa. Written by Masaki Tsuzuki. Starring Marina Inoue and Kana Mizuki. Seven Arcs and Nanoha StrikerS Project, Japan (2007). 26 episodes of 22 minutes (approx. ). Not rated.
We are now discussing the third anime series in the Lyrical Nanoha franchise, and also the longest, running as it does for twenty-six episodes. Previously, I discussed the original Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha and followed that up with a review of Lyrical Nanoha A’s. This third series, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, is in a sense the last chapter of Nanoha Takamachi‘s saga: Two more anime series, ViVid and ViVid Strike!, follow this one—though only the latter appears to be available in the U.S.—but those two move away from Nanoha herself and focus instead on the next generation of magical girls.
So this is the end of Nanoha. Thus, as I write this review, I am sipping a White Russian in honor of the White Devil. You’ve come a long way, baby.
Before we say anything else about StrikerS, we may pause to comment, like a doting grandfather, “How you’ve grown!” Lyrical Nanoha sprang from the humblest beginnings, being originally a spinoff of a dating sim called Triangle Heart 3. The show was animated by a studio that had never made a magical girl series previously and gave every indication that it didn’t know what it was doing.
What IS she doing?
There are a lot of magical girl titles that were created as spinoffs of other franchises, but it is probably safe to say that the big three, the most influential, are Pretty Sammy, Nurse Witch Komugi, and Lyrical Nanoha. Of those, however, only Nanoha became a powerhouse title in its own right. Pretty Sammy, in spite of multiple productions, never got out from under the shadow of the franchise that produced it, and has now fallen into obscurity. Nurse Witch Komugi, although more famous than the anime that birthed it, was notable mostly for its fan-pandering, which was novel at the time. Lyrical Nanoha, however, not only eclipsed the video game from which it sprang, but became a mega-franchise in its own right, with multiple anime series, manga, movies, and drama CDs.
Impressive though that is, it serves to hamper StrikerS, the series we’re now discussing. If you watch this show, you might find yourself baffled by the gigantic cast, the important past events mentioned only in passing, and the sheer number of details you’re expected to keep track of. You might say, “Wait, was I supposed to do some reading beforehand?”
I’m just popping in to say I’m sorry there hasn’t been much in the way of real content here over the last few days. I’m still working on some promotional stuff. I think I can squeeze a review out by the end of the weekend, though, so stay tuned.
Davidson balances that sweet, sweet line between humor, loli grimdark, and character drama to make for an enjoyable and gripping story. It has all the best parts of the light novel genres without any of the bad … namely, isekai.
Ben Wheeler, in the guise of the Reading Rainbow Emperor, has got his hands on Jake and the Dynamo. He has given it a glowing review, as you can see in the video above, but does not shy away from some pointed criticism.
I think the best part is where he quotes from the book and trips over his tongue as he attempts to read Sukeban Tsubasa’s dialogue. He also admits that Tsubasa is his waifu … so I wonder what he’ll think of the reveal of her identity in the next book?
