[algo448]

StrikerS done!

And... holy hell, the last 6 episodes were esentially a non-stop assault, that was awesome.
As far as pacing goes it's definitely a weird one, in the first few eps basically nothing happens, and while it does work as set up for the last segment it feels like a rather inconsistent show.

Despite all the boring parts everybody gets his chance to shine, a lot of characters are left behind, but outside of Zafira it never seems like they were needed to begin with. Tiana and Subaru get really nice development and battles, to the point I can see either as the protagonist, Erio and Caro could have gotten some more focus, but they were still cool, the Numbers were surprisingly cool, they all had unique styles and enough personality, heck, even Vice got his own little arc.

The returning cast fares differently, the mian trio rarely fights, and their cool moments are mostly left to th end, but their growth feels natural, and coherent to their past appearances, a lot of familiar faces (like Yuuno or Arf) fade into the background, but as I said before it's not like the plot required them, the Knights do well, feeling at times more relevant than even the Aces, except for poor Zafira.

The parenthood angle was surprisingly good, Fate's realtionship with the Lightning forwards had enough depth, Nanoha and Vivio weren't half bad, and Jail was just completely fucked up when it came to the Numbers.
Though funnily enough the moment with the most emotional impact for me came from Fate and Vivio, when they talk about Lindy and Presea.

So...
Did the show tell it's story? Yep, it did.
Was it a good story? Yeah, quite so.
Was the action up to par? It was condensed on short bursts, but heck yeah.
Do the characters prove their worth? Heck yeah.
Was it the ideal way to tell the story? Probably not.

All in all, I leave StrikerS with a nice feeling, I'm glad to finally have watched it, and there are indeed tons of things to like, even if it wasn't done so in the best way they could.