Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha EXCEEDS Gun Blaze Vengeance Review
魔法少女リリカルなのは EXCEEDS Gun Blaze Vengeance
Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha EXCEEDS Gun Blaze Vengeance Review
Ever since I watched the original Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha series in 2005, I’ve been a fan of the franchise. Over the years, I’ve felt like a father watching the young Nanoha, Fate, and Hayate grow from child soldiers to seasoned adult veterans who adopt kids of their own. As such, when I heard there was to be another Nanoha series, I was pretty excited. Then I saw the character designs and discovered this would be a “midquel”. Not exactly what I wanted, but I was going to watch just the same.
* * * S P O I L E R S ! * * *
The Story, in Brief
An orphaned, high school girl named KUZE Shiina lives in a fortified compound on the remote Amatorishima Island in the country of Mizuho (Japan). Also with her is her adopted sister, Setsuna. Shiina hunts various invasive Diaboli monsters who’ve invaded her Earth. One day, her compound is attacked by a human-Dioboli hybrid, who’s hunting Setsuna. During the fight, a dying Setsuna reveals she’s a Progenitor Diaboli and transfers her flame powers to Shiina, turning Shiina into a human-Diaboli hybrid.
Meanwhile, the Time-Space Administration Bureau creates a division called EXCEEDS and comes to this Earth. Lead by the 13-year old Hayate, who’s disguised as an adult, EXCEEDS is officially classified as a United Nations organization. EXCEED members Fate and Nanoha, also 13, recruit Shiina into their organization to put an end to the invasive species, Diaboli, and evil Progenitors.
Initially, they are opposed by the Diaboli hybrid team known as Diaboli Slayers, lead by an orphaned teenage girl named Towa. She’s looking for revenge against Mana, a Diaboli who merged with a human girl and has the power of a Progenitor. Mana took orphaned children and experimented on them, helped by a young man named Eiji.
EXCEEDS and the Diaboli Slayers must put aside their differences to overcome the Progenitors, Mana, and cleanse the world of Diaboli and other invasive monsters.
Nanoha Not the Star
When I started seeing some of the promo material for Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha EXCEEDS Gun Blaze Vengeance, I had a suspicion that Nanoha would take a back seat for new characters. Sure enough, that was what happened here. That disappointed me a great deal. I realize that some titles in the franchise have not featured Nanoha. (This one is based off the movie continuity.) But when I come to a Nanoha property, I want Nanoha to be the star, supported by Fate and Hayate.
Did I have a problem with Shiina as the star? Not as such. Unfortunately, she’s kind of a cliched character. For a start, she’s an orphan. That gives her a cliched, tragic background. Then she gets a superpower via another tragedy. However, her tragedies cease to affect her for the most part. Thus she never felt like a real character for most of the series to me. I didn’t dislike her, but I can’t say that she jazzed me to any level.
As to her costar Towa, she too has that cliched element as well. She’s an orphan with a melodramatic past of horrible experimentation. However, the way things are written, it doesn’t have that much of an impact on me. Further, she acts in a cliched manner whereby she has to learn that she needs the power of nakama to back her up.
By the Numbers Plot…With An Exception or Two
I think my biggest complain with Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha EXCEEDS Gun Blaze Vengeance is that it has a by the numbers plot. The Diaboli Slayers are initially established as antagonists of sorts. I immediately knew that they would team up with the EXCEEDS folks to fight the true enemy. I mean, that’s a staple of Nanoha titles at this point and it sucks.
To that end, I also knew that Towa and Shiina would be friends, then have a falling out before reconciling for the final fight. I suppose if this were your initial entry into the Nanoha franchise, it might not be so evident. However, I think the writers wrote things for a younger audience for whom this cliched character arc can still work.
The one exception to the by the numbers element is the writers apparently becoming aware of how much they telegraphed things. As such, certain implications are converted to red herrings. The writers then pull out some, “this is the reality of the situation” elements right out of their butt. Sorry, but inventing last second things to explain your story isn’t good writing.
I’m going to count this last thing as an exception as well. Throughout the entire series, things point to a final showdown between Towa and Mana. Instead, Towa, assisted by Shiina, have to fight a tree. I am not kidding. I couldn’t have predicted that in a million years. As such, this big final battle is laughable.
Other Things I Disliked
Sadly, there were other things I disliked in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha EXCEEDS Gun Blaze Vengeance. For a start, I didn’t care for the new character designs for Nanoha, Fate, and Hayate. Sure, you get used to them after a while. But I much prefer a character design more in line with what we used to have.
Next is the age of Nanoha and Fate. I really hated that instead of being adult veterans taking on a 17 year old girl to train her to defend her world, we gets 13 year old girls. Further, because the writers understand that putting a 13 year old (Hayate) in charge of massive organization is STUPID, they have her visually disguised to appear in her 20s. 🙄
Then there’s the loss of Donna Burke as Raising Heart and Kevin J. England as Bardiche. Are the folks at Seven Arcs insane? Instead, we get Japanese seiyuu for the parts. Some speculated that Donna may not have wanted to work as her husband had recently passed. Even if that were true, there’s no reason to get rid of Kevin. Further, BOTH voice actors are back to do some sort of EXCEEDS BD extra.
Finally, there’s no explanation for the invasive species beyond, “They came from outer space.” We’ll never know why Mana was “evil” and Setsuna was “good”. Setsuna’s whole purpose seemed to be to annihilate her own species. That’s why the reveal that she was a Progenitor came off like an arse pull. If we understood her reasoning, I think it would have improved the story.
Is There Anything to Like?
I’ve been so negative with my review of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha EXCEEDS Gun Blaze Vengeance thus far. Is there anything to like about the series? Well, as a fan of the franchise, I do like seeing Fate, Nanoha, and Hayate in action. Well, correction. Hayate never really does anything ’cause if she did, the story would be over.
That aside, as a fan of Fate’s character, it was always cool (both times) when the approach of lightning announced her imminent arrival. The other visuals were fine. I rather liked Shiina’s compound.
Another thing I liked was the retention of Japanese honorifics in subtitles. This is another small thing, but it goes a long way with me. On the whole, the adaptation didn’t feel overly “localized”. That’s where some adapter thinks they are a better writer than the Japanese writers and thus needs to change things in the subtitles to “improve” it.
I can honestly say I didn’t hate the series. Yeah, it is a stretch when looking for positives. However, the series is just average at best in terms of story. But it does entertain on that level, so there’s a positive as well.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
For me, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha EXCEEDS Gun Blaze Vengeance is not a title that I think I’ll ever want to rewatch. That said, I am seriously considering chapter reviewing the manga. I’m told the focus there is more on Fate and Nanoha and from what I saw, that appeared to be true. And I did want to watch the two Nanoha movies that establish EXCEEDS as an organization.
