PinkuBentoBox

By now a lot of people have said their piece about Nanoha Strikers. The show seems to have polarised its fan base quite cleanly. One half is very firmly in the camp that declares that the show is progressing with the pace of a lame turtle, and the other half argues that it’s just temporary and things are still being set up and it’s going to get awesome any minute now. I’m unfortunately in the former group, despite having sat in the latter for a while. By now I’m sure everyone’s sick of ‘omg strikers sux’ blog posts, but I want to spend some time reflecting on why it’s failing a lot of people’s expectations, rather than what it is failing at.

Personally, up until watching episode 7 I was in the optimistic group, more than willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, especially since episode 6 ended with the impression that the pieces were all set and everything was about to kick into high gear. It didn’t, and now I’m having some suspicions about the writing staff and the way they’ve approached the setup right from the outset.

I’m now going to wax into armchair philosopher mode. Those already familiar with the work Joseph Campbell should skip a few paragraphs, because you’ve probably heard all this crap repeatedly already.

Early 20th century philosopher and psychologist Carl Jung believed that, as a side effect of the way our brains are put together, there are certain basic personality types (”archetypes”) which we identify with on an unconscious level. He believed that there was a ‘collective unconscious’, a set of universal archetypes which all humans share and identify with instinctively from the moment they’re born.

Joseph Campbell was a student of Jung, and subscribed to the idea of archetypes wholeheartedly. His seminal work, Hero of a Thousand Faces, is a piece that most good writers are at least passingly familiar with. Campbell studied the myths of many different ancient cultures and came to the conclusion that he was seeing the same story cycling over and over, essentially an archetypal story structure. He went on to construct a generalised version of the structure - the Hero’s Journey, or the Monomyth - and concluded that when the structure is used, the story will resound within the human consciousness and be extremely compelling. A lot of writers have used the Hero’s Journey as a structure for their own plots, probably the most famous being George Lucas, who leveraged it to construct the original Star Wars trilogy.

Well, it turns out that you really do find the Hero’s Journey in a lot of stories. Practically every piece of High Fantasy since Tolkien invented the genre has been a retelling of the Monomyth. More interestingly to us, the structure is extremely common in anime. The more of it you watch, the more you realise that a lot of anime is very formula-driven. You’ve got your shounen action anime, your sports anime, your magical girl anime, and so forth. The interesting thing about these formulas (discarding the whole ‘romance comedy’ sub-genre for obvious reasons) is that if you look at them in a general sense, they’re actually practically the same thing.

The classic Monomyth is a cycle. It begins with the hero in their ‘mundane’ world. This is almost always typified in anime by the main character being a kid in school, usually in the ‘real’ world. If you’ve watched any anime at all, you’ll know what I mean here. At some point, the hero will receive a ‘call to adventure’. This usually involves meeting someone that serves as a sort of guide to the Hero, inviting them to take the ‘first step into a wider world’. Campbell typified this character as the ‘wizard’ or the ‘old man’, but that is mainly a product of the stories he used in his research (note that he also always refers to the hero as male, which doesn’t have to be the case). In action anime, this character is often a seasoned, veteran fighter sympathetic to the hero, who at this point in his development will be weak and often lose a fight. In sports anime, this character will often be a talented sports figure who was unable to achieve their dream and instead trains the Hero to achieve that goal. Closer to home, in magical girl anime, this character is almost invariably a cute, furry animal who introduces the heroine to her own latent magical talents. Additionally the call to adventure itself is usually delivered by a ‘herald’. Campbell described the herald as often being evil, and calling the hero to adventure simply due to its existence. In the case of magical girl anime, the herald could be considered the cute animal, or it could be that first evil being which the heroine is asked to defeat, depending on circumstances. Personally, I would class Yuno as being simultaneously herald and wizard.

Initially, the hero or heroine is always reluctant to embark on their journey. They may be held back by fear, inexperience, apathy… however eventually they make the decision to leave their mundane world and enter the fantastic world. Sometimes this decision may not be left up to them - external circumstances can force the character to enter the fantastic world. Before they leave the mundane world, however, the Hero receives some kind of supernatural ‘aid’. The classic modern example always used here is Obi-wan Kenobi giving Luke Skywalker a Lightsaber and introducing him to the concept of the Force. Our instance of this is Yuuno giving Nanoha Raising Heart and teaching the phrase needed to unlock her magical girl outfit and powers.

Regardless of the circumstances, passing over the threshold into the wider world always involves a trial of some sort. Often this involves challenging a ‘threshold guardian’, which is a character that the hero must somehow pass. In magical girl anime it’s usually the monster of the day - for example, Sakura had to overcome her initial fear and fight and capture her first Clow Card. Nanoha must use her newfound magical powers to beat the monster she is confronted with and recover the first Jewel Seed. Note that it is the conflict with the guardian itself which is important here, the outcome is not necessarily so. Passing a threshold guardian does not necessarily mean beating that guardian.

What is significant is that the hero is somehow transformed by the crossing of the threshold. They are reborn, their perspective of the world is changed, and they are a new person, ready to face the challenges they will encounter outside of their mundane world. Nanoha is now a magical girl. She knows that she has magical powers, and her perspective of her world is widened.

From here, the hero engages in a series of trials. At this point in the hero’s journey, the trials are rarely life-threatening. In Nanoha’s case, her initial cycle of trials involves fighting monsters and collecting more jewel seeds. In the process, Nanoha learns more about herself and her own talent. During this part of the journey it is common for a rival to appear. The rival is usually designed to be a reflection of darker aspects of the hero, their foil, or sometimes potentially describe what the hero might have been under different circumstances. Fate is without a doubt Nanoha’s rival and in many ways her opposite, at least in the first season.

The journey will continue, with the trials becoming harder as the hero approaches ‘the cave’, the central ordeal of the journey. At this point it is common for another threshold to be encountered and for the Hero to fight another guardian. In this case, Nanoha fights Fate, who is the guardian for this threshold. Their battle is stopped by Chrono, and Nanoha’s perspective is widened once more as she crosses into an even wider world - her first contact with the TSAB. The pace of the journey increases, the hero’s true goal is revealed, and they begin to prepare, knowing the stakes have been raised. The trials at this point gain a life-or-death intensity.

Eventually the hero arrives at the moment of their ordeal. During this ordeal, the hero will often fight a reflection of themselves. The hero will ‘die’ during their ordeal, in order that they can be reborn. In some cases, the villain will die, in some cases they will escape, in some cases the hero may actually die, and be replaced with a new hero. In some cases it will culminate in some kind of ‘marriage’ - reconciliation of opposing forces into a single whole. In Nanoha’s case, she fights and defeats Fate, making an emotional appeal and attempting to save her rival, her reflection. The result is a marriage - Fate joins Nanoha.

After surviving the ordeal, the Hero receives their reward. This takes many forms, from a simple change in awareness or perception to a physical treasure. In Nanoha’s case, her reward is literally Fate. She gains Fate’s friendship and support. Having received the reward, the Hero makes a new pact, rededicating themselves to their goal to challenge the established world. In Nanoha’s case, she and Fate must continue their journey and confront Precia in order to complete their journey.

The hero then finally faces death, confronting the shadow and reflecting on the lessons learned on the journey. The confrontation’s eventual resolution usually delivers a resurrection, a healing or cleansing to the hero. There is sometimes a sacrifice made, the emotional climax is reached, and the hero is resurrected, made complete. While Nanoha herself is not heavily connected to Precia, Fate is changed in the final confrontation. Sacrificing her mother figure for the greater good delivers the emotional climax of their journey, and Fate’s redemption is complete. In the end that was Nanoha’s goal as well - to save her friend.

Finally, the hero returns to their mundane world, changed by their journey and bearing the ‘elixir’, which can take the form of anything from a device or object which will repair or heal their original world to a simple change of view. In Nanoha’s case, she has gained a new best friend. She returns back to her world and her way of life, but has gained a new sense of purpose for her life. The central theme of the season - Friendship - is maintained until the last moments when Fate and Nanoha exchange their ribbons, promising to see each other again.

So as you can see, Nanoha’s first season follows the classic hero’s journey almost lock-step. Note that not every journey has to follow this cycle - it is possible to skip parts, but there must always be three acts - initiation, ordeal, and return. Some steps can be done out of order too - the hero may not receive the supernatural aid until later in the journey, for example.

Nanoha A’s follows the journey as well, though it is a different journey. In A’s, Nanoha’s call to adventure is much more abrupt and confrontational, with Vita’s attack. Vita acts as the herald for the journey. Nanoha must again challenge a threshold guardian, but in this case it is an emotional rather than physical one - she is defeated and her power is temporarily lost. The series of trials last much longer and gain intensity faster in keeping with the characters’ having completed a journey already. Nanoha and Fate receive supernatural aids again, in the form of upgrades to Raising Heart and Bardiche. They pass into another world when they receive the revelation that Hayate is the master of their opponents, and each faces their own ordeal - Nanoha must fight Reinforce on her own, while Fate faces and overcomes temptation, her deepest desires are offered to her. Reunited, they re-dedicate themselves to saving Hayate, and eventually are able to draw her out - their ‘reward’ for passing the ordeal. The face and defeat the book of twilight’s defense program in order to save Hayate and avoid the destruction of the earth (Hayate is the ‘elixir’ in this case). All the subplots are resolved and the three girls return to their mundane world once more, changed by their journey and armed with new purpose in life.

You’ll notice that I’ve only been talking about Nanoha’s journey. Fate equally has her own journey, as do Hayate and the Velka Knights. This is one of the great strengths of Nanoha’s writing, each of the central characters can be considered a hero on their own journey, which is what makes them so compelling and makes us sympathetic towards them as allies, rivals and especially villains.

Strikers feels very unfocused and poorly paced in comparison to its two preceding series, I believe, because it does not follow the same structure.

As we went over earlier, the first part of the hero’s journey involves showing the character in their ‘mundane world’. On a deeper level, they have to be shown as being at one level, and then receive some kind of reason or opportunity to go upwards. In other words, I am not suggesting that Strikers needed to start with Nanoha back on earth behaving like a normal girl. It’s more that she has started out in a world which is already reasonably interesting, and has shown no signs of moving from there. There has been no call to adventure. There is a conflict established now, but it lacks any real impetus behind it.

You could argue that maybe this time Nanoha isn’t reprising her role as the story’s heroine, and is instead more of a mentor - the proverbial wizard. I tend to agree with this assessment, but if this is what they were intending then they need to commit to it. One of these characters needs to clearly become the driving force behind the plot. Subaru would be the obvious choice here, and I think that was what they were originally planning with the opening part of episode 1. However with all the other new and returning characters vying for screen time, it gets quite confusing which of them is supposed to be the focus. Let’s assume that Subaru is the hero, Nanoha the wizard who gives her the call to adventure, and the trial in episode 1 takes the form of her threshold guardian. She receives her supernatural aid in the form of Mach Caliber, gained allies and passed her first trial. But that was at the end of episode four. Her journey has not progressed from there. Instead the focus jumped to Teana. Suddenly the character we assumed is the driving focus of the plot is… not. Or maybe she is. Or maybe Nanoha is after all…

We have four new major characters, but we can’t tell for sure if any of them is actually the focus of a new journey or not. We have our three returning characters, and we can’t really say that any of them is the focus of a new cycle of the journey either. More importantly, we have not had any form of inter-personal conflict established. The previous two seasons set this up reasonably quickly, especially A’s. If you were to draw a relationship chart for Strikers, you’ll notice that there are no strong adversarial connections between any of the characters. Everyone likes everyone else, except evil Dr Spaghetti who at this point none of the cast have actually met. We’ve got Lutecia wandering about, but none of the cast have met her either. Within the hero camp, everyone is friends with everyone else. There is no mysterious grey character who may be playing two sides. There is no one working on the protagonist’s side who seems suspicious. Everyone has common motivation and purpose. There isn’t even any real rivalry between the characters. In other words, it’s pretty much the dream workplace. All of the conflict with the exception of the scene at the end of episode 8 has been against hordes of robots. The characters do not seem to have any strong goals to focus on, and as a result their resolve and motivations are nebulous.

The show at this point is still very salvageable. There are a few simple things that would rescue it quite effectively in my opinion. The first thing is that the antagonists need to make a concerted push, and it needs to be effective. They need to be personally involved somehow. I don’t really care how they do it, but the protagonists and antagonists need to meet face-to-face, in a conflict situation. Something major needs to happen to one of the protagonists to add some real tension, as well as give the rest of them some motivation to defeat the antagonists. During the lead-up to the start of the show, I recall several conversations about how incredibly awesome it would be if the antagonists somehow turned Nanoha against her allies. There’s been a lot of jokes online about the ‘White Devil’ and if you’ve seen Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, you’d know that Yukari Tamura would be more than able to play a sinister, evil Nanoha. That’s really just one idea though, and something I doubt they’d ever actually do. Regardless, it is really important if the plot is to go anywhere that the writers remember that the key to a successful story of this nature is that the characters have to undergo a real ordeal, that they have to actually grow and expand, and most importantly that nothing happens for free - in order for a character to grow, they will have to sacrifice something.

There needs to be some actual rivalry between characters. There’s nothing like that at the moment. It doesn’t need to really be anything major, it would just inject some believability into proceedings. Something as simple as them competing over who can trash the most robots would have been a nice touch. More importantly, the characters also need to have weaknesses, especially in Nanoha’s case. She seems to have no fears, no flaws, and capable of doing anything. As long as she’s practically invincible, none of the characters will be able to get into a situation where they will be able to grow, because she’ll always be along to bail them out. Additionally, a flawless, invincible Nanoha is not compelling. One of the reasons she is appealing in the earlier seasons is that she overcomes her flaws. More philosophically, it does not take any bravery to stand up and fight something or someone if you have no chance of losing. That said, the writing team seem to be aware of this too - we know that at some stage in the past Nanoha lost a battle and was nearly killed. This needs to be expanded upon so that we remember that she really isn’t invincible. She also needs to encounter an opponent who is strong enough to actually oppose her - hopefully the same opponent that beat her that time too. And it needs to be a real opponent, not some robot that caught her napping.

I’m still hanging onto hope that things will turn around, but we’re already 9 episodes in (actually 10, but I haven’t had time to watch the episode 10 raw yet) and while things feel like they’ve improved a bit, it’s still a far cry from where people were hoping it would be. It’s starting to get frustrating enough that I’m considering just dropping it, but I’ve got a significant emotional investment in the whole thing now so I’ll probably continue watching and hoping. There’s still a heck of a lot of potential remaining though. They could turn things around in the space of an episode. I sincerely hope they do.