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Dated 14 June 2015: I am eagerly looking forward to the next episode of Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha ViVid for once

Vivio
Vivio's heterochromia is excessive.

The first 10 episodes of Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha ViVid essentially went by as background noise because I "watched" them without actually paying much attention. For example, when underboob nun appeared in her red cropped habit last episode, I didn't realize she was the nun from the previous episode because her habit in that episode was blue instead of red. Oh, and it didn't leave her half-naked. I'm barely following Nanoha ViVid because I don't know any of the characters (sort of a Catch-22, that), I can't remember anything from the previous series (StrikerS), and I think this whole tournament thing is rather pointless.

Victoria and Chantez
I wonder if this is the same church Ciel goes to?

You see, I'm one of those jokers who thinks the best season of Nanoha was First Nanoha (technically I think the best "season" was the second half of the first season and the first half of A's). StrikerS was a complete drag because it seemed to consist mostly of tensionless training sessions in a conveniently deserted urban ghost town occasionally interrupted by fights with pregnant clones. Then years went by, so don't expect me to remember who all the Numbers are after all this time. Hell, I've spent most of ViVid wondering if Bardiche is going to talk or if something happened to the voice actor. My highlight thus far was seeing FATE TESTAROSSA drive a minivan.

Corona
Never bring a knife to a starlight breaker fight.

But all this changes next episode because Corona is fighting Einhart. Or more accurately, Corona is going to get fuckin' WORKED by Einhart. Hell, I give it a 50/50 chance that Einhart overboosts some attack, momentarily unleashes DARK MAMIKO, and puts Corona into a coma so the cour can come to a close with at least a little drama. I'm pretty sure extensive ViVid spoilers ought to be readily available. The anime is based on a manga, isn't it? Anyway, Corona is the shrimpy kid who pulled a cake knife on her opponent in an alley during an intermurals match. It was a funny enough image to distinguish her from the other more boringer characters.

Einhart and Asteion
Yes, Einhart's magical jobbie is a kitten.

Anyway, Corona's tournament fight against Einhart continues in the upcoming episode. Einhart was set up early on as the evil so-and-so reincarnated as a little girl who smokes the dog shit out of honorable decent characters not named Nanoha or Fate. But then everyone ganged up on Einhart and befriended the Hell out her so she (just like everybody else in the series) has done fuck all since. I don't know how many more episodes of Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha ViVid are left, and I don't know any of the manga spoilers, so I get to at least anticipate one episode of this otherwise boring series because it'll probably feature a MAMIKORE beat down as Einhart loses her cool, lets a little Old Evil leak out, and drags Corona up and down the Thunderdone, maybe forcing all the other characters to pile on in order to take her down. Don't worry, I'm sure Corona will be fine after some mild convalescing, and Einhart will be sorry for what she did.

Dated 3 July 2015: Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha ViVid sure had a lot less plot than I was expecting

Nanoha and Raising Heart
Raising Heart gets to be in the show, but Bardiche didn't have a single line.

As long as they keep making more Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha anime I'll keep watching them, providing the shows are not complete shite. I'll even keep watching even if Nanoha and Fate aren't in the show anymore, even if it barely qualifies as mahou shoujo anymore, and even if it stops being lyrical. Once a franchise I'm following gets enough momentum, I'll pretty much keep watching new installments. Well, providing the anime continues to hit above the Cosprayers Line, that is.

Vivio, Nanoha, and Fate
Nanoha doesn't always tell Fate everything.

This is pretty much how I ended up watching all of Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha ViVid. It's not good by any means, but it's particularly bad either. Every episode of Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha ViVid seems content to underachieve with bloop singles, never swinging for the fences like its early predecessors. Unfortunately, I can remember approximately fuck all from the previous installment, Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS (it's been eight years!) and I don't read any of the Nanoha manga, so I didn't know hardly any of the ViVid characters at all.

Corona
"I said, I, I, ah ah ah, I, I want the knife."

It turns out it's not actually necessary to know any of the Nanoha ViVid characters, because there's also no plot and the anime doesn't have an ending. In fact, the anime didn't even try to fake a non-ending ending; it just drops off where I presume it left off in the manga and follows up with a low-effort clip show summarizing most of the Einhart (Einhard, whatever) moments from the 12-episode run, pretty much for no reason.

Nove and Einhart
Ass shot.

Speaking of whom, Einhart starts the show as the putative villain. She uses ANCIENT BELKA magic and picks fights with random people. With the potential for DARK MAMIKO in the wings, so far so good. But then she's hit with the most powerful attack in the Nanoha universe, Friendship, and the series decides to coast from there and cruise through the Onsen Episode, Training Sequence, and Tournament Arc checkpoints.

Chantez and Victoria
The Chantez Series? They've been completed?

Training sequences were the bane of StrikerS, and aren't much better in ViVid, but at least they don't seem to drag out endlessly. Unfortunately, essentially none of the tournament battles in Nanoha ViVid save the Corona v. Einhart bout mattered to me because I didn't know any of the characters and thus didn't care who won or lost. But the ViVid tournament arc doesn't even finish during the course of the season. I suppose if and when someone scrapes together some more dirty Nanoha money, perhaps we'll see the end of the tournament in a split cour. We'll still need some sort of plot for the show, though. Is it too late for Einhart to start ripping people's heads off? What if someone kills her kitten?

Dated 25 September 2016: Looking forward to autumn 2016 anime

Kogane
Who's ready for more BBK/BRNK faces?

There are a surprising number of shows I'm interested in scheduled for autumn 2016. Most of these are sequels of some sort, but there are a few new properties that have caught my eye. Notably, I've yet to do any concerted investigating into the upcoming season, so the following only include titles that I noticed at some point and deemed worthy of preemptively annotating in my anime spreadsheet.

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Dated 24 October 2016: Autumn 2016 progress report: So far, so good

Shizuru, Kinoa, Kogane, and Raijoudou
Do not question Shizuru's methods.

Bubuki Buranki: Hoshi no Kyojin leads the shows I'm watching this season. I was a bit skeptical about bringing Kaoruko back to the show after being absent for essentially all of the first season, but I think it works with her as a mouthy antagonist. I particularly hope we'll get to see her get stomped by Reoko.

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Dated 31 October 2016: Magikal girls except dark is okay, but it's no magikal girls except brutally violent

Rinne
And she never smiled again.

I think we were all expecting Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku to be this season's magikal girl bloodbath. Indeed, its opening scene features a girl surrounded by bloodied corpses. However, with Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku taking its sweet time getting to the fireworks factory, ViVid Strike! has effectively beaten it to the, uh, punch.

Rinne
At least she isn't hanging off the edge of a coffin.

ViVid Stike! is a bit of a departure from most mahou shoujo fare due to how it has evolved into a mixed martial arts tournament show from its Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha roots, and Nanoha itself was already a bit of a departure from more traditional mahou shoujo standards. So really, events from episodes four and five should probably not surprise anyone, but even I was only half kidding when I ventured, "Who knew a show about mahou shoujo MMA could be so violent?"

Rinne
Rinne didn't even bother putting on shoes before skipping town.

If you're a fan of revenge fantasies and little girls beating the Bejesus out of people who probably don't even believe in Bejesus, then ViVid Strike! is the show for you. I'm going to make a dubious leap and compare ViVid Strike! to Shakespeare by reminding y'all that revenge tragedies are an accepted staple of classic theater, so there ought to be a place in this world for mahou shoujo revenge anime. I.e., those cunts had it coming.

Chantez, Vivio, and Fuuka.
Hey, it's the underboob nun. (Underboob sold separately.)

These events might just be a one-off thing before ViVid Strike! settles into training montage doldrums and some sort of tournament which never completes, same as its Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha ViVid prequel, but episode five did springboard off episode four to give us the franchise's first (I'm pretty sure) attempted rape, so we might not be quite done with exploring how shitty some of these girls' lives can get.

Jill, Rinne, and Sarah's older brother
Not Shirou also had it coming.

Bear in mind, though, that despite the brutality depicted so far, we're still quite a ways below the mark set by the original Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha anime. Yes, a lot of what I'm referring to happened off-screen (although still within earshot), but I'm going to go ahead and say that—as shitty as Rinne's life has been—Fate Testarossa shitty childhood is still way worse than anything Rinne has gone through. Well, based on what we know so far, anyway.

Dated 12 December 2016: Autumn 2016 mahou shoujo SITREP

Jill and Rinne
You can tell this is a flashback because Rinne has barely any weight on that thing.

I'm following five mahou shoujo anime this season. Arguably, I'm following six if you include Brave Witches, but I'm not counting that one here. Surprisingly, ViVid Strike! is comfortably on top of these five, with Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku (Magical Girl Raising Project) second, and Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure! (Maho Girls Precure!) bringing up the rear. At least that's how the ranking looks if you count separately the two shorts: Mahou Shoujo Nante Mouiidesukara. Second Season and Nazotokine.

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