Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha EXCEEDS: Gun Blaze Vengeance

I think it's time to apologize to Force. Nanoha EXCEEDS exceeded the amount of stuff you can throw to a wall without anything sticking, every single part of this series sucks so much. It clearly has no passion whatsoever, this isn't a revival for Nanoha, this is a desecration of it's corpse. Given what little I've seen from the manga, EXCEEDS problem is not that Tsuzuki cannot be bothered to write anything decent anymore, but King Record and Bushiroad being so stingy that some of the old characters do not even have voices. The old characters are so underutilized that you could remove them and you would barely be losing anything, in fact, this series would probably prefer to be an actual original show so they don't have to spend time showing Fate and Nanoha. It's actually pretty easy to find a good balance between the new characters and the old ones, after all, StrikerS exists and it did exactly that, we met new characters, they were developed, we saw them train and take on real action later on while at the same time giving a respectable amount of screen time to Nanoha, Fate and Hayate, hell, that season had the best character arc for Nanoha. EXCEEDS is too focused on doing what amounts to nothing, Shiina is the new OC who can fight against every opponent with no training whatsoever and is friends with everyone. Eiji and Mana are the best of the new characters, which is not only not saying much, but because the show is half-baked in every single area, that means they also are underdeveloped. They have an interesting concept about some random unfulfilled guy finding this man-eating alien and having some kind of ideal platonic romance, while working towards their goal of drugging everyone. This, of course, is not explored enough because they don't have much screentime aside from their backstory episode and their battle against the main characters, they surely have more potential than what they showed. Instead, we are more focused on Towa and her gacha girlfriends, the problem with Towa's plot is very simple, this had the potential sucked out of it from the get go by making Towa become Shiina's friend from the get go, maybe I'm asking for something a little repetitive given how the other seasons were, but the formula the series has been working on was right there, they should have started as enemies, have some fights until they understand each other and then can join forces to fight against the real bad guys, but by having her becoming Shiina's friend from day 1 you get the big total of like 1 battle between them, which only happens because of a misunderstanding. Towa's gacha girlfriends are genuinely a waste of space, despite having powers they aren't relevant, but they are given more screentime than Fate and Nanoha, really, they basically did nothing aside from the one girl who can use spiders, those spiders could do so many different things all other powers look useless, I call them "gacha" because their designs look as if they were designed to appear in some new Nanoha gacha that hasn't come out yet and most likely to promote their seiyuu. Remember Signum, Vita, Shamal and Zafira? Well, they are jpgs across the entire run, they don't even have a voice and the most you can see them doing is blinking, they are probably asking for help. Nanoha and Fate do their cameos to make old fans happy and to sell merchandise with them, but while they get some action most of it is so lifeless, Nanoha didn't even scream Divine Buster once, they cannot pay a little more to Yukari Tamura after all, they also changed Rising Heart and Bardiche's original voices, so they speak in Japanese now. I think the most offensive part of their appearance are their transformations, now, Nanoha has to put on her burqa while transforming, removing naked transformations, which had been there across the entire franchise, it's terrible, let alone the fact that it doesn't even take the time to showcase Rising Heart and Bardiche assembling themselves. Remember cartridges? They aren't even mentioned. They couldn't do a single thing right. While Force can be considered a blight on the franchise, it at least tried to do something Nanoha, this anime is not even trying, it's so bland and half-baked that I don't think it is reviving the interest in anything aside from selling some Fate and Nanoha acrylic stands and dakimakuras. Thank you for reading.

EXCEEDS is both a great show and a horrible one. It is the embodiment of what happens when you have too many ideas, don't have enough time and too many expectations to fill. Let's break it down. 1. 1st episode expectations- The 1st episode and also to a lesser extent the 2nd. Host amazing ideas, present a compelling narrative, have genuinely some touching moments and you feel each and every aspect of the show. It also helps introduce us to this new but familiar world that the show takes place in as it is a setting of basically japan but with monsters, which is cool enough to hold at least some interest. Unfortunately since the 1st and 2nd episodes set such high standards the rest of the show is held back from being better since it feels more appropriate for later. 2. Character exceucution- Without getting into spoilers as I'd like this review to be on the merits of watching the show. The only characters I cared for was Shiina and Nanoha. Both are fun, energetic and want to help people, basically two peas in a pod. They make fun protagonists that feel like they can grow and keep everything moving. However, most other characters feel like they are cliche after cliche. Which just makes the show feel fine, but telling where directions go here or there. 3. We've been here before- Gun Blaze Vengeance, is a show that is basically what if Nanoha Force + StrikerS had a baby but without the effort. That sounds a bit harsh but it is true. The technology and powers shown are basically the eclipse virus from Force, while the concept is closer in execution to StrikerS. Additionally, since it is following the movie continuity the power level had to be adjusted IN THE MANGA making it strange about why Nanoha or Fate struggle in these (for them) reasonably tame scenarios. 4. Odd Recasting- Alright this is a nitpick but it was something I noticed IMMEDIATELY when Raising heart spoke. They have a new VA, which did play them before so it isn't like someone completely new. But... it feels off, since they mostly speak in Japanese now and they sound more like the rest of the cast just robot. One charm of Nanoha was being able to tell which style something was by just the language they speak, but that is lost here. Now there could be a reason for it, maybe Raising Heart and Bardiche swapped language modules so the people of this world could understand them? But this is speculation and doesn't feel very particular. 5. Budget - Alright elephant in the room. I am a whole hearted supporter of the 'animation is the least relevant part of an animated show' camp. But... they have been working on this supposedly for 5 years aprox. minimum. So, when it seems like everything past episode 1 feels rushed yeah, Imma be a bit upset. Clearly the manga (although campy) is where most of the effort is actually going. Although, I'll give them some benefit, it still looks reasonably like the movies, not quite, but the art style is there and there was clear passion of the show going into it. So at least something good came out of this. Where do we go from here? I feel like supporting this is the right move. Since obviously, if Nanoha doesn't get watched we won't get more, but this just feels like a waste of my time a bit to actually watch. I hope they get another chance at a new show or other style of property as I did quite enjoy the movies and their fun adaptations of all the extra-canonical things. What could be fun is a Vivid Strike sequel or even something like exceeds but using the original timeline? See the events the led up to strikers or even just retcon forces and adapt something that should take place then. There are plenty of options still out there for the series. Just maybe GBV wasn't the spark they were hoping it would be.

I kind of like how the story flowed although it did felt a bit "rushed" for me. They did only have 12 episodes. Nanoha and Fate did have a rather fair exposure for some action but I think I would have liked it more if it had a sort of training episodes like how StrikerS had new recruits do some training before getting a taste of actual combat. I do understand that Shiina is already a sort of bounty hunter so she already have experience of actual combat but I don't thin she has experience of having someone as a commanding officer like Hayate, Nanoha and Fate. I might recommend this but it will depend once I ask what the persons likes when it comes to anime