Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS Episode 05
魔法少女リリカルなのはStrikerS（ストライカーズ）Ep. 05

SPOILER Summary: As the helicopter carrying the rookies and Nanoha approach the train that is currently under attack by Gadgets, looking for the Relic, Caro thinks back to her childhood when she was forced to leave her village by tribal elders afraid of her power. Nanoha sees her nervousness and brings Caro back to reality, assuring Caro that things will be OK and that Nanoha and the others will still be there for her. Because a group of flying Gadgets are providing cover for the ground Gadget units, Nanoha leaves the helicopter to clear the sky. Fate, who had managed to make it to a parking lot, transforms to her battle uniform and flies to meet Nanoha. The two soon clear the sky of all aerial Gadgets, giving clearance for the two rookie members of the Stars Squadron (Subaru and Tia, for whom Captain Nanoha is their squadron commander) to dispatch as well as the two rookie members of the Lightning Squadron (Elio and Caro, led by Captain Fate). Rein with oversee things locally while Hayate leads things from the Command Center.

Subaru and Tia land on the train and discover that their new Devices, while similar to their previous ones, are indeed much superior. Subaru has two Devices (her skates and her gauntlet) which sync perfectly and even instinctively react to situations when needed. Both Subaru and Tia manage to take out the Gadgets in their area. However, Caro and Elio run into a new design Gadget. As such, its AMF nullifies both of their magic, forcing Elio to engage in melee combat. Caro sees this and Elio is not doing well. She thinks back to when the brass at the Time-Space Bureau had basically rejected her, only to have Fate take her under her wing. As such, she wants to be able to do something.

Fried’s fire-based attack does nothing to the Gadget and it soon has Elio unconsious and flying out of the train car. Caro leaps after him, and as they gain distance from the Gadget, her magic returns and she’s able to catch him with her powers. She then apologizes to Fried for keeping him sealed, then releases him. Friedrich, instead of being a mini-dragon, is in fact a large, silver dragon. He has Elio and Caro on his back and Caro has him attack the Gadget again, but it fails. Elio, who’d regained consciousness, understands why the attack failed, and asks Caro to help him. She agrees and he launches himself back into the fight, with Caro casting a powerful enhancement spell on his Device, increasing its melee capability. He is then able to destroy the Gadget. As Subaru and Tia secured the Relic and there are no more Gadgets, the mission is a success.

Elsewhere in a lab, a scientist observes all of this and is asked about the Relic. While he wants the Relic, gaining all this data on the girls and Elio was more than adequate. He refers to them all (Fate and Nanoha included) as living and moving remnants of Project F, something he also wants to obtain.

Thoughts: I hate henshin sequences for the most part. I especially hate them otaku mahou shoujo titles because it means a lot of time-wasting, fanservice filler within the episode. Now take this series, which has not one, not two but FIVE girls that have to get naked, y’all! Because one of our members is a boy, well we can’t totally discriminate, but we know that most of you otaku aren’t fapping to naked boys, so we’ll makes his henshin moment the fastest. What really annoys me (beyond the simple fact that you couldn’t watch this on your laptop while waiting at the doctor’s office or the mechanic’s shop) is that for four episodes, we didn’t need any stinking henshin sequences. Indeed, Nanoha and others transformed from normal uniforms to battle uniforms without all the fanfare. I know that henshin is an expected part of the mahou shoujo genre, but I don’t have to like it.

What did I like? Well, I liked the bit of character development for Caro. Making her pink-haired not only adds to her cuteness factor, but also makes what happened to her feel more tragic. I loved how Fate basically takes Caro under her wing when the Time-Space Bureau people seemed to poo-poo Caro for the most part.

I like how it appears that Nanoha will have a squadron and Fate one as well. That makes her apology to Elio and Caro in the previous episode make more sense. She’s their squadron commander (and apparently has the rank of Captain as well, though she mainly uses “Enforcer”). It will be interesting to see how the Knights break down between this new Stars Squadron and Lightning Squadron.