It's taken years, but we're finally here! The ending to Nanoha Vivid, which seamlessly transitions into the Vivid Strike sequel anime. Fuka is even foreshadowed!
Now all of Nanoha forms a coherent storyline, counting Nanoha-A's-StrikerS-Vivid-Vivid Strike. Reflection and Detonation don't fit in very well to the timeline so they're probably best ignored, and Nanoha Force abruptly ended in the middle of nowhere so it would have been better if it had never happened.
The story is already vast and grand and perfect without those hiccups. Nanoha through to Vivid Strike is wonderful and complete in itself. It's one of the best stories ever told, involving some of the best fictional characters of all time. Both as an anime and as a manga, it's at the top of the world.
There was some sort of drama cd, StrikerS Sound Stage X, that explains Ix's storyline that either hasn't been translated or is so obscure I just haven't seen the translation. Ix shows up a lot in the Vivid manga so I'd love to know what that's all about. Aside from that the story can now be followed from start to finish in wonderful wonderful English.
Because the final chapter flows so perfectly into the larger continuity, it's a much better release than Nanoha Detonation, as I said it would be.
Very few series have been so epic for so long as Nanoha. At this point we're talking Dragon Ball, Naruto or One Piece in scale. Today that epic came to its epic conclusion. What a wonderful journey it's been. Even without Force's continuation, Nanoha will live forever in my heart.
Meanwhile, the USWNT has also been on an epic journey. Winning a touch and go game with England (they never should have been rewarded that penalty kick, what divine justice it was for the goalie to block the shot in the end anyway), we're now in to the world cup final. We've already beaten Sweden once earlier in the tournament so I hope the Netherlands wins today's match, so we have someone new and interesting to play at the very end.
Even without Rapinoe the US women's soccer team can handle anyone. We've taken on all the world's best and beaten them all. The fact that we even had to beat Sweden in the group stage means we had the toughest course of all the teams, and yet here we are all the same. What a great champion of the USA in the midst of our 4th of July holiday weekend. It couldn't have been scripted any better. Just one more game to put the cherry on top.
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