Rinne did nothing wrong.
Impression
A-are they dead…?
.
I imagine that this episode will be quite divisive. I also imagine that much of what I’m about to say may or may not just be in the heat of the moment, and that after a night’s sleep my views may be different. But to be honest, I don’t think I would even been able to sleep well if that episode didn’t end the way it did. I’m not saying that I wanted to see all that blood or for Rinne to murder injure them in cold blood to that extent, but I am glad there was some sort of catharsis. I hate bullying so much. I hate it. If I made a list of the things I would hate to see the most in anime, the first would be NTR and the second would be bullying. And on top of that, those pieces of shit were bullying best girl. You have no idea how pissed I was throughout that entire second half. I can’t remember the last time I got so angry, and even now I’m feeling extremely ruffled. I’m tired, I have to get up early tomorrow and all I can feel are the nail marks on my palms from having balled my hands into fists as I watched Rinne suffer. So long as those three bitches are still alive, I think they deserved it. Rinne did nothing wrong.
Let me clarify that further. I’m not saying she’s right. It cannot possibly be the right thing to do to half-kill your bullies in return for them having bullied you. But firstly, it’s not like she knew any other way to respond. Ignoring them and just bearing the harassment only went so far, because they just never stopped – and Rinne did her best until the very last straw. Even when those cunts dropped Scuderia into the toilet, she still didn’t retaliate at that point. And then there’s the fact that she was most likely unable to control her strength. Add that to how she’s had no counselling or anyone to talk to, not least of all her parents whom she didn’t want to let down, and the result is that she blames everything onto herself instead of her bullies and comes to the conclusion that she has to clinically remove the root of her problems.
It’s not right and she needs help. But while I can’t condone her actions, I can really, really understand. Think about it. If you were placed in the exact same situation, at that moment, what would you have done? If you were unable to say goodbye to someone you loved more than anyone else in the world, who had cared for you and sacrificed so much for your sake – if you were unable to go to see them right before they died, purely because of some little shits who had been plaguing your life for months up until that point, can you genuinely say that you wouldn’t have snapped and reacted the same way? I honestly don’t think I can. Fuck, I’m still so mad. Everything else up until that final encounter in the toilet I was already agonised by. But them stopping Rinne from seeing her grandfather one last time, smashing her phone so that her mother can’t contact her and knocking her out so that there was no chance of her making it was absolutely unforgivable. Did those broken bones and head injuries hurt? Good. Rinne felt more pain than that.
In the end, I feel exactly the same way as I did this time last week. I want to hug Rinne and never let go. She’s still my best girl, and I still love her to bits. I love her even more now, actually, because I don’t think she’s been getting enough of that. It’s cruel to see no-one protect her smile and for her to turn into what she is today as a result. Her expression after enacting justice reminded me of Nanoha right before she uses a Divine Buster. Especially that time in StrikerS when she befriended Teana. It’s definitely a Seven Arcs face. Except Rinne isn’t too clear on how befriending is supposed to work. What I’m kind of surprised by is how she’s still… okay, if you know what I mean. I’m sure she had to transfer schools, but it doesn’t seem like she’s had to live with many consequences in the aftermath. Nove might have her sources, but was it something that was covered up? Did her talent and rising status somehow mean it didn’t really matter anymore? Was it going to be bad for the school as well if it was discovered that they didn’t act at all before things got worse?
Fuck. I’m not going to be able to stop thinking about this episode for the whole of tomorrow now. And I have work to do. I’d like to finish by gifting you all with this cute Rinne (she’s always cute, but this one especially so) as it’s Halloween soon. No need to worry, she’s harmless. I promise.
Was so HARD TO WATCH.
Really I have many things to say about this, Rinne is practically reverse Fate, I like the way it was developed, she was a friendly and sociable girl and had a family that loved her but events took a dark tone, I mean … I said “there comes a berserker punch in the stomach” but when she broke her arm first thing I thought was “OH SHIT”. I think we all wanted that but was more brutal than anyone had expected, anyways felt satisfactory (I guess that does not count as befriends (?)). I want to see how Fukka react to this.
It’s funny when I saw people reactions saying it was unrealistic because “neither the parents nor the teachers noticed the bullyng”. This is one of the bigger problems against the bullyng, the victim doesnt say anything or teachers dont believe that it was THAT serious as he/she says.
Rinne is like White Fate. You know, I thought she’d be stopped. The shock factor was really high, not only from the broken arm but also the dent in the lockers from that girl’s head being crushed against it. And all that blood as well. It did feel satisfactory. I can’t remember how many times I’ve rewatched it. Whenever I watch it as a standalone clip I start to feel a little sorry for them, but whenever I watch the whole second half I feel zero remorse.
Rinne didn’t want to tell her parents, clearly. Not sure about the teachers – I guess people have a point there given that her desk and shoes were slashed, and that they drenched her in water in the toilets. I’m getting angry just typing this out.
I would have snapped long before Rinne did. That was my response to bullies at the time: since they’d proven they weren’t going to obey the rules, that meant they didn’t get to be protected by the rules either. Bringing it to the attention of authority rarely brought down any sort of punishment that the people in question recognized as being punitive, and was equally ineffective at stopping it. On the other hand, convincing them that I didn’t play by their rules and that I would HURT them if they messed with me, regardless of whether I would get in trouble for doing so or not, turned out very effective at convincing such people to leave me alone.
It’s not generally considered good advice, but it’s what I found worked for me.
Anyway. If those three unmentionable girls who bullied Rinne are still alive, then yeah, they got what they had coming. I’m not entirely sure they are still alive (that last stomp on the head sounded way too crunchy for me to feel good about it), but hopefully we’ll find out in the near future. The problem now is that Rinne has not gone on to handle things constructively from this incident forward. Rinne has chosen to become strong enough to ensure that she can never lose what’s important to her again (common theme), but she’s also bundled up all of her raw, bleeding emotions from everything that happened here and armored them in ice to try and keep herself from being hurt again. Whenever something pokes through that ice, like Fuka did, Rinne lashes out wildly, desperately, trying to get whatever is prodding her wounds AWAY from her so that she can seal her emotions away again and stop hurting.
She needs therapy. She really does. What she’s doing to herself is super unhealthy, and in the process, in the eyes of the people she fights, she’s becoming very much a bully herself. Her motivation may be completely different, but the girls whose souls she’s crushed don’t see that.
It’s not the morally right advice to give. But I’d say it’s pretty good in that it works, and that’s what matters at that stage. Once you leave school, you realise that any punishment a school can dish out is relatively tame compared to what the real world throws at you if you fuck up (e.g. debt, eviction, repossession, unemployment).
I wonder whether they’ll ever reveal to us whether they’re alive. I’m pretty sure they were in the Strike Arts club too, and I can see them trying to get revenge by chasing after Rinne. Not that they’ll ever be able to succeed given her present strength and influence. To continue your ice analogy, I agree that it was her who shelled herself over but I have a bad feeling that Jill was responsible for sticking her in a freezer, locking the door and throwing away the key.
Rinne needs hugs. And head-pats. Also maybe befriending.
What I am interested in right now, is why does Rin claim that the upcoming Winter tournament will be her last tournament? Could it be that she actually killed those girls, and as result needs to serve in the TSAB as part of her rehabilitation?
I’m not actually sure. It might be something they expand on in the future. I briefly entertained the thought of her exceeding the U15 age limit, but they’re still supposed to be lolis even though a couple of years have passed since ViVid.
Whether or not she killed her bullies is also up for debate. My first instinct is to doubt it, but all that blood is worrying. And there were crunching noises when she stomped on the ringleader’s head. I guess she could have broken her entire face instead of her skull… but that’s not much better. I’m trying to think if there’s any precedent… I can’t remember whether there was any blood when Fate was being abused in the first season. I think there were scars on her body?
I’m also not sure the TSAB is the best place for rehab! Now I’m laughing at the thought of Nanoha sagely telling Rinne that she would have fucked up those bullies much earlier than Rinne did. Then again, all she did as a kid was to give Arisa a good slap. It might be why Rinne got into Strike Arts actually – so that there was some sort of healthy(?) outlet for her strength.
I think Rinne is actually younger than Einhart by one year if I am not wrong, or at the same age as Einhart. So, there’s probably another reason why the Winter tournament is suppose to be Rinne’s last U15 tournament.
There was a precedence for all that blood though. If memory served, Nanoha was bleeding towards the end of the opening fight in As when Vita jumped her (I might be wrong though). And StrikerS did show that Nanoha bled out very, very badly due to Linker Core over-exertion during her teenage years, and there’s also the scene where Subaru arrives to try to rescue Ginja only to find out that three combat Cyborgs, two of whom were Nove and Cinque beat her sister to a bleeding pulp.
I suspect whether the TSAB is a good place for rehab, depends on who your commander is during Rehab. Fate was under the command of Admiral Lindy Harlowan, her adoptive mother during her first few years with the TSAB, and I believe she was under the command of Admiral Chrono for a short while (from the StrikerS manga) before becoming a full fledged Enforcer. Meanwhile, it seems Hayate is overseeing Lutecia’s rehabilitation and it appears that Lutecia has picked up quite a few of Hayate’s spells. From what little we see of Hayate’s working relationship with Lutecia from Vivid when she asked Lutecia to trace the Witch who was spying on the gathering of descendants of Ancient Belkan Lords after Einhart’s fight with Sieglinde, it is clear they have a very warm, mentor-like relationship – I have a suspicion Hayate has been heavily involved in the 360 degree switch in Lutecia’s personality in four years.
And yes, I suspect Nanoha would have told Rinne that slapping one of the bullies at the earliest possible moment would have been an effective way to head-off further confrontations. Except Arisa was only one girl, and Rinne was set upon by a posse of three girls with no Nanoha equivalent to defend her. Still, if Rinne has to serve in the TSAB for her crimes and this service is the reason why Rinne’s last tournament is the upcoming Winter tournament, this might be the backdoor that changes the setting from civilian girls MMA back to the military mecha meets Mahou Shoujo anime that was the Nanoha-verse main draw until the awful writing in Nanoha Force wrote that part of the Nanoha-verse into a hole. But really, Rinne could use Nanoha as an instructor. Or at least, a few rounds getting “befriended” by Sieglinde Jeremiah – that did wonders for Einhart.
There is no duty to accept being abused. Self-defense is a right that even children have. When your back is to the wall, even lethal force is morally justified. People look at childhood years with a fondness, when they forget it is a surprisingly brutal thing. Things children do, could get grown adults shot without penalty of law.
In Vivid, I never felt any of the darkness that the other Nanoha series have always had a dab of. I raged when Fate was abused by her mother. I screamed EXTERMINATUS when Quatra gloated as Vivio begged for her mother to save her. I can’t say I’m unhappy to see it finally rear its head in Vivid.
Also, judging by how the Nanoha fandom usually goes, it kinda makes me chuckle to think of these bullies getting the h-doujin treatment.
That’s what I meant last week when I said that Strike felt closer to Nanoha, A’s and StrikerS than it did ViVid, the irony being that it’s derived from ViVid. Fate being tortured was the point when Nanoha stopped being a bog-standard magical girl series and started becoming the well-recognised genre changer it is today.
I haven’t checked, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was already some NSFW Pixiv artwork of those three. It’s a funny thought, but I hate them so much that I’m not even interested in looking for their lewds.
Yup, a little darkness goes a long way. Abusing kids is usually cruise control for establishing villainy. I dunno why, but in Nanohaverse it doesn’t feel as cheap as in some other series. Is it the contrast between the very light slice-of-life side of Nanoha and those extremely dark moments being so stark? We all know everything will be ok in the end, but the characters are also so endearing to us, that we literally hate to see them suffer.
But alot of people hated Vivid because Vivid was so free of suffering that to many people, it was just too boring.The highest stakes in Vivid were well-off girls from ancient bloodlines angsting over the downsides of winning the Superpower lottery from their ancestors.
Vivid was a manga first. Honestly, I didn’t miss the dark in the manga. But I always just thought of VIvid as a cute throwaway story in the Nanohaverse, which was fine as Vivio had already suffered enough in StrikerS. Now it feels like a proper Nanoha series though.
I do agree with your point that Vivio had suffered enough in StrikerS, that a story about Vivio’s happy childhood is rather satisfying from that perspective. The effect probably would be stronger if you watched the last few episodes of StrikerS and then watched the first episode of VIvid that paints a thorough picture of just how functional, wonderful and warm Vivio’s family life is in Vivid.
The problem though, is that for a period of about three years, especially with no news of the Third Movie in sight and the cancellation of Force, Vivid was the only thing besides Innocence (which takes Vivid and goes even further into the no-one suffers spectrum of story-telling) that was ongoing in the Nanoha-verse.
The paradox about Vivid was that while it didn’t share the tone of a “proper” Nanoha series, ,many of its’ new characters could have very easily been key cast-members in a “proper” Nanoha series. For example, Sieglinde Eremiah, with her more than half a millennium worth of memory of battles and an auto-defense system she barely has control over when some level of her consciousness senses that her life is in danger inherited from her ancestors, is just the kind of new character that might have been expected in a serious Nanoha show.