I’ve long wondered: Why does the Mistress of the Night Sky require a whole phalanx of guardian knights when she’s rated SS?

And Chapter 10 of the StrikerS manga answered my question most satisfactorily: not all Ss are equal, there’s Ground Combat S, Air Combat S and composite S. Hayate’s SS rank is a composite rank based on her staggering amount of mana but she won’t be rated highly for either ground melee combat or air combat. LOL at her speculation that, out of the whole Riot Six personnel, she’d only be able to beat Caro. And then again maybe not. LOLOL. In essence, she’s like a hugely powerful artillery platform, excellent at dealing death and destruction long range but will be in a lot of trouble if engaged up close even by lightly armed infantry.

Which reinforces zwei my belief that Yagami Hayate’s real power lies in her political streetfighting skills. Despite barely concealed opposition from TSAB Army HQ and rather more insidious opposition from the TSAB High Council floating brain troika, she carefully built the support she needed from the Saint Church and Inter-Dimensional Navy, leveraging on her Belkan heritage and family ties respectively, to establish Riot Force Six.

StrikerS was, for me, intensely political; it’s not party political but it had a clear bureaucratic politics angle to it. Likewise I also find MariMite intensely political, especially in the encounters between the two above-mentioned powers of the school, in terms of the very broad definition of politics by Harold Lasswell: "Politics is who gets what, when, and how."

And the "what" of the MariMite universe are the members of the Yamayurikai themselves. The souer relations within the Rose families overdetermine the rites and rights of succession. And the Lilian Newspaper’s main preoccupation, far from being some kind of putative Fourth Estate, is to be the main source of Rosa news and organizer of Rosa events. Which is sometimes at odds with the personal feelings of the Roses themselves.

In this season I’ve enjoyed seeing how much Mami has come into her (though I do miss her terrorizing Minako) exemplified in how confidently she talked to the whole council on her own. But also heartily approving of her cutting and pasting last year’s plan for this year! Now, for great staff work, she just needs to be more judicious with doing the Find And Replace.

©2012 hontou ni sou omou?. All Rights Reserved.

In a timely note, DKellis posed and explored a fascinating question: Could Nanoha refuse to join the TSAB?

Join the TSAB! Travel to exotic, distant worlds, meet exciting, unusual people and *befriend* them.

My initial reaction was: Why the heck wouldn’t she join?

I agree with the first part of DKellis’ reasoning, that:

The TSAB provides substantial support and resources, as well as a convenient way for the protagonists to meet and work together as a team: because they are ordered to.

The TSAB gives Nanoha and her merry band the legal right and the logistical might to go out and blow stuff up for great justice. But I disagree with the latter part and call on his analogy between the TSAB and Star Trek’s Federation because it seems to me that, like the Federation, the heroes seem to have a lot of autonomy; they don’t seem overly worried about being outright insubordinate which is normally a military death penalty offence in times of civil emergency or war.

This wasn’t really an issue in the first season; then Nanoha and Yuuno were civilian associates. Or in A’s; Lindy would always cover for them. But the issue comes into its own in StrikerS where there’s some pretty lovely bureaucratic politicking between the group led by Chibi-Tanuki Hayate, Carim and Chrono (Church/Navy) vs Regius (Army), the subtlety of which I have not seen since the second season of Stand Alone Complex. Hayate’s relentless quest for the truth ruffles the feathers of some pretty big shots, uncovering conspiracy and corruption all the way to the top of the TSAB. Take that, Section 31!

It seemed to me that the cast wanted to Do The Right Thing and were willing to go against the higher-ups of the TSAB in order to save the values that the TSAB was supposed to stand for. The series was weighed down by huge expectations, cast bloat, problematic pacing, dodgy art and animation (in the TV broadcast), the howling of lolicons (LOLOLOL) and Not Enough Signum-neesan but, together with NxF, this aspect of the series really endeared itself to me.

To pose DKellis’ question more generally: Can magical girls refuse to be militarized?

The standard Weberian definition of the state is an polity that is able to claim the monopoly of the legitimate use of force. From this perspective, magical girls have to either keep their identities secret or to get some sort of credentials from the state’s organization for the deployment of the legitimate use of force, that is, the military. I suppose Nanoha could have remained a civilian associate (but still licensed by the Main Office nonetheless); it was a bit harder for Fate and Hayate because of how they were performing military service as penance for their criminal records.

Or this was just a brilliant excuse to dress up magical girls in exquisite combat costumes and sexy military uniforms. Just look at Signum-neesan in the No.5J and overcoat in one of my rotating banners. FWOAR.

No real conclusion but in another timely note, the Mar 2009 theme for the Touching War series of seminars is "Women: Armed and Dangerous?"

Full announcement:

TOUCHING WAR: MARCH EVENTS

The Touching War activities I am directing at Lancaster University with the Politics/IR department, under IAS and LU Film Society sponsorship, continue. March’s theme is Women: Armed and Dangerous? Join a new
generation of feminists in international relations to reconsider issues of war and masculinity and the war question for feminists. Events are open to all.

For the schedule through April 2009, see the Touching War website:

http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/events/touchingwar/

Professor Christine Sylvester, Politics/IR

I. ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION AND DEBATE: RECONSIDERING WAR AND MASCULINITY
Thursday 19 March, 4:00-6:00, IAS room 2/3. Wine reception following.
Sponsored by IAS

War has long been viewed by feminists as the ultimate masculine arena of international relations, one that involves women and children mostly as victims of violence, sometimes as combatants, rarely as perpetrators.
This roundtable introduces the theme of Women: Armed and Dangerous? by featuring a mostly new generation of leading international relations analysts interested in probing, challenging, enlarging, and reframing the war and masculinity equation in ways that bring in “women’s” agency and politics.

Participants:

Megan MacKenzie (Women in Public Policy, Harvard). Has interviewed women soldiers in Sierra Leone about their war and post-war experiences. Author of “Securitization and De-securitization: Female Soldiers and the
Construction of the Family,” Security Studies (2009), “De-Securitizing Sex: War Rape and the ‘Radicalization’ of Development in Sierra Leone,” Feminist Journal of International Politics (forthcoming), and co-author
of “Silent Identities: Children Born of War in Sierra Leone” in Charli Carpenter ed. Born of War: Protecting Children Born to Sexual Violence Survivors in Conflict Zones. (2007).

Cristina Masters (Politics, Manchester). Interested in feminism, masculinity and practices of (in)security in international politics, with special attention to the US military and the role of technology in war and security practices. Author of several articles related to this month’s theme, including Femina Sacra and the War on Terror,” Security Dialogue, 2009), and “Bodies of Technology II: Cyborg Soldiers and Militarised Masculinities,” in Rethinking The ‘Man Question’ in International Relations: Sex, Gender, and Violence in International Relations, eds. Jane Parpart and Marysia Zalewski (2008).

Elina Penttinen (Tampere Peace Research Institute). Interested in experiences of war, security, and insecurity as dailiness in women’s lives, and feminist theory about the body and subjectivity. Author of
Globalization, Prostitution, and Sex-Trafficking: Corporeal Politics (2007), “Providing Security: White Western Feminists Protecting “Other” Women,” in Mark Haugaard and Howard Lentner, eds, Hegemony and Power:
Consensus and Coercion in Contemporary Politics (2006), and “Whose Voices Matter: Feminists Stretch the Boundaries of the International Relations Discipline,” in Subhash Durlabhji, ed., Power in focus: Perspectives from Multiple Disciplines (2004).

Laura Sjoberg (Political Science, Virginia Tech). With both a PhD and a JD, she is interested in gender justice in wars, violent women, and gender and international security. Authored Gender, Justice, and the Wars in Iraq (2006) and co-authored Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women’s Violence in Global Politics (2007). General editor of the Gender and Political Violence book series from New York University Press, and
author of “The Gendered Realities of the Immunity Principle: Why Gender Analysis Needs Feminism,” International Studies Quarterly (2006) and “Gendered Torture? Feminist Insights into Abu Ghraib and Gender in the 21st Century,” International Feminist Journal of Politics (2007).

Professor Christine Sylvester (Politics/IR), Seen as raising the war question for feminism and pursuing it in “The Art of War/the War Question in Feminist IR, Millennium: Journal of International Studies (2005). Author of two theory books in the Cambridge series on International Relations, two books on the political economy of Zimbabwe, and lately Art/Museums: International Relations Where We Least Expect It (2009). Author of War, Feminism, and International Relations and editor of Major Works in Feminist International Relations (four volumes), both forthcoming with Routledge.

II. WORKSHOP: THE WAR QUESTION FOR FEMINISM
Friday, March 20, 9:30-5:30, IAS room 2/3. Sponsored by IAS

Many feminists have been disinclined to study the social institution of war, because to study war has seemed to mean accepting it or even endorsing it over feminist goals of peace and war protest. The neglect
of war studies even in feminist international relations is changing rapidly with the advent of a new generation of feminists researching war without necessarily supporting it. This workshop showcases their
thinking about the war question for feminism and enables us to see realms of politics, agency, emotion and physical violence that have been whispered about in the past, or sensationalized in the media, more often
than researched.

9:30-10:00 Christine Sylvester, “Introducing The War Question for Feminism: What Are The Issues?”

10:00-10:30 Elina Penttinen, “The Possibilities of Finding Joy Through Feminist Research on War”
What happens to us as feminist IR writers and researchers when we choose to focus on life, joy and empowerment in places usually seen through feminist lenses as victimizing for women, such as war? I will talk about what I call hopeless feminist problem-making in regard to the war question and look for solutions.

10:30 Break for coffee

10:45-11:15 Discussion led by Megan MacKenzie

11:15- 11:45 Laura Sjoberg “Women’s Sex Crimes in War”
Addresses questions of women’s participation in sexual violence in wartime, particularly their participation in and instigation of genocidal rape. It looks at theoretical and legal implications of women’s sexual violence as well as media and scholarly reactions to those acts.

11:45-12:15 Cristina Masters “Does Homo Sacer have a Sex? Women, the Feminine and War”
An attempt to provoke critical feminist inquiry into the figure of homo sacer in Giorgio Agamben’s philosophy, and reveal how the category may serve to obscure the modalities through which practices of war render
women as bare life in particular ways.

12:15-1:00 Discussion led by Christine Sylvester

1:00-2:15 Lunch

2:15-2:45 Corinna Peniston-Bird (History, Lancaster), Co-author of Contesting Home Defence: Men, Women and the Home Guard in the Second World War (2007), and co-editor of A Soldier and a Woman; Sexual
Integration in the Military (2000).

‘”I’ll be Part and Parcel of the Great British Army”: Women’s Constructions of Service in the ‘Good’ War.”
Takes as its starting place women’s retrospective personal testimony on serving in the British Armed Forces in the Second World War, a periodisation which permits examples to be drawn from the experiences of
female conscripts and volunteers, but as construed from a contemporary perspective.

2:45-3:15 Megan MacKenzie, “Women: Armed and Dangerous in Sierra Leone”
Insights and stories of over fifty female soldiers in Sierra Leone are the foundations of this presentation, which challenges fundamental assumptions about what women “do” during and after conflict.

3:15-3:45 Swati Parashar (Politics/IR Lancaster), Author of “Feminist International Relations and Women Militants: Case Studies from Sri Lanka and Kashmir,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs (2009) and
co-author with Christine Sylvester of “The Contemporary ‘Mahabharata’ and the Many ‘Draupadis’: Bringing Gender to Critical Terrorism Studies, in Critical Terrorism Studies: A New Research Agenda (2009), eds.
Richard Jackson, Marie Breen Smyth, and Jeroen Gunning. She edited Maritime Counter Terrorism: A Pan Asian Perspective(2007) and co-edited Terrorism in South East Asia-Implications for South Asia (2006).

“Militant Women in South Asia: Case Studies from Sri Lanka and Kashmir”
Women as perpetrators, planners and patrons of violent militant activities in the conflicts in Sri Lanka and Kashmir.

3:45-4:00 Break

4:15-4:30 Discussion led by Laura Sjoberg

4:30-5:30 Theorizing the War Question for Feminism -Sylvester, Sjoberg,
MacKenzie, Penttinen, Masters

For information on these and future Touching War events, contact
Professor Christine Sylvester: c.sylvester@lancaster.ac.uk

The Nanoha franchise would be sooo ripe for some discourse analysis. Likewise for Strike Witches. And Simoun.

©2012 hontou ni sou omou?. All Rights Reserved.

She may or may not be intended as a tsundere character, especially with the complete lack of a male love interest for most of the characters… I like her because her interactions with Subaru have lots of potential for comedy

And yuri! The way I see it, her tsundere is directed mostly at Subaru. Which is why I suppose fan works, such as by Ashita wa Docchida, tend to portray her love interest as being… Subaru.

The above official (not fan work) artwork is for the Nanoha StrikerS Sound Stage X, set three years after the events of StrikerS and is focused on Subaru and Teana. The above scene is from Track 5 where Subaru is overjoyed to see her old Basic Military Training and Riot Force Six room mate; Teana, though pleased as well, is megas-embarrassed by Subaru’s exuberance. But given she’s matured and is no longer twin-tailed, her tsun has mellowed a lot.

A lot of her tsun towards Subaru that we saw earlier in StrikerS comes from her irritation at Subaru’s hyper cheerfulness and happy go lucky attitude towards most things. But it’s those aspects of Subaru that she likes too – especially when they envelope her like a warm, comfy but rather tacky-looking blanket. Erica summed it up so well when she reviewed the first volume of the StrikerS manga:

But most of our time is spent with Subaru and Teana… Subaru drives Teana crazy but she can’t get her out of her mind, which sets up Teana as the ever-popular passive-aggressive tsundere.

Which brings me to another example of fandom attributing yuri between two characters. I’m pretty confident that a lot of Konata x Kagamin fandom comes from Kagami’s tsundere towards Konata.

And the staff really knew how to fan the flames of this fan fire too. Like the Kagamin chara CD that just filled with tsundere for Konata, especially the track 100% Nai Nai Nai. Well, I suppose those MEGAMI posters helped too. And that DS game cover. And that PS2 game cover.

Tsundere is often taken to be a sign of female romantic interest in the male harem lead. LET’S BE FRIENDLY and feel the yuri love in tsundere too!

©2012 hontou ni sou omou?. All Rights Reserved.