sakura is based on love spells etc, and really i wouldn't call nanohe a mahou-shoujo, more Sci-Fi than that
I find it interesting how the definition for "mahou shoujo" varies between the Japanese and us. For the Japanese, ANY girl that uses magic is automatically eligible for the "magical girl" descriptor as evidenced by Lina and Naga in Magical Battle Arena. Hell, the print in the Bible Black guide states Saeki and her friends as "magical girl" instead of saying magic user/mahou tsukai in their design sketches.
TomoyoViBritannia said: do you REALLY think Sakura can win against Raising Heart?
You know, that possibility would exist were Sakura to actually fight rather than be a normal magical girl. Being able to command personified elemental forces could be considered hideously powerful.
There is no way they would fight. The plot would conspire to somehow have them team up and "befriend" the hell out of a third party.
I see it going about like this:
Random Villain: "Damn it's what's happening?! I can't see anything through all these feathers and flashing lights! It's like someone blew up a flock of pink neon geese in here or something! Wait hold on I think I see--- OH GOD NO!!!"
DschingisKhan said: You know, that possibility would exist were Sakura to actually fight rather than be a normal magical girl. Being able to command personified elemental forces could be considered hideously powerful.
My bet's on Nanoha on account of her superior experience in actual battle as opposed to just capturing Jewel Seeds/Clow Cards/etc. Sakura may have vastly superior flexibility with her cards but she has to be able to move to invoke their powers, and Nanoha's Restrict Lock spell can keep her from moving her arms, effectively neutralizing her completely or at least long enough for the White Devil-brand PINK BEAMS OF DEATH AND PWNAGE to come into play. After that, of course, it's all over.
Sakura can win, but I think it'd require a Magnificent Bastard level of cleverness from her, which may be categorically impossible. Essentially, she needs to win on the first move, through any means necessary.
She could, for example, use a full-power Erase against Raising Heart. The loss of RH's technical support would likely level the battlefield. (Though it would sadden me to see my favorite character die like that. Poor RH.)
On a level more suited to Sakura's personality, and having the support of anime-canon, quietly cast Mirror at the beginning, and have it wait in the wings until it can reflect a Divine Buster or Starlight Breaker, like it did to Shot.
I can't remember if she can layer card effects (I know she can cast 2-3 at the same time, but combining effects IDK.) If she can, then Shot+Sword could probably be a lethal barrier-piercing sniper-type spell. Which would also be totally out of character.
Now if you don't mind, I'm going to stop thinking about a Magnificent Bastard-type magicals, because I keep thinking "Cardcaptor Lelouch" and it's going to give me nightmares.
When I imagine fights, I tend to think of it as a sort of fighting game style check on which have a better AI. So I let them run a few battles at the same difficulty level, comp on comp and check out the results.
Basically, which pourcentage of victory each char has.
My guess is Nanoha would have something like an 80% victory rate if not more...
But that doesn't mean Sakura might not win, all her cards like and want to protect her so she might pop out one of those "last minute" saves that most magical girls can do to win an epic last fight. Sort of like a handicap setting.
Something that I just thought of. Sakura's cards are sentient. Is it at all possible for them to activate themselves without her actively summoning them?
finalagent said: But that doesn't mean Sakura might not win, all her cards like and want to protect her so she might pop out one of those "last minute" saves that most magical girls can do to win an epic last fight. Sort of like a handicap setting.
Sentient Cards vs Sentient Staff. Raising Heart has been known to cast defensive spells for Nanoha when she can't react to an attack in time, so this advantage is essentially neutralized.
ziiv said: If nothing else, Sakura could use the Time card and just disarm Nanoha, ending the fight without any violence.
Disarming Nanoha of her staff doesn't remove her ability to use magic. Remember the training session at the beginning of A's Episode 1? Disarming her might remove a couple of advantages she has, but it wouldn't put her out of the fight by any means.
The card in the movie, the one that took things into nothingness, it was just put under Sakura's control, no? It didn't stop working. The other cards didn't stop working.
What's your point? You think Sakura is really going to use Nothing/Hope/whatever it was called on another human? She'd need to get a killer instinct first and then be provoked into actually wanting to kill Nanoha. And even then, Sakura can't kill what she can't hit. Nanoha's and Raising Heart's defense specializes in evasion, and she can fly at supersonic speeds. Good luck getting a bead on her.
I'm being snarky, not fixing peoples' grammar. Leave that to the grammar nazis.
And anyways, it's only Serious Business if the discussion turns into an arguement. Like this one, from that one Superman vs Goku pic we've got floating around somewhere in here:
Wilren said: I've literally seen blood spilt over this pic.
Couple friends of mine and I were hanging out and saw this. One's a die-hard DBZ fan, the other an equally diehard DC Comics fan.
They started arguing over who would win, eventually coming to blows.
True winner of Goku vs. Superman? Me, because their stupidity left me laughing for almost an hour, and you, because now you also get to have a laugh at their expense. :]
Comartemis said: I'm being snarky, not fixing peoples' grammar. Leave that to the grammar nazis.
And anyways, it's only Serious Business if the discussion turns into an arguement. Like this one, from that one Superman vs Goku pic we've got floating around somewhere in here:
lolol yeah you´re actually right I lol´d at the comment and would like to see something like that.
I also think actually Nanoha would win, I have watched both Nanoha and Sakura and think Sakura Card´s cant win against Overpowered spells coming from Nanoha´s RH.
lolololololol @ Comartemis comment.<- you made my day.
Power isn't everything in a magical girl battle, Ivuan. Sakura's cards grant her a huge array of abilities that Nanoha can't even begin to match; she's too overly-specialized in epic beamrape to be able to conjure fire or make things grow and shrink and manipulate shadows and things like that. If she uses her cards intelligently, Sakura might very well have a good chance of coming out on top, but in terms of pure combat ability Nanoha has her beat in pretty much every category. That's why it's such an interesting match to think about.
With Nasuverse power levels you have to take into account things like the specific natures of the combatants and their abilities (not to start an arguement or anything, but could Arc demolish UBW by deploying her marble phantasm? Would Gae Bolg kill Nero in one hit, or just one of his familiars? Things like that.) before you can even begin to compare them in terms of combat experience and factors like that. With Goku vs Superman it's basically a "who's got bigger muscles" arguement with nothing else to really compare between them besides ki blasts vs laser eyes and stuff.
But with magical girls, especially these two, the arguement can very much be made for either side being stronger based on the differences between the two sides. Flexibility vs Firepower is only one of these; you can also argue Massive Overkill or Teamwork vs Combat Experience and things like that. Take Nanoha vs manga canon Sailor Moon for instance, probably the only magical girl besides Lina Inverse who can out-blast Nanoha by an order of magnitude. These are the things that make these discussions fun to have... right up until people start taking them too seriously, anyways...
Comartemis said: Your tag is empty, artanis. Who is this girl and what makes you think she could pull off such a thing?
Aw hell, L/R FAIL. It's lena_sayers rating:s from Mai-Otome S.ifr. My fansubs decided not to change to the official spelling.
In ep 3 of S.ifr she takes down 4 of the more powerful Otome all at once, and after kicking an overpowered android's ass to the moon and back.
She's more magic-from-tech than magic or magitek like Sakura and Nanoha, though.
As for Lina Inverse, while she can certainly out-blast Nanoha, her more powerful spells are kinda slow, and the big one has the minor side-effect of potentially blowing up the universe.
In terms of RAW power Nanoha outclasses Sakura by thousands of levels, but just like some people alredy posted Sakura had an almost infinite amount of posibilities within her magic deck, not only she posseses the clasic powerfull or usefull cards she normally uses(Fly, Jump, Shield, elementals, etc....) but she also has some specific ones, for example, just like Sakura, Nanoha activate some commands for RH by voice, so "The Voice" or "The Silent" cards might create an advantage, there's "The Small" card that not only can shrink living beings in size but also greatly reduces her magical capabilities(not only leaving Nanoha with least half of her power but also the RH unnoperable, and is also a harmlessly method to defeat the White Devil xD), mind you is her armor or staff are inmune to "The Sweet" powers xD!, or Sakura can just use "The Loop" for a chep method of making time to perform an strategy xD(i've thinking of "The Maze" at first but Nanoha has a silly answer to that one: DUNGEON BYPASS xDDDD!!) or, if the Card Captor was lucky, the battle is performed during night where "THE CREATE" has almost unlimited power.
Or maybe she just had to use THE DARK and disable all other magic around besides her's plain and simple xDDD!!
....of course Nanoha still has the great advantage in that she is capable of beating the living crap out of her opponents NON-LETHALY ...somehow xDU(...and thus freed of the fear to hurt her opponent unlike Sakura).
Sakura and Nanoha are both pretty clever girls(Nanoha is naturally talented at combat magic, Sakura doesen't have professional training but had gained experience along time and is showed clever skills in using certain cards and moves to her advantage on a specific situation) i think that a combat between the two is going to be a friendly and hard one, with moments when one or another would have the upper hand until the climatic point when one gets the chance of disabling the other and arise victorious from an epic confrontation xD
