Review of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS

Imagine that you have to make the last arc of a long-running series, but from zero, without previous arcs, and in only 26 episodes. This was the challenge and building block of Nanoha StrikerS, finding a way to show the tip of the iceberg of it's universe that exists inside it's creator's mind, investing heavily in having cool character designs and interesting concepts, and winning in terms of quantity what it can't in terms of quality, with it's end result being similar to reading a Wikipedia article about a huge war in terms it's huge amount of participants, their different origins, motivations and conflicts. StrikerS first coupleepisodes might seem difficult to watch due to slow pacing and the plot barely moving, mostly consisting of training episodes with barely any glimpses of our villains. Despite our incredibly large cast, such episodes are not about introducing them, half of the cast being introduced (Sometimes with only a name drop and two lines of dialogue, which surprisingly works) in "action episodes" (Starting around the end of episode 11), which are the strongest point of the season.

Regarding it's themes, StrikerS is built around three: Growing up, legacy and bureaucracy, which — just like the myriad of character plots — are linked to one another like Borromean rings.

Our characters grew up, and are now adults that have taken the mantles and positions of their seniors. No longer Nanoha lives on earth or sees her family and school friends, and rarely does she sees Yuuno or Chrono now. No longer is Fate in need of the reassurance from Lindy or Arf, no longer is Hayate a crybaby who can't do anything, no longer is Nanoha simply about being a mahou shoujo story, the events of the first two seasons are closed. This season is about Subaru, Teana, Erio and Caro growing up to eventually follow the steps of our previous protagonists and of Vivio learning to (Literally) stand up on her own.
Which is not to say that everything that happened before has no meaning, for here is where the theme of "legacy" comes in: Fate saves lonely children for she once was one and needed saving, she feels connected to the artificial mages for she is not only one, but also the origin of them all. Nanoha trains her pupils so they don't commit the mistakes she did in her past, and is sympathetic to the cyborgs because it was never relevant for that Fate or Hayate's knights weren't human, likewise Fate being sympathetic to them because she too once was only an artificial being unemotionally acting in search of acceptance from her creator.

Finally, bureaucracy: Our characters work for a literal bureau, and while since season one we had some concepts of protocols and due processes, in this season this reaches another degree of magnitude, with now each character responding to a different one of the at least half a dozen named agencies, groups and branches. EVERYTHING is bureaucratic, for Midchilda is born from the trauma of "mass weapons" and the misuse of magic and relics that destroyed entire worlds, so the research and development of magic is limited, each one of our characters has their powers limited and has to request permission to use them, with even Nanoha herself internalizing that logic and admonishing Teana for trying to find "dangerous shortcuts".
That isn't to say that such bureaucracy is perfect, for in a way each of our "big-players" tries to find their way around it: Hayate creates Riot Force 6 because she feels that the current system would be unable to quickly respond to major incidents, no different from Regius' rationale (And therefore the rationale of the council who ordered him) regarding cyborgs and artificial mages (Which are reminiscent of Ishinomori Shoutarou's recurrent concept of "jinzō ningen"). But while they might be similar in ideas, they aren't in methods: At the end of the day, Riot Force 6's still stood by the rules of the system, while Regius looked for shortcuts which would eventually bite him back. Finally, Scaglietti represents wanting the complete breakdown of the entire bureaucracy and the search for absolute power.

Once again, you won't find very complex character dynamics:
Erio and Garyuu's entire gimmick is being knights of someone they want to protect, Caro and Lutecia's is being summoners in search of family, Zest (+Agito) and Signum (+Reinforce) their pride as knights and Unison Devices, Teana and Vice about seeing themselves as failures, Subaru about how the circumstances of your creation should not define who you are, but rather what you choose to do with your life, etc
But it's this myriad of "small wishes" and the constant cycling between the sub-plot of each character what makes StrikerS succeed, against all odds, at being "the last arc of a long-running shounen series, but from zero, without previous arcs, and in only 26 episodes".