YMMV / ViVid Strike!

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Sara's older brother gullible enough to believe that his little sister isn't a bully, someone so badly afflicted with Moral Myopia that he doesn't care about what she did to Rinne, or some combination of both?
• Catharsis Factor: Rinne's No-Holds-Barred Beatdown of her three tormentors in episode 4 can qualify as this for anyone who's ever had to deal with bullying.
• Contested Sequel: While in general very good, ViVid Strike! does have a major weakness in that the animation is inferior to the rest of the series. There are visibly Off-Model moments, heavy use of Recycled Animation in the Transformation Sequence, still frames, use of colored auras on black backgrounds to depict fights rather than actually depicting fights and in the final fight, use of sliding windows to show people talking rather than cutting away. There's a sense that there was a limited budget and the animators decided to focus on the important fights.
• Continuity Lockout: Downplayed. While there are things that won't make sense unless you're familiar with the previous seasons (e.g. why characters have different magic circles, Einhart's mentor being "in her heart," why Chantez almost calls Vivio "Your Majesty," Nove's body making her unable to compete in martial arts tournaments), the season is mostly self-contained and what isn't explained often isn't important.
• Moral Event Horizon: While the bullies' treatment of Rinne is bad enough, what really puts them over the line is how, after being beaten up in retaliation for the abuse, they lie to their families, that they only did “a little teasing” and claims that Rinne attacked them unprovoked while stating she was their “friend”. One of them, Sara, clearly intending to manipulate her brother into seeking retribution on Rinne. Not only could this potentially have led to Rinne being killed, but it also convinces Rinne that the bullies have absolutely no remorse for their actions, inspiring her to a Heroic Second Wind against her kidnapper.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The incredibly brutal No-Holds-Barred Beatdown that Rinne gives to her bullies at the end of episode 4 is this, and the level of violence seen would be akin to Like a Dragon's HEAT system. To elaborate; it involves her breaking the lead bully's arm, smashing another's face into a locker (with the sound of her glasses shattering afterwards) and kicking the last bully into a locker headfirst (both hard enough to leave the metal dented and blood-spattered), and then stomping on the first girl's for good measure. While they no doubt deserved it, the fact that the person doing said No-Holds-Barred Beatdown and the recipients of this beat down were children (about ten years old) just makes it more horrifying. Kids Are Cruel, indeed.
  • In the next episode, Rinne, a young girl, gets kidnapped on a somewhat busy street in broad daylight, by a group of thugs who are planning on paying her back for what she did to the bullies. It's a very good thing that Jill happened to be there to help Rinne.
  • Episode 6 gives us the glorious image of Miura's ribs shattering into pieces as a result of an attack from Rinne accompanied with a very sickening sound effect. The imagery wouldn't be out of place in somewhere like Mortal Kombat, but here? It's downright horrifying, especially considering that Miura's only 14. The look on Team Nakajima's faces only drives it home further. Thankfully, she gets better.
• Signature Scene: Rinne brutally mauling her bullies seems to be the most widely-remembered scene of the entire season, possibly because it so viscerally connects with viewers who have experienced or witnessed bullying in real life themselves.
• Take That, Scrappy!: As noted by some, Miura hasn't been received well for some her actions in ViVid due to looking like a Spotlight-Stealing Squad or Creator's Pet. As such, some of those probably felt a bit of catharsis deep down on watching Rinne brutally defeat her.
• The Woobie: Both of our new main characters, Fuka and Rinne. The two faced a lot of prejudice growing up as orphans and matters didn't stop after they went their separate ways after Rinne's adoption. Fuka struggled for years trying to get a job that could give her enough money to sustain herself and the orphanage while Rinne was mercilessly bullied and Never Got to Say Goodbye to her adoptive grandfather before his passing as a result of it. The next time the two meet, they fight over their conflicting philosophies that have been built from years of suffering on both of their respective ends and end up breaking their friendship. It's not as extreme as past examples in the franchise, but it makes up for it by being a very relatable one.

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