So, with the recommendation of the #animeblogger IRC channel, I watched and finished Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha and Nanoha A’s. I’m not going to go into plot detail because since these are older shows, they’ve been written to death.
I’ll be honest, I’ve not watched too much of the magical girl genre. I’m painfully aware of Sailor Moon and many of the other shows that followed in its wake. My anime group from college fiercely made fun of Sailor Moon and Dragonball. I watched enough of Dragonball to know that I hated it, and none of Sailor Moon. It wasn’t until it made it to American television that I did get a glimpse of the show, and what I saw was just mediocre and not worth the time I felt I could give to it.
So maybe that’s why I stayed away from the genre. I did really enjoy pretty much any parody of the genre. So here I was a couple years ago, when Nanoha first came out and blissfully decided to ignore it. I get this blog, and look what happens. So here are my thoughts.
I felt the introduction of Nanoha’s magic powers were a little quick in the first series, but somewhat necessary to the plot. While the plot seemed to move at a rather quick pace, it still felt like they weren’t drilling me with a huge amount of detail. The story was a rather standard rivalry fight story, with Nanoha deeply rooted in the bonds of friendship, to the point that she even extended that to her enemy, Fate. Overall, I consider the first season of Nanoha to be very much an introduction to the franchise.
The second series didn’t leave much time for an explanation for anything. It hopped right into the action with the addition of several rivals. Fate and Nanoha work together here and fight against the Velka Knights of the Book of Darkness. I consider this to be the true beginning of what the franchise could be about. There likely exists a great many possibilities for other lost Logia in the universe and Nanoha and friends could continue the search. Again, Nanoha tries to negotiate with the other side, only to have to end up fighting to protect herself and her friends. In the end it’s her love and courage that reign supreme over everything.
This sounds like it could end up being a whole lot of cheese, but due to some very nice voice work and animation, it’s all very convincing. The show blends elements of magic and sci-fi rather effortlessly and works a particular magic over the viewer’s heart. I do think the target audience is a little younger than I am, okay, a lot younger.
I also enjoyed that each season’s final episode was essentially a wrap up episode. It’s rare with constrained animation budgets to see a full episode be devoted to denouement. I mean watching something like Gundam Seed (not recommended) and hitting episode 50 and wondering how it ends is really crappy. In this though I felt like I understood the direction that the characters were headed, and really felt it to be a nice touch.
So, I recommend this title for all ages, even if we older folk have to turn our heads away from the screen when the transformations happen. ^_^
