I haven’t watched a mahou shoujo (magical girl) series for a long time ever since Sailor Moon and Card Captor Sakura stopped airing. Just a few months ago, I stared to have some interest in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha after reading something about it somewhere… Thus, I decided to start the series.
Unlike Sailor Moon and Card Captors, Nanoha uses the typical magical girl formula plus the addition of moe (except StrikerS, which I will not be watching). The main character is no exception to the moe. The moe is pretty much on par on this series unlike the more moe filled series like K-ON! for example. I also doubt that I will see any moeblobs even though the ferret and the girls in this show are really cute.
The episode starts out with this weird dream of someone fighting against this black round blob with red eyes. The woman at the end of the dream transforms into this orange ferret. Later, we are pulled back to reality with Nanoha waking up. After Nanoha wakes up, she gets ready for school. We are introduced to her family, which looks very familiar… This is because Nanoha is actually a spinoff from the eroge game, Triangle Hearts. Triangle Hearts is where all the characters come from, except that its in a different setting or something.
Meet Nanoha friends, Suzuka and Arisa that attends the same exact prep school. Unlike Nanoha, they know what they are going to do in the future… Speaking about the future, the teacher was talking about jobs in a earlier scene. Remember in Elementary School when your teacher asked what are you going to do when you grow up? Many children would give answers, but not as truthful since plans change as you learn and experience more in life. Maybe Nanoha future is not running a cafe, but working as a magical girl warrior?
A talking ferret is very uncanny in real life since it can never happen. However, I found it funny since it could actually talk. How many times you run into talking animals? No Shit since we have talking Pokemon! Does that count? Also…
Now for the Magical Girl transformation:
Unlike the English release of Sailor Moon, one good thing I saw is that they did not censor the body. It makes me wonder, is it all right to see a body of a young girl like this? It’s debatable. It’s probably okay since it doesn’t show the you know what. Like with Sailor Moon, Nanoha’s Magical Girl outfit resembles the school outfit she wears for school.
Nanoha has its share of Fanservice. It’s quite amusing how they had panty shots on such a young girl. Then again, they never shown the in-your-face pantsu like I seen in Nogizaka Haruka. This is okay as long they don’t go overboard and add bouncing boobs and other stuff.
Overall, I enjoyed this episode even though the first half seems a bit slow. Second half was better even though it ended on a cliff hanger. We will find out soon enough how Nanoha handles her new powers to beat this black blob with red eyes…
Verdict
8.6/10
I’d say that once Fate shows up, the show becomes much more interesting. At this point, you have your usual mahou shoujo formula, but the addition of Fate changes the show, moving it from merely good to really awesome.
Yep.. and more les yay? I don’t mind yuri. :3
Without Nanoha x Fate, this series is just a terrible version of Card Captor Sakura. It’s an average formless monster a day series. Once Fate comes though, this becomes one of the best Mahou Shoujo series ever.
“Unlike the English release of Sailor Moon” so i assumed you are watching english dub? if you are, i would strongly recommended you to watch japanese dub to feel the voice power of nana mizuki. and ya, i agreed with zeroparticle and yi that once Fate showed up, you will understand the reason why nanoha is called gundam in mahou shoujo disguise.
Glad, you’re watching Nanoha. I found the fanservice to be a bit off-putting but fortunately nothing that out of line occurred.
I can’t really say anything else without spoiling, but I’ll just say it gets really good once the plot comes along, and I usually don’t like this kind of show. So stick with this show; you won’t regret it. =p
Fanservice is a bit uncanny especially when Nanoha is like… 10 years old?
I will definitely stick with it since… well, yeah…:p
There’s so much fanservice since Nanoha is not a “shoujo” mahou shoujo series but is an otaku one. After all, it was spun off from an ero game as you noted. I believe it aired late at night in Japan.
Shame you won’t be seeing StrikerS. I rather liked that one since Nanoha is an adult.
The main reason I’m not seeing StrikerS not because it went so far away from the original genre, but it’s poorly executed. While you at it, they cut out too many characters that were originally in the show. Overall, it’s a big mixed bag since some people like it and some don’t.
I will definitely watch the second season since many people recommend me to… and the first season is pretty good so far.