• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Chikorita157's Anime Blog

The thoughts, reviews and analysis of Comedy, Romance, Drama and Slice of Life Anime of a College Student

  • Home
    • Podcast
  • About
    • Commenting Policy
    • Banners
    • Spam Liker Hall of Shame
    • Blogroll
  • Reviews
  • Archives
  • Guides
    • List of Suggested Manga
  • Subscribe
    • RSS Feed
    • Feedburner
    • Anime Blog Tracker
    • Comments Feed
    • Add to Feedly
  • Kireina Yuri

Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A’s – Final and Movie Review

July 16, 2015 by Chikorita157 Leave a Comment

Artist:  ak@tsuki
Artist: ak@tsuki

For a long time, I have been a fan of magical girl shows since I enjoy seeing young girls beat up villains with magical powers. Lyrical Nanoha is somewhat different compared to other magical girl shows like Cardcaptor Sakura since it caters the older male demographic while introducing some elements from mecha anime. In fact, some people described Nanoha’s magical girl outfit as a schoolgirl outfit and a Gundam. In other words, there is a lot of action packed battles. Nanoha A’s pretty much improves on the prequel by adding another heroine to the mix and anti-villains.

While it took awhile since the DVDs were out of print due to Geneon going out of business, I finally got the chance to finish it. In addition, I’ll be covering some thoughts on the movie.

The story of Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A’s happens six months later with Nanoha and Fate working with TSAB. Without knowing, the Book of Darkness is currently owned by a young orphaned girl in a wheelchair named Yagami Hayate. She desires a family. One day, she was granted that wish when the book mysteriously unlocks itself, thus summoning three girls and a non-human sidekick referred to as the Wolkenritter, Afterwards, she happily adopted them as part of her family. However, she is unaware that the Book of Darkness is slowly eating away at her. Knowing that they don’t want to lose their master, the Wolkenritter try to save her by collecting mana from others in order to fill the pages in the book. This meant that they would eventually have to deal with Nanoha and Fate.

I have to admit that Nanoha A’s story was more interesting compared to the prequel since Nanoha and Fate is not facing an actual villain nor they are collecting items. They have to face off against the Wolkenritter, which consists of Vita, Signum, Shamal and Zafira, who wanted to save their master from her eventual fate by satisfying the hunger of the book.

By showing how powerful the Wolkenritter are by defeating Nanoha and Fate in their two separate battles, it proves that they are facing an enemy that they never fought before. From this setback, Nanoha and Fate can gain the motivation to become stronger. Eventually, this becomes the case when their intelligent devices wanted a cartridge-loading device, which in turn leveled the playing field.

Aside from the fights, the ethical issues surrounding the actions of the Wolkenritter, Admiral Gil Gram and Reinforce (to a certain extent) is what made the story unique. Basically, nobody is outright evil, except for the corrupted defense program. Even so, the actions they take are not necessarily right. Sure, the Wolkenritter had done some bad things in order to save their Master, but at the same time, Admiral Gram pretty much done illegal things too in order to seal the book with Hayate and prevent the reincarnation. In addition, he had the cat girl familiars, Lisearia and Liselotte to disguise themselves as masked men in order to fill the book themselves and ultimately trick Hayate to make it seem that Nanoha and Fate is betraying them. Top that off with Gram’s attempts to sabotage the investigation in order to carry out his own plan, it just shows that even good guys can do unethical things, even if they are well intentioned.

Aside from that, Hayate did not get much spotlight despite being the central focus of the whole show. It is not until the last few episodes when she and the Wolkenritter joined forces with Nanoha and company to beat and seal the defense program once and for all. Still, it is very easy to feel sympathetic towards her, especially since she does not get nearly as much screen time compared to Nanoha and Fate in StrikerS. Still, I liked Vita and Signum because they are badass and they really know how to fight.

Overall, is Nanoha A’s better than the first season of Nanoha? Of course it is since it bought a unique story that is not another Cardcaptor Sakura-like show with a dark magical girl. The fights were great and the plot touched upon the issues regarding the actions the Wolkenritter and Admiral Gram took. While the animation is not that great, although being a slight improvement over the first season, Nanoha A’s is easily the best show out of the trilogy (excluding Vivid).

However, the same cannot be said about the movie. The movie brought some changes, good and bad. Aside from the improved visuals and fight scenes, the story is not as great compared to the television series. Aside from writing Admiral Gram and the cat girl familiars out of the story and making the defense program the main villain, the character development just felt just felt shallow. This is because Nanoha and Fate gets defeated at the same time by the Wolkenritter rather than on separately, thus giving them less time to try to improve themselves in a meaningful way. Otherwise, the 2nd movie mostly have the same story as the TV series and does not bring anything new to the table compared to the first movie, which touched upon Fate’s mother and her desire to revive Alicia.

Overall, the movie can be considered as a historical revisionist view of the Book of Darkness incident done by the TSAB to cover up Admiral Gram’s wrongdoings. While it is not a terrible movie, it does not quite live up to the awesomeness from the TV series or the first movie. In other words, you are not missing much in the 2nd movie if you already watched Nanoha A’s.

TV Series Overall Rating: 9.0/10, Very Good, A-

Movie Overall Rating: 8.0/10, Good, B-

Like this post? Use the Reactions system and Do Not Use the Like Button in WordPress Reader.

The Reactions system replaces the WordPress Likes system, which appears at the bottom of every post.

Please do not leave likes via WordPress Reader on my posts as they will not appear on my blog.

If you like the post, simply click/tap the Like button in the reactions below. You can also choose a different reaction if you wish. Any reactions made are 100% anonymous.

Related

What’s your response?
0 responses
Love
Love
0
Like
Like
0
Surprised
Surprised
0
Haha
Haha
0
Thinking
Thinking
0
Sad
Sad
0
0 Shares
Facebook Twitter Reddit Tumblr Email

Filed Under: Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Movies, Reviews
Tagged With: final impressions, mahou shoujo, Seven Arcs

This post was handcrafted by…
Chikorita157 - who has written 2,983 posts.

Author and Owner of Chikorita157's Anime Blog. If you want to learn more about me, see the "About chikorita157" page.

Liked our content?

Feel free to leave a comment, share the post on social media, or linking back to this post on your blog post. You can also support us on Ko-fi as well.

Also follow us on Twitter for the latest blog updates and Anime/Manga/Video Games related tweets
Follow @chikorita157

Reader Interactions

New Here? Review the Commenting Policy before adding a comment.

Additionally, linking to your blog should only be done in the Website field, not in the comment itself, unless it contibutes to the discussion. If you are using a Wordpress.com account to comment, you can change the website URL in the Account Settings

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Previous Post: Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka? – Final Review
Next Post: The Idolm@ster Cinderella Girls – Episode 14 – The Mysterious Girl

Primary Sidebar

Categories

Archives

Current Season

  • Cue!
  • Love Live School Idol Project
  • Machikado Mazoku
  • Shokei Shoujo no Virgin Road

Episodic Blogging Schedule

Wednesday – RPG Fudousan

Thursday – Machikado Mazoku 2-choume

Friday – Shokei Shoujo no Virgin Road

Saturday –  Cue!, Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club

Non-Episodic Content

  • Editorials
  • Japanese Self-Study Progress
  • Let’s Plays
  • Podcast
  • Project iM@S
  • Reviews

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Follow Us

You can subscribe to this blog via WordPress Reader

Follow Chikorita157’s Anime Blog on WordPress.com

Also follow us on Twitter for the latest blog updates and Anime/Manga/Video Games related tweets

Follow @chikorita157

Recent Posts

  • Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club Second Season – Episode 7 – Shioriko’s Idol Dream Dilemma
  • Cue! – Episode 18 – Chuunibyou and the Stoic Girl
  • Shokei Shoujo no Virgin Road – Episode 7 – Pigrimage and The Mysterious Fog
  • Machikado Mazoku 2-Choume – Episode 6 – Truth about Sakura, Darkness Peach, and The Precious Smile
  • RPG Fudousan – Episode 6 – Fa Saves the Day (Again) and Terrifying Singing

Recent Comments

  • OG-Man on Shokei Shoujo no Virgin Road – Episode 7 – Pigrimage and The Mysterious Fog
  • OG-Man on Cue! – Episode 18 – Chuunibyou and the Stoic Girl
  • OG-Man on Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club Second Season – Episode 7 – Shioriko’s Idol Dream Dilemma
  • chikorita157 on RPG Fudousan – Episode 6 – Fa Saves the Day (Again) and Terrifying Singing
  • chikorita157 on Machikado Mazoku 2-Choume – Episode 6 – Truth about Sakura, Darkness Peach, and The Precious Smile

Support Us

Footer

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy

© 2009–2022 James M. All rights reserved.
All text on this page is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
This blog uses Genesis Framework and WPTouch Mobile Suite. Source Code
72 queries : 0.177s espeon

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Mastodon
  • Tumblr
  • Ko-fi
  • Youtube
  • Twitch
  • AniList
  • Kitsu
  • MyAnimeList
  • Privacy Policy