nanoha

Alternate Titles:  Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s

Original Japanese Release Date: October 1st, 2005

Episode Length/Run-time: 13

Summary:
Nanoha and Fate must battle against a group of Velka Knights, who seek to fill the pages of the Book of Darkness, a Lost Logia, with stolen magic powers.  The story begins when the Velka Knights attempt to steal Nanoha’s power to write the pages of the Book of Darkness.

Review:
Nanoha A’s takes place a few months after the events of the original Nanoha series.  I wouldn’t say that you cannot watch Nanoha A’s without seeing the first season, because other than the characters, they are barely connected, but you might enjoy it more.  Fate Festarossa, a magical girl, once foe, turned friend of Nanoha’s is being put up for trial by the Space/Time Administration for the crimes she committed in the first series.  Fate sought to collect the Lost Logia, which are lost artifacts of horrible power that are very dangerous.

She is reunited with Nanoha after she is locked in battle against a group of “Velka-Type Knights”. Fate and Yuuno, and others rush to Nanoha’s side just as she is about to get killed by Vita, one of the Knights. In the end a giant battle royale occurs which makes the first two episodes of this series rather epic.

The knights seek to capture the power of Nanoha in their “Book of Darkness”, another Lost Logia.  This book has the power to steal magical essence and the knights want to fill it’s pages with magic. Because Nanoha is so powerful, they seek her specifically becasue they feel she will feel a lot of pages.  Of course, the Space/Time Bureau knows about the book as well and they want to seal it away.

This is kind of the DBZ of Magical girl anime.  A lot of magical girl anime has romance and drama spilled in there (sailor moon) but this series is more about badass shounen style fight scenes, only with magical girls.  For example, Nanoha’s Divine Buster is more like a massive KameHameHa than anything else.  The battles are so much better.  Those of you that have seen the first series will recall that the final battle between Nanoha and Fate is the best battle from the first series.  Most of the battles from A’s are better than that one.  The Vita-Knights all have a unique fighting style and it makes for incredible action. Some of the best or maybe THE best from the magical girl genre.

All of the magical characters, have weapons that are somewhat sentient.  they can, to a limited extent be talked to and typically announce their attacks when they use them.  When Nanoha uses her Divine Buster, or when Vita loads a “Cartridge” it’s typically announced by the weapon.

Aesthetically, the battles are better.  The animation and colors appear more appealing and crisp.  The soundtrack is  still filled with amazing songs by Mizuki Nana, you’ve been hearing the music all throughout this review.

As is the case with many magical girl anime, there is a bit of a lolicon aspect to the show.  Nanoha is only around nine years old in this series and in her magical girl transformation, she does get kinda naked, however there is no real explicit nudity.  The same is true for Fate, however these are the only two magical transformations you see in the series and you only see them once each, unlike other series such as Star Driver, which make you watch the same boring transformation, four minutes an episode, you see a total of 3 minutes of transformations for the entire series.

[starrater]