Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha

For the first three episodes of this series, I thought I had another Card Captor Sakura series on my hands. I'm not much of a fan for non-original titles, but fortunately this very mahou shoujo series turned out to be interesting and more than a little fun.

After four episodes, when the rival mahou shoujo arrived, the series begins to attempt to find some new ground. So it shakes the "monster of the week" syndrome and much of the forced "here's your naked lolicon mahou shoujo" transformation sequences. The show uses the quest of finding these jewel seeds to lightly examine Nanoha's semi-lonely existance (despite having two rich friends, a mother, a father, and an elder brother and sister). So we get a nice understanding of Nanoha's desire to befriend Fate-chan, the other mahou shoujo, with whom she feels a kinship.

Fate-chan's story takes the series to some darker places than I would have expected for a clearly shoujo market. I won't spoil anything, but the writers really work hard to make Fate-chan a 3-dimentional character and one more than a few girls will be able to relate to (sadly). For me, this is where the series was strongest.

I also liked the idea of technology and magic being mixed. While the idea is not new (Ultra Maniac had some), the battle staffs of the mages were really neat in that they were a computer unit which aided the user with their magic. Nanoha's staff (Raging Heart) was voiced by Donna Burke, and while not getting to say much beyond things like, "Stand by, ready", "Sealing mode", and the various powerful attacks, having them spoken in REAL English versus Engrish was a real treat. A similar story could be told for Fate-chan's staff (voiced by Kevin J. England, though Donna pulls off the computer voice a bit better in my opinion.

In addition to the early weakness of looking to much like CCS, the series suffers from the trap of having Nanoha quickly master Raging Heart and spells without being taught. While her family do have the gift of chi (mystical powers that ninja supposedly have), it really doesn't explain Nahoha's abilities, nor why Yuuno-kun never asked for his stuff back. Being a shoujo series, some other things like the parents allowing their third-grade girl go off on some unknown journey for unknown reasons is obviously a stretch, but because this IS a shoujo series, I have to let that pass. ^_^

One quick note on the art/animation. While it is nothing special, there is a scene in the series where a large object crashes into a large body of water, causing spash. One of the splashes that happen near the "camera" causes water spots to appear on the screen and even drip down as it would in real life. I thought this was a pretty nice touch.

Bottom line: despite some weakness in the start, this ended up being a rather enjoyable mahou shoujo title, one which I could sit with my nieces and watch again without being annoyed (in Japanese of course). As such, I give it a marginal "buy."

Additional: I'm told this was an otaku mahou shoujo series and not a shoujo one. This would explain all the naked lolicon henshin sequences. It doesn't explain other things, but this being an otaku series and not a shoujo one doesn't change my enjoyment factor, so no rating change.

Last updated Sunday, May 25 2008. Created Thursday, November 17 2005.