I make friends by EXPLODING them ^^
Time to make silly talk about my current anime obsession; Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha and it's follow-up seasons Nanoha A's and Nanoha StrikerS. Some may understand what Mahou Shoujo means and instantly question my gender, others are left scratching their heads at the genre of this and are mostly confused at my terminology. Simply put, Mahou means Magic (to most) and Shoujo means Girl.
Yes, it's a Magical Girl anime. Not just any magical girl one tho, it may START as a cookie cutter thick as cardboard magical girl anime for the first 5 episodes or so (of the first season) but once the major antagonist is properly introduced and the transformation sequences get skipped (the most useless 2 mins in every magic girl anime) the plot goes into overdrive and forgets the first few eppies where ever created. Second season SKIPS the basic intros and INSTANTLY goes to the action and so requires having watched the first season for full understanding, especially cuz it's set about 6-9 months after season 1. Third is a bit more self sustained, so I won't go into that.
But enough defending it, I'll just skip straight to WHY I adore it so lately. First of all a rule that some Nanoha fans have written even before I found the damn anime; The harder you get flattened by Nanoha, the MORE you like her in the aftermath. Yes, she makes friends by BLOWING THEM UP. Preferably with hot pink laserbeams with the ability of causing minor earthquakes and are roughly compareable in size with a truck. And those are just her common use abilities (Divine Buster), let's not discuss her overdrives (Starlight Breaker). Set aside the thought of using destruction for good and we have point 1 one for my love fer that cute redhead and her friends.
Then we'll go to point 2; plot and character depth. Season one starts with the simplest, most cliche'd way of starting a magic girl anime; normal schoolgirl finds mysterious animal, saves said animal, finds out she has magic potential when animal starts to talk to her with his mind, insert danger here, magic animal just happens to carry magic item to unlock potential (that talks in English btw), insert transformation scene here and the following beating of danger. Job done magic animal becomes guide/familiar to new magic girl as she helps magic animal with some pre-set goal, job done. Then insert a rival/antagonist with mysterious agenda and you've filled your basic requirements for a magic girl cliche.
Now consider this, at a certain point you'll get cut-ins to what said rival is doing, why she's being the antagonist and what she is going through. From the start Nanoha also notes that her rival has something to hide, mostly pointed out in a description of the rival's (as I quote) "Beautiful, sad eyes", and wants to know what shit is going down. At a certain point the plot goes into overdrive, adding another few good side-characters, giving the guide/familiar a bit more depth and generally just getting better. Plus it has a wonderful WTF moment after the rival has been beaten (curtesy of Nanoha and her first proper 'befriending') and we close in on the true villain. Simply said, fast forward through the first bits to get to the good bits and get hooked. Plus, the final scene, please, they are still only about.. 10 or summat? Friendship may be suggestive, but not yet. Wait for season 3 dammit.
Season two (A's) timeskips past about a year and drops us off at a moment where Nanoha awaits the return of the friends she made (or 'befriended') in season one whilst training her magic as well. All is well and peaceful, until Nanoha is assaulted by a violent redhead with a german magic hammer in the late evening, accidentally triggers the berserk button of said redhead and promptly gets the stuffing beaten out of her. Just before the coup de grace is dealt tho the cavalry arrives in the form of the friend brigade (and Fate) and it return to a stalemate. Let's just say that violent redheads with german weapons are often not alone and the friend brigade begins to lose ground against a swords-woman with a german sword, previously mentioned redhead and a wolf-man.
Skip forward, Nanoha breaks the stalemate and allows for escape at the cost of being thoroughly KO'd, the antagonist brigade flees as well and the plot rockets into a nicely interesting nest of secrets, unfolding in both parts of following Nanoha and company as they get a weapons upgrade, try to discover the who's,what's, where's and why's, and generally get some good screen time in character and setting development. And the antagonist brigade gets a whole bunch of screentime too. A whole bunch of screentime, exposition, character development and so such in such a manner that it makes them just as likable as the main chars. Seriously, just watch it. The ending has another good WTF moment and it all wraps up rather well too. Just watch and enjoy ^^
Third season, StrikerS, has a massive time-skip (about 15 years) and so much changes, I'll just skip on the descriptions. Pretty self sufficient too, so it doesn't really require previous knowledge, although it might help. StrikerS also adds a lot, both in plot, character development and extra characters. So good, longer then the other seasons and fun. (Also lesbians)
And for my last point I'll give these things. First; Action, explosions, high power laserbeams, swordfights and weapons that talk in both English and German. Second; did you know that Ma-hou also roughly means Demonic Cannon?
And so ends my lecture on one of my currently favorite anime, the moral of this story? Twofold. One is that you might hear me dropping the title when making comparisons or references, usually obscure ones at that. Second is that I might have the urge to write about the series in more that just a descriptive or even reviewing tone, or in other words, fanfics. So beware, for all things bagged and tagged as such, might net you a Divine Buster to the face.
Yes, it's a Magical Girl anime. Not just any magical girl one tho, it may START as a cookie cutter thick as cardboard magical girl anime for the first 5 episodes or so (of the first season) but once the major antagonist is properly introduced and the transformation sequences get skipped (the most useless 2 mins in every magic girl anime) the plot goes into overdrive and forgets the first few eppies where ever created. Second season SKIPS the basic intros and INSTANTLY goes to the action and so requires having watched the first season for full understanding, especially cuz it's set about 6-9 months after season 1. Third is a bit more self sustained, so I won't go into that.
But enough defending it, I'll just skip straight to WHY I adore it so lately. First of all a rule that some Nanoha fans have written even before I found the damn anime; The harder you get flattened by Nanoha, the MORE you like her in the aftermath. Yes, she makes friends by BLOWING THEM UP. Preferably with hot pink laserbeams with the ability of causing minor earthquakes and are roughly compareable in size with a truck. And those are just her common use abilities (Divine Buster), let's not discuss her overdrives (Starlight Breaker). Set aside the thought of using destruction for good and we have point 1 one for my love fer that cute redhead and her friends.
Then we'll go to point 2; plot and character depth. Season one starts with the simplest, most cliche'd way of starting a magic girl anime; normal schoolgirl finds mysterious animal, saves said animal, finds out she has magic potential when animal starts to talk to her with his mind, insert danger here, magic animal just happens to carry magic item to unlock potential (that talks in English btw), insert transformation scene here and the following beating of danger. Job done magic animal becomes guide/familiar to new magic girl as she helps magic animal with some pre-set goal, job done. Then insert a rival/antagonist with mysterious agenda and you've filled your basic requirements for a magic girl cliche.
Now consider this, at a certain point you'll get cut-ins to what said rival is doing, why she's being the antagonist and what she is going through. From the start Nanoha also notes that her rival has something to hide, mostly pointed out in a description of the rival's (as I quote) "Beautiful, sad eyes", and wants to know what shit is going down. At a certain point the plot goes into overdrive, adding another few good side-characters, giving the guide/familiar a bit more depth and generally just getting better. Plus it has a wonderful WTF moment after the rival has been beaten (curtesy of Nanoha and her first proper 'befriending') and we close in on the true villain. Simply said, fast forward through the first bits to get to the good bits and get hooked. Plus, the final scene, please, they are still only about.. 10 or summat? Friendship may be suggestive, but not yet. Wait for season 3 dammit.
Season two (A's) timeskips past about a year and drops us off at a moment where Nanoha awaits the return of the friends she made (or 'befriended') in season one whilst training her magic as well. All is well and peaceful, until Nanoha is assaulted by a violent redhead with a german magic hammer in the late evening, accidentally triggers the berserk button of said redhead and promptly gets the stuffing beaten out of her. Just before the coup de grace is dealt tho the cavalry arrives in the form of the friend brigade (and Fate) and it return to a stalemate. Let's just say that violent redheads with german weapons are often not alone and the friend brigade begins to lose ground against a swords-woman with a german sword, previously mentioned redhead and a wolf-man.
Skip forward, Nanoha breaks the stalemate and allows for escape at the cost of being thoroughly KO'd, the antagonist brigade flees as well and the plot rockets into a nicely interesting nest of secrets, unfolding in both parts of following Nanoha and company as they get a weapons upgrade, try to discover the who's,what's, where's and why's, and generally get some good screen time in character and setting development. And the antagonist brigade gets a whole bunch of screentime too. A whole bunch of screentime, exposition, character development and so such in such a manner that it makes them just as likable as the main chars. Seriously, just watch it. The ending has another good WTF moment and it all wraps up rather well too. Just watch and enjoy ^^
Third season, StrikerS, has a massive time-skip (about 15 years) and so much changes, I'll just skip on the descriptions. Pretty self sufficient too, so it doesn't really require previous knowledge, although it might help. StrikerS also adds a lot, both in plot, character development and extra characters. So good, longer then the other seasons and fun. (Also lesbians)
And for my last point I'll give these things. First; Action, explosions, high power laserbeams, swordfights and weapons that talk in both English and German. Second; did you know that Ma-hou also roughly means Demonic Cannon?
And so ends my lecture on one of my currently favorite anime, the moral of this story? Twofold. One is that you might hear me dropping the title when making comparisons or references, usually obscure ones at that. Second is that I might have the urge to write about the series in more that just a descriptive or even reviewing tone, or in other words, fanfics. So beware, for all things bagged and tagged as such, might net you a Divine Buster to the face.