This week for Anime Sunday I’m covering a series that takes the magical girl genre and aims it towards a male audience. It’s all about Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha, or Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha in English!
Plot Synopsis: The storyline follows Nanoha Takamachi, a nine-year-old Japanese girl attending elementary school, who lives with her parents and her older siblings. Nanoha’s regular everyday life ends when she rescues an injured ferret who reveals himself as a young shapeshifting mage named Yūno Scrya. An archaeologist from a parallel universe, Yūno came to Earth to collect a set of 21 dangerous ancient artifacts named the “Jewel Seeds” (ジュエルシード Jueru Shīdo) that he first discovered in his own world. Jewel Seeds give living beings who come into contact with them unnatural powers, often turning them into monsters. Yūno, injured while trying to collect them, must now rely on Nanoha while he convalesces in ferret form.
Plot: Despite looking like it’s aimed at young girls for a target audience, this series was actually aimed at young boys instead. It has more action than other Magical girl anime, and is pretty decent for plot. I didn’t especially enjoy the plot, but it was okay. It made more sense to me than Cardcaptor Sakura ever did.
Characters: Yuno is my favorite character, but again I didn’t really enjoy this series all that much. I think I was well outside the targeted audience range by the time I watched this and just couldn’t find it in me to enjoy it as much as others did. Nanoha herself is annoyingly wishy washy in this series, and Fate is little better. I do know that the sequel series improve upon their characters, but I have yet to watch them.
Art: The art is probably the one thing I enjoyed about this show from the get go. It’s a very good looking show, but not amazing like No Game No Life or Kyokai no Kanata.
Music: The musical soundtrack and opening and ending were okay, but nothing spectacular especially considering that this show has a musically implied theme in it’s title.
Overall: Give it a shot, it may end up being great for you, but proceed with caution.
For those who like: Action, Decent Plots, Magical Girl Series, Okay Cast of Characters, Great Artwork.
Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.