Anime: Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A`s

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's is a very direct sequel to its predecessor, so my review will necessarily refer back to the original Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. In my view (which I feel obliged to point out seems opposed to the majority), the second half of that series was a fall from grace, wherein it abandoned its most interesting characters along with its most interesting conceits. Sadly this is a descent which only hastens for A's.

The series' greatest flaw lies in its cast selection; Nanoha's more interesting schoolfriends are left to the background. So too are most of the original series' crew, replaced Fate taking a leading role, and an immense slew (four to nine, depending how far down one counts) of new characters, none of which really stands out. With our twin leads now firm friends there is no interesting interaction to be had between them, and none of the remaining cast is given enough attention to really develop; there are just too many characters for anyone to get enough spotlight time.

The series compounds this by spending too much of its attention on fights - and they're dull fights. No attempt has been made to put the series' magic on a consistent basis, nor to inject any sense of variety; the girls shout a bit, shoot beams, and eventually one falls over or retreats. A's insists on pairing up opponents in a particular way, with the contrivances to justify this ranging from annoying to ridiculous, and between one confrontation and the next there's not even the excuse of a training sequence to explain why this time should go differently. Plot suffers from this as well; the basic outline is servicable, but the series never manages to string its set-pieces into a coherent whole; the one "twist" is supremely uninteresting, because we never learn nearly enough about the characters involved to have a hope of predicting it - or caring. The pacing is off too, with no real dramatic peak at the end, and too much time devoted to a rather twee epilogue.

One thing that does improve on the original is the music, which has been stepped up a notch; the opening and fight backgrounds in particular are more dramatic without sacrificing melody. And while I object to the greatly enlarged cast, I must admire the voice actors, who've adapted very well; everyone is clear and distinct, and astonishingly with so many little girls, not one voice manages to irritate. Animation is as in the original series; that is to say, simple by modern standards, but clean and consistently drawn, while the visual effects are admirably restrained and consistent.

It could have been worse, but this is still not a series to recommend; its fights are everything that shonen is attacked for, and the characters (and plot) lack the detail to hold interest; frankly all that Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A's has in its favour is the presentation, and that, while servicable, is hardly outstanding. I certainly have no intention of watching it again.

Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A's is a quality series that's weakest point is that you really need to have seen the first Nanoha series to understand it. And the first Nanoha series is fairly decent.

Animation:
Good animation quality, slightly better character design than the first series had, and the bangs aren't quite has freaky looking. Good all around.

Sound:
Roughly the same as the first series. Not great, but certainly good.

Story:
The story is fairly good. It notably suffers from being crammed into thirteen episodes, though. There's never any time for it to breathe, which ultimately results in some odd pacing, and certain sub-plots have less time to develop than they really needed.

Character:
With the series' expanded cast, large story, and low episode count, not all of the characters were going to be able to have time to get depth. Fortunately, they decided to not bother with subplots from the side characters from the old series, who no one cares about.

WOW. I haven't felt like this since I watched Full Metal Panic!: The Second Raid. Just like the said sequel, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's steps up hundreds of notches above the original series. It makes you forget (nearly) all the faults and stupid concepts introduced and just goes straight into the story with a boom. Though the only difference is that they aren't produced by a different company, MGLNA's feels very much like FMP!:TSR - the same yet different and much better.

This time around, pretty much all the episodes are exciting and action-packed, leading to the resistance of skipping conversations (YES: less of Nanoha's family, more of techno-babble) and more mysteries to ponder about. Instead of the skipping, I kept saying "evil! evil! evil! evil! evil!" whenever the villains appear, making me root for the good guys all the way. Then episode 6 came around, smacked me up for saying that to the villains, and kept me guessing for who really is evil. There is a LOT more action in this series, too (yes, this is the beam spam-fest I was waiting for). 80% of the 13 episodes are fights (I counted 4 of them), though I get mixed feelings for having too much action (the revealing of the real villain was a little too early for me - 4 episodes before the end). However, instead of budget-saving pan shots, there's a CG'd beam spam-fest every 10 seconds - I salute you, director!

The character moments worked well, though this area really deserved a lot more. Since 80% are fights, only 15% is character development, most notably Fate and Hayate's knights. It's a shame this sequel gave way to more action than to the characters, so at least each character moment is well spent for it's time there - quality > quantity. Asides from these two, everyone else doesn't get much of a spotlight: Nanoha never changes (she gets on my nerves; I detest her more and more; on the plus side, her too-perfect family doesn't get much screentime ^^), and Hayate is a better version of Nanoha (same but better).

The only faults to this? The story is forced - the "new villain" appears and tries to ruin everything, and being a one-timer, won't get carried over (this technique is overused). Sci-fi != magic; grade schoolers communicate via DVD letters in addition to their own cell phones. o_O

Am I ready for StrikerS? You betcha!

[Warning: May contain spoilers on how the story develops.]
[Note: I often reread reviews I've written after some time and may update and correct errors in the process.]


Story
Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A's starts off where the last series ended whereby Fate, Arf and Yuuno are on the Asura getting ready for their court hearing(watch the previous season to understand). In this sequel, Nanoha is involved again in a Lost Logia case. This time concerning the Book of Darkness which is said to reincarnate eternally each time its pages have been filled with magic taken from magic-endowed creatures and individuals and the wish of his master has been fulfilled. Unfortunately, as the name suggest, nothing goes well with the book as each master falls prey to its "faulty programming". The story plot starts off with the current Book of darkness' master who is paralyzed as her Linker core (item that is the source of magic of people, creatures) is getting eaten little by little by the book.

Concerning the development of the story, I don't think it's really that fast. Sure a lot of things have been left out to fit the number of episodes but each one of them feels that they pack a lot of information and battles that the entertainment you get from them makes you forget the little details.

While we are on the subject of battles, MS Lyrical Nanoha's battles aren't mindless series of pawns that the main character has to defeat one after the other 'a la' Sailor Moon. Besides, having no true evil at work in the anime helps a lot in creating a more believable motive for the 'bad guys' - there's no world domination plot by an evil entity here, but characters with good intentions flipping to the other side of the law to achieve a more modest goal.

MS Lyrical Nanoha nicely combines magic with technology as the weapons used by the characters are what could be classified as weapons with an advanced AI program. The world in which the weapons have been created also function as a technological society which has merely integrated magic as an energy source for their devices. So instead of hearing "fire plasma" canon, you'll be hearing something in the line of "fire Divine buster".

Sound
Compared to the first season's opening which was kinda uninspiring to say the least, this season's opening really manages to be at least memorable by having a nice beat to it. Same can be said for the endings.

Concerning voice acting, Nanoha's voice is the best among the cast of characters. It's cute and composed. Fate's voice feels according to me a bit dry. Arisa's voice is not bad too, unfortunately you don't hear her enough to really care about it either. All the other characters voices fit appropriately.

The music during the characters' transformation is really cool, mixing some kind of orchestral music with tech sounds. When I first heard it, it instantly reminded me of the music you get during those battle sequences in role-playing games. At least its a fresh change from the girly tinkles of usual girl character transformation sequences.

I also liked the fact that each staff had a different language attached to it and so far I've heard German, English and French.

From time to time, there is also some nice piano compositions going on in the background. Nothing to brag about but nice nonetheless.

Animation
I was really surprised with the quality of the drawings and animation of MS Lyrical Nanoha. The characters are detailed and designs are very well done. You won't find any skimpy school girl outfits that are so short you wonder if the heroes don't feel cold at all. Instead the characters wear nicely drawn outfits that appropriately match their personality.

One thing that hooked me when I watched MS Lyrical Nanoha was the various staff transformation sequences. First, the staffs don't look like some plastic toys but feel metallic and solid enough to withstand the power they contain. Second, they can transform according to the attack they are going to perform and are not just "one-shape-do-it-all" tools. The transformations look more like gundam robots morphing from one shape to another, at least that's what I thought they looked like if ever gundam robots would ever transform :D.

Background-wise, I can't say I have a lot to comment on it. This is mainly because there are a lot of battles during the 13 episodes and the battles and action are intense enough that you forget to look at the backgrounds. Concerning the battles, the effects of the attacks are very well done with detailed and well-drawn magic circles surrounding them.

Character
Sadly, this is only a 13 episodes series and character development seems sorely lacking. We do have some slight background information on Nanoha and her friends but the master "villain" Hayate and her allies knights have next to nothing. If the number of episodes were increased, it would have been nice to get some insight of how the previous masters of those Velka Knights were. Unfortunately, you are only hinted way late in the anime how they were treated back then.

Otherwise, there is enough material for the viewer to grasp the situation and believe, if only for a little while, that those characters do have some "real" concrete motives.

Value/Enjoyment
I haven't watched any other Mahou Shoujo anime and I can't really compare this one to them. But MS Lyrical Nanoha catched my attention when I first watched the first episode of this season (admitedly I downloaded this by accident). The intense battles, detailed characters and their nice transformations were enough to make me forget the aweful plot and costumes associated with previous animes I may have watched in the same genre, namely Sailor Moon.

Would I recommend it? Well that depends on what you're actually expecting from it after reading my review. This anime is not breaking new grounds in the genre but surely breathes in new elements to help keep interest in it. Fans of magical girls and transformations would probably really like it. For the rest of us, if you think that cool battles involving girls with magic and some technology mixed in is something you'd like to see at least once, then by all means do watch MS Lyrical Nanoha. It might not warrant a rewatch afterwards but the first time through it should be enjoyable. Oh and do watch the first season to understand the character relations among the main heroines in this season, although if you can bear taking things as is, you can still enjoy the anime.

Finally, while I do praise the anime, keep in mind that there are some obvious irritating factors are outlined in the story and character sections that may deter some to even try.

i'll be very dishonest with myself if im going to give a rating lower than this. well to begin with, i like the opening theme song very much. eternal blaze by nana mizuki. it has already captured my attention at the beginning of every episodes. ok let me do an evaluation on all areas:

animation: as good as the previous season, if not better. the colours has a nice contrast, it fits the mood to the story. all the characters are nice looking too, the eyes, their hairstyles, costumes, weapons etc are all drawn in detail. if you like an anime mostly based on the graphics side, you will like this one. particularly liked fate testarossa's character design too..

sound: nice opening theme, very catchy, and just knew recently that the singer, nana mizuki, has also lent her voice to fate testarossa's character. the ending theme is more kiddish, but ive grown to like it more each time. the 'battle' background ambience song appeals to me too.

story: well, the storyline isnt the strong point of this anime, but what i find is ive been wanting to continue watching without stopping. its contradicting, what i can say is the story is something rather shallow but you will enjoy watching it. i quite liked the part, like in the previous season, that the villians are not actually as bad as they seem to be as the story progresses. you will grow to like every single character by the end of the series.

value+enjoyment: to me ive totally enjoyed it and i will definitely recommend it. 10 points may be a little too high to some of you, but im just being true to myself. and please watch the previous season to get a much better idea of the storyline, though u need to be a little patient as the story only gets better after a few episodes, unlike this faster paced season.