Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A's

Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A's

Still nothing lyrical about it, but it was a nice ride.

This series which was a spinoff to a Triangle Heart game has just started to live a life all its own. With all new character additions, and a plot that is just as exciting, Nanoha's world is getting more vibrant. This new season begins some time after the first (Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha). Nanoha and Fate have since become very close friends, and with the backing of the Asura crew, we see more focus on the workings of the Time-Space Administration, rather on delving on just Nanoha.

This makes it seem as if the first series was an introduction to our main character, and then the second series expands on the idea by making it more of a team effort. Yup, Nanoha has her new friends and allies join her. Or rather, Nanoha joins the crew in yet another mission. Well, they need lots of magic firepower after all, because the new enemies are quite plentiful too. A certain book called the Book of Darkness is bound to cause havoc around the magical dimensions again, and it needs to be stopped. The knights who protect the book is composed of three hawt girls and a familiar. The master who is supposed to control the book is actually this frail but cute girl named Hayate. Despite Hayate being the master of an evil book, she is this kind and sweet girl who tends to the knights, and even consider them as "friends" instead of slaves.

See a pattern again? Yup, in almost the same story setup, the enemies in Nanoha A's are given more than enough backstory to make it seem that they will also be powerful allies in the end. In the first series, some enemies become friends, and so this will not be a big surprise the second time around. We know that cute Hayate and the gang would eventually be on Nanoha's side, so all the viewers need to do is enjoy the ride on how they get there.

It does have its usual share of plot twists and stuff like that, but the best thing about this new season are the fight scenes. Yup, this is an age in which even young witches use brute force (moetan quote). The Nanoha series have lots of surprisingly awesome action scenes. Nanoha A's has tons more of them, but eventually it withers off as the plot starts to thicken. Near the end of the series, it becomes some boring firepower festival, in which all the characters show off their uber-magical powers. Heck, it even becomes videogame RPG style, with magic spells being blown to the enemy one after the other (there's even a healing spell lol). Well that's just a nitpick, as Nanoha A's boasts awesome animation in some of the other fight scenes.

Animation runs quite consistent, which is a great plus. Fanservice becomes a minimum for this second series, which is good considering I was quite annoyed with it in the first series.. The OP is quite laughable to me, because it reminded me of certain Gundam Seed opening sequences. Heck, I can even replace the Nanoha A's OP song for a Gundam OP (try it on Invoke, it fits too well) and laugh out loud. The other music are quite nice too.

The very end of the anime came as a disappointment, not because of anything bad, but because it may have closed the possibility of yet another season to come. Of course, it's not final, but I really hope the Nanoha series continue. This is one sequel that is up on par with its original counterpart, and it's kinda rare to see that kind of consistency. Yup, it still has me screaming 'sequel!' at the end. Cheers for more Nanoha!