It takes a while for Magical Lyrical Girl Nanoha to get going. The first six episodes left me bored, wondering how and why this show is notable enough to still be talked about. Also, given the number of amazing figures made for the franchise, I expected a higher level of visual appeal. The character models don’t stand out and seem clunky now that I see them animated, like why does every single person have that crazy bed-head thing on one side of their head?
Of course, I heard it would pick up a few episodes after Fate shows up, just I wasn’t expecting to be so disinterested during the first six episodes. The viewing experience was a tainted one, moreso than just about any internet-popular show that aired over the last handful of years. The it’s magical-girls-for-men, it’s mech, it should be blamed for something, appealing to those afraid, uncomfortable, or rejecting masculinity or real women, etc., etc. At least all of that meta made sitting through the first half of the series less of a drag to get through. During the first episode, I kept wondering how was this a magical-girl-show-for-men? This wasn’t sleazy or full of awesome fights, but then around the 18-minute mark, a high wind and a low camera angle blows the cover off. Okay, but why wait so long to reveal the true colors of the show?
I can see why Fate is a popular character. She gives Nanoha a target for her Nanoha-ness and opens up the good fights. Really, it’s difficult to not find some affection and/or camaraderie for Fate given her issues. I thought this affection or at least understanding sets up they key moment of the series, Nanoha unleashing the Starlight Breaker on Fate. That’s the moment that made watching the series worthwhile to me. I didn’t care for much in the show before or after the Starlight Breaker attack, but I felt it was a great moment.
Anyway, I hear Nanoha A’s is much better, so I’ll probably check that out sometime.
I remember when I first watched Nanoha, I learned of it in a Gundam podcast of all things. As I watched it over a week I had mild interest in the show until the final battle with Nanoha and Fate. The show left me with a good enough impression to watch Nanoha A’s.
Then I watched the first episode of Nanoha A’s, that’s when I thought: ah, this is the Gundam part. Afterwards I proceeded to marathon Nanoha A’s in one day.
Self center comment aside, I do hope that you have a similar positive experience. At the very least the first season is worth watching to learn of the background for Nanoha A’s.
I pretty much stuck with it to have that background information for watching A’s. In a way knowing the popular opinion of the show, and when it gets better helped, since it kept me from dropping it.
Nanoha sucks … really sucks. When I watched the first episodes I was like “OK, so why is this so popular?”. Props to you for sticking to the end, I dropped it somewhere in the middle because it was just horribly boring.
A’s on the other hand is just fcking awesome. EP01 hooked me so much that I had to marathon the whole series. It still suffers from those terrible shoujo moments, but even so it’s like 2 levels above Nanoha.
Go watch A’s, now
I was really tempted to skip Nanoha and just start with A’s, which from what I understand doesn’t put the viewer at a loss for not having seen the first series. It was incredibly boring, though. Usually, I don’t do anything else when watching an anime for the first time, but for much of Nanoha I was multi-tasking because it didn’t hold my interest for a long stretches of time. But, I will watch A’s for what I assume really made this show popular.
You know, i think i prefer the story in the first season than from A’s.
But A’s is way more fun to watch and better animated and stuff. But for me it’s still the same as the first season, just more nicely executed.
The Nanoha series is not that awesome as an anime, what we all love are the characters, and that’s the strengh of this show.
On another note, i totally HATED the third season, StrikerS … Only the two last episodes are good, the rest is so boring and stupid :/
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I have saw Nanoha First season and A’s. Both shows are really good but I think A’s is better because there are new characters to be familiar with.
I started watching Nanoha mostly because I was interested in Strickers. It was interesting, not the best of series but definitely not for a male audience, it’s definitely a Mahou Shoujo series no doubt about that. But A’s and most likely Strickers tries to “call” male audience, still imo it still is a shoujo series.
That’s how I feel about the Nanoha series, that if you took out a scene here or there there wasn’t really much that seemed targeted at guys, but with those things thrown in there it really is going after them.
A’s is definitely better than the first one. I guess the first was pretty slow looking back, but Fate was attractive as a tortured character that I wanted to see break free from her pain. Everyone has their own likes though, nothing wrong with disliking it, after all it’s over-hyped and over-rated. I enjoyed A’s and StrikerS was more appealing but less interesting and for some reason took me a while to get through.
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I have saw 1 Ep from Nanoha after this post i will watch all
In my opinion I think Cardcaptor sakura is much better because it was handed very realistickly ; what i mean is Cardcaptor sakura didn’t leave any characters out, the characters all got developement whether they had major or minor roles. Also Clamp didn’t forget to treat Sakura like a kid still despite the fact that she now has magical powers like hanging out with her friends, helping her family, going on school feild trips ya know stuff a kid would still do. Despite everything i just said I don’t hate nanoha in fact i enjoyed it very much however i don’t like how Yunno got handled throughout the series i mean if he was just going to play the sidekick role why give him a human form? moreover he had some much potential to be a memorable character and nanoha’s love interest but for some reason the creator of nanoha decided to go down a yuri route because aparently “older male demagraphic” want to see lesibans because they just want to.
Sidekicks don’t get love. I’ve still only seen the first Nanoha anime and they didn’t get too far into any romance. I often find myself in the camp of the less loved characters, so might share the sentiment whenever I get around to seeing the rest of it.
I don’t get why the creator decided to go down the yuri route anyway I mean he just decided to make most of the females gay just for the sake of it. There are only four straight couples in Nanoha; Nanoha’s parents, Nanoha’s brother and Suzuka’s sister, Chrono and Amy, and Caro and Erio. I have nothing againist gay pairings, it’s just why bother having males in the Nanoha verse in the first place if it was going to be Shojo ai in season three? (which I despised because it strayed too far from the original premise) I hate to keep comparing nanoha to card captor Sakura but at least when Clamp makes a gay pairing they explain why they are gay. Sorry if I offended anyone.