Today we’re embarking on a brand-new journey with Magical Lyrical Girl Nanoha! I’ll confess, my knowledge of this show and franchise is fairly limited, so I’ll start off by cataloging what I actually know. It’s my understanding that Nanoha was a pretty key show in merging classical magical girl storytelling fundamentals with more shounen-influenced fighting mechanics and concessions to other demographics, making it a clear forerunner for shows like Madoka and Symphogear (which I totally knew already, but am morally obligated to note was also mentioned by the person initially sending me on this journey). I suppose this also makes it a direct evolution of shows like Go Nagai’s Cutey Honey, but since I’m not really a Nagai scholar or fan, that’s pretty much all I can postulate there.

I also known Nanoha’s first season was a true Akiyuki Shinbo-directed show, not a “brought to you by Akiyuki Shinbo, The Man With The Plan” branding exercise by Studio SHAFT. In franchise terms, I know it’s a magical girl show that eventually spirals into sequels and spinoff properties of variable quality, and in narrative terms, I know Nanoha eventually marries one of her early foes and they apparently have a daughter, who also ends up with her own series. That all seems like a bunch of delightful madness to me, and I’m certainly very excited to see where Shinbo’s style was at just before his merging into the Shaftian megaesthetic, so I’m more than ready to get started on this one. Let’s check out the first episode of Magical Lyrical Girl Nanoha!

Episode 1

Opening with some brightly sunlit pans over a mundane city, accompanied by soothing guitar and the presumable voice of our protagonist telling us “millions of people live beneath this expansive sky, and they all harbor a myriad of wishes and feelings.” Already quite similar to Madoka’s beginning, if you skip that show’s dramatic cold open

And here’s our heroine Nanoha. I like her weird tube-shaped ponytail, which feels like one of those classic hairstyles that seems natural in animation but wouldn’t make any sense in reality. The overall character design feels very much a product of its time – with extremely large eyes, simplified features, extended chins, and minimal, exaggerated shading, this all feels appropriate for a mid-00s VN-based property. I frankly don’t miss this style – character designs like these never felt particularly expressive to me, and I prefer the greater detail and more rounded features of most modern designs

“Those feelings sometimes touch and collide with the feelings of others. But within some of those people are even deeper ties that surely connect them all together…” Alright, so essentially our first themey-wemey road sign is “finding the common humanity in people we disagree with.” Presumably that’s relevant to whoever Nanoha’s eventually going to be fighting and subsequently marrying, while also making me realize the use of Chris’ character in the first season of Symphogear is essentially revisiting this narrative. I didn’t really expect this show’s influential qualities to appear within the first twenty-five seconds

Apparently our mascot is some kind of ferret

Yep, it’s Nanoha herself speaking. Interesting choice to have her appear herself to announce her own show

Very nicely animated OP, and I like the occasional camera flourishes – a transition imitating a rip in projector film, a shot that turns as if a hand-held camera is being moved, etcetera. It all lends a unique sense of energy and, like the Nanoha-narrated intro, makes the show feel a bit more conscious of its existence as a show

Opening with more attention-drawing visual tricks, as a shot tracking through a black and red forest starts in the corner of the screen and zooms to fill the whole. Shinbo clearly not interested in any kind of naturalistic production

This almost wholly black-and-red palette also reminds me of Shinbo’s work on Yu Yu Hakusho, which I specifically associate with sequences like Yusuke’s torturous training arc during the Dark Tournament

Someone is being pursued by a vague, ominous creature. This world’s magic system seems far less fanciful and vaguely defined than many magical girl shows – this person essentially creates a pentagram in air with a bunch of important-looking scribbles around it, making the magic here immediately come off as a coherent scientific system. If this particular show is less about Doremi-style moral lessons and more about tactically-minded fights, it definitely makes sense to establish a system of magic with clear rules the audience can invest in

Neither of those styles of magic are “better” than the other in a narrative sense, incidentally. Establishing the rules like this works well for action shows, but for shows that are more about emotional journeys and thematic lessons, establishing rules is often a waste of time. It’s a rare narrative that rewards both – I guess Hunter x Hunter would be a good example

Man, the camerawork is great. Lots of shots that swoop in and out, sacrificing totally convincing visual realism for welcome dynamicism

I guess this person is our mascot character in human form

“Is this what you call a ‘mysterious encounter’?” Even the episode title is self-aware

The background art is pretty lackluster, kinda matching the character designs. It’s clear the direction is the visual star here

Nanoha is an elementary schooler and the youngest of three siblings. Her parents have incredibly generic designs

The family owns a coffee shop called Midoriya. This segment is pretty weird – it’s Nanoha methodically describing her whole family and daily life directly to the audience like it’s some kind of class presentation. This show clearly doesn’t care much for naturalistic storytelling in general, but this still feels clumsily direct

Looks like they also have a dojo. Nanoha having two older siblings that are an active part of her life already makes her a little unusual among anime protagonists – they’re generally either only children or the eldest in a family

“My parents still act like newlyweds, and are a handful.” Clumsy storytelling aside, the extreme length of this weird segment makes me think family will be a major theme of this show

We get our first hint of conflict with Nanoha’s nicely strained smile and “I feel like I’m floating away from it all” here. So she feels distant from this perfect family

Nanoha’s friends are Suzuka and Alisa

“As you’ve seen, there are a lot of different places and jobs out there.” We’re getting an unusually thorough excerpt of what their class has been up to, a far more meaningful snapshot of their school life than many magical girl shows. That seems to carry along from Nanoha’s general interest in thoroughly establishing the mundane texture of Nanoha’s life

And another potential thematic throughline is raised, “what kind of person do you want to grow up to be”

“I’m next in line for running the coffee shop, but I feel like there’s something else I want to do.” Don’t worry Nanoha, you’ll be firing dream lasers at spirit demons or whatever this universe’s magical girls do soon enough

Nanoha’s self-deprecation, the rooftop setting, and the general lighting scheme of this particular rooftop all remind me of Madoka

Some old-fashioned goofy faces. This is definitely an early 2000s anime

Alright, now we’re getting some nice backgrounds. These painted forests are actually quite lovely

So apparently Nanoha actually saw that red-and-black encounter in a dream. That means she doesn’t just stumble into her role here; she was fated to become a magical girl

Lots of low-angle shots, long shots, and shots framed through the trees, all designed to create a sense of lurking menace in spite of the daylight

Very few shows are this willing to evoke sliding perspective or movement into depth through adjusting the relative position of the layered objects on screen – moving the foreground grass in the opposite direction of the background trees to simulate a sliding camera, enhancing the size of the foreground objects relative to the background art to simulate movement, etcetera. There’s a clear reason for that – this stuff generally tends to look kinda fake and draw our attention to the simulated nature of the overall composition, in spite of opening the door to many new forms of visual storytelling. Shinbo obviously isn’t that concerned about maintaining any consistent visual reality here, and is making the most of that concession in terms of his directorial trickery

It’s kinda funny that so many of SHAFT’s ostentatious style choices seem clearly intended to stick out for no meaningful dramatic reason (their use of random photorealistic objects alongside animated characters, the head tilts, etc), whereas in this show, it’s very obvious these concessions have been made for clear dramatic reasons. A transition from loving ostentatious visual gimmicks because of the dramatic doors they open to loving ostentatious visual gimmicks because damnit we love ostentatious visual gimmicks

I really like how the camera just pans up and away when the girls start discussing what to do about the wounded mascot. It adds a sense of urgency when we can’t see the panic in their voices, and also sorta frames this scene from the perspective of the wounded animal itself

More shots using foreground objects to create depth in the nurse’s office. This is a reasonable way of counterbalancing the kinda mediocre background art to create a greater sense of space

Animated ferrets have a pretty solid advantage on real-life ferrets in that you don’t have to smell 2D ones

Nanoha, the ferret is staring at you. Introduce yourself

We now follow Nanoha to cram school, where she passes notes and worries what her parents might think of a ferret. Once again, this show is demonstrating a unique interest in the mundane moments that make up Nanoha’s life – this whole episode has essentially just followed her through half of one largely ordinary day

What. What. Why did they animate the living hell out of this one particular dinner conversation. This is so many miles above the show’s usual standard, and so fluid it’s actually a little unnerving

Though again, this show is apparently about mundane moments, so I guess it sooorta makes sense that they’d animate the shit out of Nanoha’s distracted hand gestures and whatnot? Not unwelcome, but it just seems strange

Nah, it’s a little unwelcome. Nanoha’s excited response to being told she can keep the ferret is so dramatically animated that it actually feels artificial – like she’s acting. This scene is like that animation gag from Joshiraku

Hah, apparently Kou Yoshinari himself handled that scene. What the heck

It’d be awesome if the show could consistently characterize its cast through their animated acting like in that scene, but when it’s just one isolated sequence out of an otherwise conservative production, it feels a little ostenta… oh right, this is the show I’m watching

“That ferret’s the one speaking to me?” Nanoha catches on quick

More intense visual trickery for Nanoha’s rush back to the ferret. The shaky cam and continuously racking focus do a nice job of creating a sense of urgency, but they also work well to hide the natural incongruity of Nanoha’s fluid movements against a stiff, unmoving background

I also really like the composition of this cut where we’re looking up at Nanoha and seeing the power lines behind her. Power lines are always a nice shorthand for the alienation of the suburbs

Yeah, and the final shot of this sequence is the most suspect, thus the most altered – a shot behind Nanoha as she moves forward through a CG environment, blurred so we get little more than a sense of momentum. I really love how this show continuously demonstrates the interesting effects you can arrive at when you make much harsher compromises regarding visual congruity than anime generally tend to

More beautifully fluid animation, and more neat effects animating these windswept trees. This finale sequence is turning out to be a stunner

This has to be among the top five most exciting ferret chases I’ve witnessed

“I’ve come here from another world in search of something.” Another indicator this is less of a “magical girls are a natural force in the universe” show and more of a “this is a scifi/fantasy story with all sorts of meaningful worldbuilding” one

“I promise to repay you, so please help!” A lot of emphasis on the transactional nature of this particular magical girl agreement

“I, who has accepted this mission, upon the ancient contract, command you to release your power!” So we’ve got both martial “missions” and magical “ancient contracts” invoked in this mantra

“Raising Heart, Set Up!” And her artifact responds with a computerized “Stand By” notification. I really like how they’re sort of going for something between a traditional magical girl setup and a scifi action franchise setup that just happens to involve magical girls

This show sure does have luxurious effects and mechanical animation

And Done

Alright then! That was certainly an interesting first episode, although I wouldn’t really consider it a great one. But interesting is often what I’m here for, and there was certainly plenty to dig into on that front. I really liked the episode’s distinctive directorial tricks, and eventually came to like its weirdly muted focus on Nanoha’s daily life, as well. I was less enthused by the laborious exposition, and to be honest, nothing about the actual narrative has really grabbed me yet. But there’s time for that! Between its standout feats of high quality animation and wild visual experiments, there was certainly plenty to enjoy here, and I am intrigued by this world’s scifi twist on magical girl concepts. And next episode we actually get to see Nanoha kick some smog monster ass!

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