Alright, let’s get back to Magical Lyrical Girl Nanoha! So far, my experience with the show has had its ups and downs, largely illustrated through the difference between the first and second episodes. In that first episode, Nanoha’s distinctive direction added lots of energy and visual appeal to a relatively familiar magical girl template. In the second, those directoral flourishes faded significantly, leaving me with a so-so genre piece notable mostly for its clear influence on future shows like Symphogear. That mix of positive and negative is a little troubling, frankly – “the production and visual energy plummet after a great first episode” is a problem shared by countless shows, whereas the show’s current narrative issues are the kind of problems that tend to persist throughout productions.

That said, there’s still a fair amount of novelty in the show’s “magical girl drama reimagined as heavy scifi shounen vehicle” premise, and some of my current complaints, like the show’s weirdly stilted pacing, are the kind of quirky issues that can often blossom into engaging elements of a show’s identity. Nanoha’s extended scenes with her family don’t carry that much emotional weight yet, but the show is clearly invested in building up her general home life, suggesting its emotional ambitions will soon move beyond “Nanoha zaps a monster and it’s awesome.” Either way, the show has established a narrative template and a wider world while also powering us through Nanoha’s first two assignments as a magical girl. Let’s see what episode three brings!

Episode 3

Right, she’s a third grader. She seems so much older than that – like, Doremi and her friends I can buy as third graders, but Nanoha looks and acts like she’s just a bit short of her teenage years

“Good evening! Takamachi Nanoha here.” I still haven’t settled my feelings on how often this show directly addresses the audience. It frankly feels like a crutch – I’d much rather see the mechanics and relationships of her life illustrated through her actually participating in them, as opposed to explained by the protagonist directly to me

That said, this segment isn’t really about exposition – it’s more the show’s winking riff on its own narrative mechanics, which to be honest is also something I’m not a fan of. “We engage in cliche storytelling but wink at it” is a perpetually popular and perpetually ineffective way of trying to make up for bad writing

That also said, I really like how we jumped directly from Nanoha’s first conventional victory to the point of her confidently embarking on some later magical girl task. Genre-savviness doesn’t have to be a bad or attention-drawing thing – here, the show capitalizes on our built-in knowledge regarding the episodic nature of magical girl assignments to shorthand Nanoha’s induction into a magical girl routine

Heh, I still love the lavish mechanical animation for Nanoha’s “wand.” Somebody on this staff really wanted to do a giant robot show

I also like that Nanoha’s prevailing impression of being a magical girl is that it’s a big exhausting chore

More of this show’s distinctive layered compositions using leaves to create depth. A small embellishment, but a welcome one

Okay, I really like this use of the show’s exposition. As Yuuno tries to get her to wake up, Nanoha breaks into another extended explanation of her current circumstances, seemingly using the exposition itself as an excuse to ignore Yuuno and sleep in. That’s a very cute trick that manages to riff on the show’s self-awareness in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s just mocking itself, but instead is honestly reflecting Nanoha’s personality in a way that’s naturally funny

They’ve already collected five seeds. If I recall right, there were around twenty-five or so total?

Yuuno suggests she take a break from seed hunting for the day to rest. He’s pretty alright as far as dorky magical girl mascots go

This soccer scene kinda sums up my conflicted feelings on Nanoha’s odd storytelling choices. On the other hand, “my dad coaches a youth soccer team and I like to support him” is the kind of strange, extremely specific detail I very much like, since it really helps make this world feel distinct and real. On the other hand, the extended exposition of this detail feels clumsy, and the scene itself relatively inert visually, undercutting much of this choice’s positive effect

Alright, once the exposition ends, things improve. Nanoha and Yuuno share a conversation about sports that has no possible dramatic purpose, but feels mundane and naturalistic in a way that definitely solidifies their relationship. This is the sort of thing Nanoha’s odd dramatic choices should theoretically allow: unusually low-key sequences that lend solidity to this world and characters, thus making later dramatic turns land with that much more impact

Ah, there we go. After a couple more idle scenes, the soccer team ties into Nanoha’s story through one of the players having a seed

This show’s comedy on the whole is kinda bland; its character designs just aren’t expressive enough to make its small conversational gags land

Another example of Nanoha’s odd pacing: when Nanoha’s friends say they’re leaving, there’s a little conversation making sure each of them has a safe ride home. That’s the kind of exchange most stories would excise because it doesn’t contribute to the narrative, but Nanoha seems to make a point of including all these mundane little asides

It’s maybe a bit like what you might see in a particularly grounded iyashikei show, where the purpose is portraying life as it is experienced, and Nanoha definitely has some iyashikei genetic strands

Welp, here’s a creepy leering segment of Nanoha changing, I guess

Yuuno reflects on his regrets about forcing Nanoha to exhaust herself

It’s an interesting choice to give the seeds such thick outlines that they almost feel like they’re not a part of this world

What the fuck, the seed just sprouted into a giant tree that now towers above their town. The first incident was explained as a car crash, but I feel like this one’s going to raise a few more questions

Nice animation of the tree growing, incidentally

“This was likely caused by a human. If someone puts their strongest feelings and wishes into a Jewel Seed, it releases its maximum power.” I’m sure that won’t be relevant again

Nanoha somehow realizes from this explanation that the boy yesterday had a Jewel Seed, which is kinda preposterous, but this episode’s threads are somewhat loosely interwoven in general

“I might have been able to stop this before it happened…” And because her regrets are based in something preposterous, this self-recrimination feels weightless

This conflict has gone from zero to a hundred in roughly thirty seconds, and as a result it’s hard to really feel much about Nanoha’s sadness here

In theory, I actually really like the idea of our third episode just entirely blowing open the secrecy of this show’s premise in some spectacularly public way like this. I guess I just don’t yet trust this show to not fix everything by the end of the episode

Another thing I like: Nanoha being genuinely good at her job without also being a “chosen one” or anything like that. I mean, she is a chosen one, but her competency is a reflection of her character, not her destiny

Raising Heart has another transformation sequence before turning into a giant laser-shooting spear. Somebody really wanted to make a giant robot show

Now here Yuuno goes saying “how much magical potential does she have?”, basically emphasizing that her talent is a result of her chosen one-ness. Damnit

I like Nanoha’s fatigued acknowledgment of her failure here. I’m not sure I can actually believe in her self-doubt, but I appreciate the light touch in its illustration

Also, whew, the town is actually screwed up. Okay, that finale plays a lot better with the knowledge that the show isn’t just going to walk back its consequences entirely

“I resolved to do my best to find the jewel seeds because I wanted to. So something like this would never happen again.” I guess that’s more or less the point of this episode

And Done

That was… hm. Still not great, honestly, though probably better than the second episode. Nanoha is an unusual show in a few ways, but its overall storytelling has just not been strong or unique enough to really grab me. The show doesn’t really have any convincingly sketched characters yet, the storytelling is both fairly genre-standard and kinda clumsy, and the visual execution still hasn’t offered anything interesting since that great first episode. If I were three episode testing this show, I’d probably be dropping it here. Is whatever made this show such an enduring franchise still waiting somewhere down the line? Or maybe it’s just kinda hard to go back to this in a post-Symphogear world? Either way, Nanoha feels like it’s just going through the motions at this point, so hopefully something shakes up the status quo soon!

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