Let’s get right back to Magical Lyrical Girl Nanoha! Nanoha’s premiere was an interesting but deeply imbalanced episode, even down to things like having Kou Yoshinari delicately animate precisely one random dinner scene. In larger terms, I really liked how Akiyuki Shinbo’s many creative visual choices consistently sacrificed a sense of stable reality to further bolster each individual scene’s dramatic purpose. The actual visual tricks employed here (simplified color schemes, racking focus, ostentatious movement into depth, etc) don’t actually correlate to many of the visual embellishments SHAFT would later become known for, but the underlying philosophy of compromising on visual congruity for the sake of dramatic impact seems consistent through both. In visual terms, Shinbo asks more of our suspension of disbelief than the vast majority of shows, and the results aren’t always successful, but are pretty much always interesting. I don’t really care that this show is a little messy – I’m here to find the interesting stuff, and Nanoha certainly fits the bill.
Oh, also there’s a narrative. So far, Nanoha’s stuck pretty closely to a tried and true magical girl template, with its own notable features being its unusually thorough elaboration of Nanoha’s everyday life, as well as the heavy dash of science fiction worldbuilding. That worldbuilding seems to indicate Nanoha is something of a compromise between a standard magical girl’s show and a more general action platform, and with Nanoha having just conjured her big magical girl clobbering stick, I’m guessing it’s time for the show to follow through on that action promise. Let’s get to it!
