Get ready folks. It’s time to continue our journey into Nanoha, and see what those dastardly Velka Knights are up to now! A’s prior episode was a very important one, as it centered on the long-awaited reveal of Hayate’s true family history. As the family’s many idle interactions have made obvious, regardless of what evils the Velka Knights performed in the past, at this point they are entirely dedicated to preserving Hayate’s idyllic family life. To that end, they’re even willing to disobey their master’s own wishes, and work to complete the book of darkness in order to keep her alive.

The reveal of the Velka Knights’ history went basically as expected, and did great work in further illustrating the moral contrast between these foes and the first season. While Hayate feels ever more like a direct parallel for Nanoha, her knights have been defined as essentially the opposite of Fate.

Condemning Testarossa, and drawing Fate from her side, was a pretty morally straightforward proposition – Fate was being abused and mislead by her mother, and Testarossa’s own goals were catastrophic in both nature and intent. In contrast, the Velka Knights are actually working to help their master in spite of her own wishes, are fully aware of the stakes and consequences of their actions, and are working in service of a goal that, while dangerous, is still fundamentally sympathetic. While Testarossa was responsible for basically all the pain Fate both inflicted and endured, Hayate has been nothing but good to her knights, and they’ve done nothing but become more human and sympathetic in turn. They’re frankly getting far more sympathetic framing this season than our actual protagonists, who are very nice people, but also technically Space Cops.

With their history finally revealed, A’s is prepped and ready for another confrontation between our main teams. Whether this episode focuses on that or Yuuno exploring a friggin’ library, I’m ready for whatever may come. Let’s dive into another episode of Nanoha A’s!

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Alright folks, let’s dive back into Nanoha A’s! This season has been establishing Hayate and her “family” as clear echoes of Nanoha’s crew all season, and never was that more apparent than last episode, where the show essentially assigned all of the beats normally reserved for the protagonist (opening monologue, closing statement, mid-battle reflections) to Hayate’s party. Though the episode ended on the reveal that all of Hayate’s companions are magical creatures summoned by the Book of Darkness, the rest of the episode was largely dedicated to emphasizing how little that mattered – they are as loving of a family as Nanoha’s, mutually supporting and utterly willing to sacrifice for each other.

That episode also featured a whole bunch of sweet fights, further solidifying Nanoha’s chops as an all-purpose action platform. While the show’s first season had some exciting clashes, cool animation flourishes, and a generally unique aesthetic, its fights were generally just emotional clashes of laser bursts – what sense of weight and consequence that existed was mostly contained in the dramatic casting and leadup to each major blow. With the Velka knights in the mix, Nanoha is now striving for more tactically diverse battles, with their own internal dramatic arcs. The show’s results on that front have been a little mixed – these fights still seem to be driven more by dramatic necessity than tactical back-and-forth, and devices like each team splitting into pairs for battle feel a little hackneyed. But weightiness of the physical exchanges aside, they’re still exciting as heck, and a great visual spectacle in their own right. Whether we’ve got further investigation of Hayate’s perspective or simply a bunch of sweet laser fights ahead of us, I’m ready to get back into it. Let’s see what’s what in the next episode of Nanoha A’s!

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