My Thoughts – Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha The MOVIE 1st

Finally got around to seeing “Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha The MOVIE 1st”, the first movie of everyone’s favourite mahou-shoujo anime, in the beauty of high-definition! The movie, for those unaware, was a remake of the original first season of the Nanoha series, and is the first, of what will (hopefully) be a series of movies.

Although two of the mains, Nanoha and Fate, are two of my most favourite characters, I can’t really say that the overall original series was all that impressive. (notably, StrikerS, and I can’t really be bothered with following ViVid and Force as I haven’t finished StrikerS) When I heard about the making of the movie, I knew that I just had to watch it, and just couldn’t wait to see how the producers, Seven Arcs, would adapt the 13 episode first season, into a 2 hour movie.

(I’ll be making quite a few comparisons to the original series, so I’ll say SPOILER ALERT just in case)

When people think of “Magical Girl”, I imagine they first think of “Sailor Moon”, about some girls fighting over a guy and trying to win him over while hiding their identity as a Magical Girl and protecting said guy from his true identity type anime. What I love about the Nanoha series, from other Magical Girl series, is that, it’s not like that. And it certainly isn’t as lame like “Mermaid Melody: Pichi Pichi Pitch” where, from what I gather, the girls transform and sing songs till their… “enemy” explodes or dies or something, in order to protect a guy…? No, Nanoha is about an ordinary school girl who gets caught up in a series of events, that goes on to making her see and do things she never would have even dreamed about.

:: Story and Characters || Story – 7 | Characters – 8 ||

The story itself is sweet and fun to watch, with the right mix of emotion and explosions. The story puts you from Nanoha’s angle, a school girl who accidentally discovers the powers of Mid-childan magic, and a whole universe outside of the planet she lives on. (Earth by the way) As she uses her magical powers to help out Yuuno, the one who introduced her to magic, secure powerful and dangerous “Jewel Seeds” she eventually runs into another girl, Fate, who is also after the Jewel Seeds, and acts hostile to Nanoha. Nanoha continually attempts to find out why such hostility when they only just met, and expresses her willingness to become friends. Reluctantly Nanoha continues to battle her until she finds out the why.

I do have to remember that the first season was well over four hours long, and so omissions from the first season are necessary for a movie that’s half that length, taking that into account, I still wasn’t really all that happy with the presentation of the story. I found many of the flashbacks weren’t really timed well, Nanoha got used to learning magic way too quickly, and I also imagine that there were moments that a new audience wouldn’t really understand that well (Nanoha’s views on life and things about her family). It felt a little rushed, and not very fluid either, but I guess it was still tolerable for me.

The original series, with the more time that it had, was able to address the role of the supporting characters a lot more. I was disappointed with the lack of addressing Nanoha’s normal school and family life, but I was happy to see that there was a greater focus on Fate in the movie. Precia was developed a little more, and her relationship with Alicia was expressed a little more deeply too. Yuuno and Arf were great companions for Nanoha and Fate. Lindy is as caring as ever as the captain of the Asura, and Chrono’s little pout and accidental slip of “okaa-san” was brilliant!

:: Art and Sound || Art – 9 | Sound – 9 ||

Maybe it helped that it was in Blu-ray, but animation and art wise, I found that it was absolutely beautiful. Characters were well detailed, Barrier Jackets were well detailed, explosions were bright and pretty! Battle scenes were fast and kept their clarity, the extended and modified from the original transformation scenes for both Fate and Nanoha were beautiful, and the minor changes to the character designs I think work in favour.

As I expected, Tamura Yukari and Mizuki Nana excelled in their voice acting performance of Nanoha and Fate! The supporting all-female cast were all brilliant portraying their respectful characters, and though it’s not rare in japanese animations, seiyuus Mizuhashi Kaori and Takahashi Mikako did excellent jobs voicing Yuuno and Chrono. The original score and background music matched each scene well, and though not featured in the anime as predominantly as I had hoped, the OP and EDs by Mizuki and Tamura are classic Nanoha themed. Though the insert song “Don’t be long” by Mizuki Nana was drowned out by the battle scene near the end of the movie, which I wasn’t too delighted about.

:: Overall

Despite my gripes with the omissions from the original series, I found the Nanoha movie very enjoyable and a delight to watch. Seeing the movie in the beauty of high-definition, accompanied by an amazing cast and score certainly increases that enjoyment factor for me. It renewed my love for Nanoha and Fate, and makes me eagerly await the release of the 2nd movie, “Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha the Movie 2nd A’s” in 2012!

Overall – 8 out of 10