Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, directed by Akiyuki Shinbo. Screenplay by Masaki Tsuzuki. Produced by Seven Arcs (2004). 13 episodes of 24 minutes (approx. 312 minutes). Not rated.
Available on Amazon Prime.
Probably one of the most famous and influential of magical girl titles, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha briefly enjoyed a place of prominence on Amazon’s short-lived and ill-fated anime streaming service, Amazon Strike. Strike is dead, but the show and its several sequel series are still available for streaming with an Amazon Prime membership (and if you want to binge it without paying, Amazon allows a month free).
Update, : Amazon has marked the series unavailable, at least in my region. Check the affiliate links above for availability.
As I’ve mentioned previously, 2004 saw the appearance of two influential series, both of which became long-running franchises, that arguably completed the process that Sailor Moon got started—namely, the process of transforming the magical girl into an action heroine. Pretty Cure, a show for young girls, did this by incorporating martial arts sequences inspired by Dragon Ball Z, whereas Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, aimed at older audiences, took its influence mostly from mecha anime, especially Mobile Suit Gundam. In fact, legend has it that someone working on the production saw Nanoha’s magical-girl outfit and commented that it made her look like a Gundam, so they decided to roll with that.
The original Lyrical Nanoha is a thirteen-episode series from studio Seven Arcs, made on a modest budget. Except for one incongruous scene (to be discussed later), it is stiffly animated; the franchise’s popularity as a staple amongst otaku is likely due largely to its higher-quality sequels, which offer more bone-crunching action (and implied yuri) than the original does.
It is probably safe to say that Nanoha laid the groundwork for all of the “adult” magical-girl titles that came after it. It was not the first magical-girl show aimed at otaku, but may have been the first (at least it’s the first that I know of) that took itself seriously. As I’ll explain shortly, it’s not a very good show, but without it, we would not have some of the better-made and better-written magical-girl series that came after—including its inarguably superior sequel.
Also worth noting is that Nanoha is the franchise that cemented the trope that magical girl warriors make friends in Gilgamesh/Enkidu style by kicking the snot out of each other. Thus the word “befriend” is facetiously used by Nanoha fans to mean “blow the hell up.”
Also, for some random reason, there’s Pizza Hut.
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