Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha 1

I'm in such a good mood tonight that I'll let y'all listen to the opening, "innocent starter" :)

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Opening: "innocent starter" by Mizuki Nana - Song is wonderful :) And it's not your usual chou-genki mahou shoujo opening. Very good.
Ending: "little wish ~lyrical step~" by Tamura Yukari - Cute song. Not very much going on in the animation department, though.

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So here we go with my most anticipated new show, Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha :)

A dark forest... a boy is injured and a monster is coming towards him. He uses a strange jewel to repel the monster and it runs away. He falls onto the ground.. then changes into a ferret?

But was that just a dream? It's time for Takamachi Nanoha (9 years old) to get up.. do all magical girls have problems getting up in the morning? ;) Nanoha goes downstairs and we're introduced to her parents and her older brother and sister. They all seem to get along quite well :)

On the bus to school Nanoha meets her friends, Arisa and Suzuka. Suzuka really, really reminds me of Tomoyo from CCS for some reason. Maybe it's the way she talks? In class they're doing a project to interview people that work at various places around town to get an idea of what they want to do in the future.. but Nanoha doesn't really know what she wants to do, doesn't really have anything special she can do. But Arisa gets her in shape quickly with the ever-popular mouth stretch ;) Nanoha and the rest walk back from school (On the way back from school is when Arisa has that hilarious "BE QUIET!!" line that some of y'all might have seen from the clip on Momotato's page) Nanoha hears a boy's voice. The same one that was in her dream... and then she finds a ferret lying in the path along with a jewel. It's hurt..

So Nanoha, Arisa, and Suzuka take the ferret to be looked at. It's not hurt too badly, but it's a rather strange kind of ferret. Looks like it likes Nanoha :) So she wants to keep it now and asks her family at dinner. The animation style changed here in this scene... But anyways, when Nanoha goes back to her room she hears that boy's voice again, telling her to come to where he is. So she runs off, and there's the ferret... and a monster's attacking it. The ferret jumps into her arms and thanks her for coming. It can talk!? It tells her to use the magic of the jewel to defeat the monster. Nanoha chants a spell and the power of the jewel is released. Then the ferret tells her to think of a form to protect herself.. And here we go with the transformation sequence! Takes about a minute. It was pretty cool :) Nanoha is pretty surprised, of course.

And that's where the first episode ends. I have to say I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Just what a mahou shoujo fan like myself needs ;) It's cute, though not sugary sweet, and Nanoha is pretty likeable. Does seem like typical mahou shoujo though I do feel a bit of a difference. Besides the sudden shift in animation style that one time the animation was okay. Same goes for music. And the voice talent for Nanoha is so good I would watch it for that alone :) So I'm looking forward to next time!