Triangle Heart: Sweet Songs Forever

What originally attracted me to Triangle Heart was its relation to Magic Girl Nanoha. I was a big fan of Nanoha so I was looking forward to viewing this. I thought at first that this was just a spinoff staring the older brother and sister but I realized later that this series came first. Unfortunately it just didn’t live up to successor.

The main problem with Triangle Heart is that it is a series that doesn’t know what it wants to be. Is it a shounen style action series? Is it romance? A musical drama? Because it tries to ... be too many things it fails at everything. Besides sharing the same names and a few personality quirks it has almost nothing to do with Nanoha. Pretty much all of that series characters appear in some for albeit most extremely briefly. The series is just too short to do more than one thing. There are action scenes with sword battles and gun fights but there is nothing particularly inspired about them. There isn’t enough action to keep action fans interested. They try to bring in some romantic elements but those don’t work either because the series is to short and the characters too wooden and 2-dimensional to generate any interest in them.

The plot, to put it bluntly, is stupid. We start the show in England at a music academy. The new headmistress Fiasse, is a famous singer and is about to go on a world tour to raise money for a charity she is involved with and promote her school. She is being attacked by an unknown enemy and has to be protected by Ellis a highly skilled bodyguard and her team. I found it all pretty unbelievable and ridiculous. At this point Kyouya and Miyuki Takamachi appear, who are childhood friends and apparently ninjas. The major difference with them is that while in Nanoha series they are the older brother and sister of Nanoha, in this series they are cousins though raised as siblings. All four of the leads grew up together so they all have a shared history and a shared tragedy. Kyouya's father was killed protecting Fiasse's father years before from the same mysterious enemy. There is friction between Ellis and the two as she is resentful that they have been brought in and think that them using swords will be a liability and will only get them killed. (Can't say I wouldn’t agree with her there)

One thing that Triangle Heart shares with Nanoha is there are just too many characters. The plot (what little there is) is crushed under the weight of scores of meaningless supporting characters who bring nothing to the story. It tried to tell the story of four main characters but the series isn’t long enough to give any of them justice. Thus none of them are interesting nor do you care about what happens to them. I mentioned the cameos of many characters from Nanoha? Well the story would have been better off without them. The supreme example of this is the two girls from the cafe who are always fighting. Why? I couldn’t even tell you their names, just that one had green hair and the other blue. What exactly is your point?

The art and sound are very well done however. So from a visual standpoint there is a lot to like. Very adorable character designs and vibrant colors. The music is pretty good as well, the songs were performed by Kotoko, who is a favorite of mine. The voice acting is not as strong however.

I can’t recommend this series though. Even if you’re a big Nanoha fan this series is so different and pointless that you are just wasting your time with it. If you haven’t seen Nanoha go watch that instead, you can thank me later.

5 WORDS OR LESS REVIEW : Just watch the Nanoha series.

Triangle Heart is another one of those series that could have been better. It definitely had some potential, but it wasn’t executed well.

I gave it a chance – I really did, but for the first two episodes felt like a chore to me. The last two got a bit better, and I realized it got better because the plot was more defined by then. I guess that’s it – the plot development was really slow, and since it was a 4 episode OVA (with limited time) I thought they should have defined the plot sooner.

I ... really did like the last two episodes. It got more exciting, especially with the fight scenes. I also like the conflict between using guns and swords, and why the main characters chose their paths. It’s almost as if it’s an anime version of the Hollywood movie The Bodyguard.

Speaking of characters, I can’t say I liked them a lot. They all lacked charisma – none of them was appealing enough. Also, there was a lot of characters, specially the ones who work at Midoriya(?) café. Most of them were there for providing fan service. All I could remember was Nanoha – she had her own series after all.

I didn’t know most of the voice actors for this anime. Hikaru Midorikawa was a familiar name, he played Tamahome in Fushigi Yuugi, one of my favorite series. I guess he did a good job of portraying Kyoya. Tomokazu Seki is another familiar name – he is my favorite male voice actor after all, but I didn’t notice it was him right away. His role wasn’t a main character role.

Art style reminded me of the original Kanon series, because the characters looked somewhat stubby, and I thought they all looked dowdy. I did like the background design though – As stand-alones, the backgrounds would really make nice watercolor paintings. Color coordination needed some improvement.

Because it is a music-themed anime, it has to have good music – and it does. KOTOKO did a good job in singing the opening and ending songs. I also noticed that for a 4 episode OVA, it had a lot of insert songs which were all pop and cutesy.

To end my review, I have to say that the Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha series made a really good spin-off of this OVA. You don’t have to watch this to understand the Nanoha series, but it’s fun to recognize the characters from the OVA. Finally, it’s not bad, but it’s not good either.

Triangle Heart -Sweet Songs Forever, could have been made into a much longer series, but for the 4 episodes it was packed into, it was done very well.

-Story
The story, or plotline, was quite slow for such a short anime. But unlike other < 6 episode animes that I have seen, this one did not throw all of the plot into the last two Episodes. It slowly leaks out the plot. From the beginning to the end, you learn much more about the Characters. However, the story, being such slowly done in such short time, has a downfall; it was very simple. Good guy versus Bad ... Guy. Bad Guy is a Bad Guy. Good Guy is a Good Guy. Simple stuff like that.

-Art
I noticed something very noticible, it is very similar to Nanoha (Magical Girl Nanoha), since this was an offspin of it. Even so, the art wasn't completely horrible, nor was it amazingly great. But the slicing of people was drawn quite well. The main characters were drawn nicely, with the big affro-like hairstyle. There is a tint of randomness in the minor characters though. If this was meant to be, even the art conveyed dual messages.

-Sound
The music wasn't spectacular with drums and rock, but it was very nicely done. Also because that this anime is music based (note the title, Sweet Songs Forever) it would have to have at least half-way decent music, no? The music was horrible. The Background music where there was, blended in with the anime very well. Sometimes silence is also a great tool of sound.
Sound also includes the different dialects used in the anime. This anime used Chinese, more specifically both Cantonese and if I can hear correctly Mandarin. Although I might not be like superior in these languages, I know Cantonese when I hear it, and they've got pretty nice Cantonese. Also the English is quite correctly pronounced, although with a slight accent (more or less depending on who is speaking), it was bearable. It wasn't like you couldn't tell what they were saying.

-Characters
The characters like nearly all other good vs evil animes, good has the upper hand in skill, and evil has the upperhand in numbers or weoponry. Like the normal power ranger thing... However, this anime displayed that to its max. That wasn't too good. Even so, there was, even with minute numbers of episodes, character development. You understand the main characters' actions and their reason for doing so. The Characters are all very tangible and had great cohesion with the story, even if some of the characters seemed to have supernatural powers.

-Enjoyment
For some reason, it captivated my short attention, span of 3 ooohh shiny. I guess since I didn't read anything about it, I didn't know what it would be like, which might actually be much better than reading everything you can then watching it. So if you are going to watch it, might as well just stop reading this right?
The reason why it scored so highly was that it took choir, something that is not very unisex, and gave it introduction to everyone. Even so, as you understand every inference they make, you understand more and more of the characters, to the point where you can relate to their unnatural experience.

-Overall
Although this could have had an extended plot, like I said above, for its miniscule length, it was very well done.
It also like most of the stories of the olden days, had a moral, and a theme. It stuck with that theme throughout the 4 episodes. Also each tone that was given to the circumstances were all very distinct yet also very subtle.
All in all, it was a Great, if not excellent. I loved it, but that's might just be me.

-Casper

I've reviewed a lot of the Nanoha franchise. The first series, A's, StrikerS, Vivid and I'm sure I'll review the follow up to Vivid when it comes out. Why am I talking about Nanoha? Well, today's offering, Triangle Heart Sweet Songs Forever, is kind of a prequel but not really. The basic gist of it is that this series started as a series of eroges and OVAs called Triangle Heart. Nanoha's character was introduced as the younger sister of two of the main characters in the third instalment, and the one this OVA was adapted from. It was also the last hurrah of the series, ... with the OVA coming out late in 2000. Incidentally, the Nanoha franchise spun off of it in 2004, changing hands from Discovery to Seven Arcs. So, is it worth checking this one out or is it fortuitous for everyone that it isn't tied directly into the Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha franchise?

Story:

We open with a young woman named Crystela Fiasse, who's been receiving threats. She's about to go on a concert tour with charity along with the students at her song school. Her childhood friend, McGaren Ellis, is brought in to act as her bodyguard. She also reaches out to their old friends, the Takamachi siblings, Kyouya & Miyuki. They may not be professional bodyguards, but they're experts with blades. Ellis resents their amateur interference. Will they be able to put aside their differences and deal with this threat?

Let's start by talking about what the series does poorly. The biggest issue is that there's quite a bit of filler for a four episode series. We get to spend time watching people work in Kyouya's café, even though none of them are actually important to the narrative and the scenes do absolutely nothing. We also get to watch overly long exposition scenes about the shared back story of our four leads. We don't need these scenes since everything important in them comes out in the main narrative but we get them anyway. The climax is also weak. We get a lot of build up for a battle that gets concluded in a very short amount of time. That aside, what we're left with is a pretty standard action story.

Characters:

The cast in this is really boring and not just those café characters who just take up time. The main characters in this are just bland. Both Kyouya & Miyuki were better fleshed out in the Nanoha spin off. They weren't incredibly complex characters in that, but they at least had verisimilitude, which is more than I can say for them here. Which is really sad since they were just minor characters in that and they were the focus characters in this.

Art:

The art is pretty well done. Aside from some odd, faux artistic choices like tinting everything a single colour for some scenes. Overall, it is a nice looking OVA with some strong designs and solid action scenes. The artwork is definitely the OVA's strongest point.

Sound:

The acting in this is passable, mostly. There are exceptions. Kodama Satomi sounds like she's not trying at all. She gives a very listless, emotionless performance as Miyuki. Which could be why Miyuki was voiced by Shiraishi Ryoko in Nanoha. Seki Tomokazu has the opposite problem. He really chews the scenery in how far he goes over the top. Aside from that, we get performances that are functional, but not really good. The music, on the other hand, is pretty good. The biggest issue with it is that they talk the concert up quite a bit. In fact, they go really overboard with it, going on about how great it's going to be and how it's going to bring tranquillity to everyone who hears it and it really doesn't live up to that kind of hype.

Ho-yay:

There's only a little in this one. Surprising given how much is in the spin off, I know. A lot of the dynamic between Ellis & Fiasse comes across like they're an old couple. Although that could be more as a result of there being basically nothing to their characters than anything intentional.

Final Thoughts:

Triangle Heart isn't a bad little OVA but it is pretty weak. The story, what little it has, is largely forgettable and the characters are just dull. Overall, I give it a 4/10. Next week is going to be one that was requested quite a while back, Golgo 13.

Like most people here, I came to Triangle Heart after watching Magical Girl Lyrical Nonoha. Triangle Heart is the original series that Nanoha was spun off of.

Initial Reactions:
I have to say that overall I was pleasantly impressed by Triangle Hearts. I expected Triangle Hearts to be downright awful when I began watching it. The main stay of this franchise is that it spun-off the Nanoha Franchise. When I began watching Triangle Heart, I just knew I wasn't going to like it. I was wrong.

Action/Story:
The action in Triangle Heart is very good. The fight scenes are really what makes ... Triangle Hearts. The fighting style used by the main characters is a "Twin Kodachi" style very reminiscent of the style that Aoshi uses in Rurroni Kenshin. It's a fairly flashy style that probably wouldn't be very effective in real life, but it looks really freaking cool. The fights in Triangle Hearts also perpetuate the old anime adage that swords are greater than guns. One thing that I though was really cool - as a Nanoha fan - was that you can see what can be considered a "prototype" version of the Nanoha battle system.

Art/Music:
The art style and music should be familiar to anyone who has watched Nanoha. I would go out on limb to say that the musical selection for Triangle Hearts is slightly better than that of Nanoha, but there isn't any significant difference.

Important Notes/Charming Points:
What I really enjoyed the most about Triangle Hearts was that it allowed me to see the Nanoha world from a completely different perspective. You see Nanoha's older brother and sister, Kyouya and Miyuki respectively, as the heroes while Nanoha is an unimportant side character. As I touched on before, another cool thing about Triangle Hearts is that you can kind of see where the Nanoha franchise came from and how it developed over time.

Conclusion:
Let me be frank with you. If I had never watched Nanoha, I wouldn't have even given this series a second look. That's not to say that Triangle Hearts isn't a good series. It just lacks the little spark of energy and excitement that separate a pretty good series from a really good series. That being said, if you are a fan of the Nanoha series, and you want a chance to see where it all came from then this is for you.

Here's the Nanoha timeline: eroge -> hentai anime -> this anime -> Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha series. This is the first time Nanoha appeared and although she plays a very small role, her character design is the same as we see in her own series. For anybody to enjoy this, they need to be aware and prepared that this story has nothing to do with the Nanoha series.


Animation:
1) the visuals are what you'd expect from 2003.
2) there's a lot of censorship with it comes to open wounds. To give you an example, there's a character that gets stabbed to the point where a sword ... is poking through his back. In the following frames, there's no visual evidence that ever happened.
3) a clean hit with a bullet to the head does not kill.
4) the same characters that have the ability to dodge bullets in close range are the same ones that can't dodge throwing knives and must deflect them instead. Just to be clear, I'm okay with having skilled swordsmen like One Piece's Zoro or Lupin III's Ishikawa Goemon, doing things that would be impossible for any human in real life because in their own worlds, gun, bullet and projectile physics are still respected to a degree.


Sound:
1) the english spoken and writen by a couple of characters is terrible and not even accurate in terms of grammar.
2) the soundtrack is bad but the sound design is even worse. I can't think of a scene where the music playing fit the animation.
3) The majority of the cast was a mistake. I didn't like some of the voices and the female voices are all too similar. If there are no visual cues to who's saying what, I have no idea who's talking. Also, I usually hate when the original seiyuu for a character gets replaced but in Nanoha's case it was for the best because the voice she was given for this anime didn't suit her at all.


Story and characters:
1) I hate characters like Kyouya that are created as perfect. SPOILER: he's the only intelligent person capable of reaching an obvious conclusion about the threatening letters, his "spidey-senses" feel trouble before it happens and no matter what, he's always right and everybody else is not only wrong but also stupid. Why do I hate it? Because it makes the other characters seem pointless and a waste of animation and sound resources.
2) this anime wants us to believe that a person would be faster than a car using a shortcut.
3) it should've ended sooner and SPOILER: it would've been better if the sentimental shenanigans talk didn't happen between Kyouya and Ellis.


All things considered, it's a 5/10 for me.