Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha ViVid

Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha is a franchise I didn’t think I would enjoy, I wasn’t really into magical girl shows at the time but I’d heard good things so I gave it a shot. I love Nanoha now, it’s a great series, I even like the less popular StrikerS season quite a lot.

So when I heard they were adapting the manga Nanoha Vivid into an anime, I was pretty excited, more Nanoha couldn’t be bad right? Oh boy, here we go. Where do I even start with this thing, one of the most disappointing sequels in my recent memory?

One of the biggest complaints about Nanoha ... StrikerS was that the title character herself, Nanoha, was reduced to a supporting role while it mostly focused on new characters. Oh what I wouldn’t give for her to have StrikerS level of involvement, while in that show she was mostly secondary, she was still story relevant and drove the plot along, even having a major scene in the finale.

In Vivid she’s a housewife.

Yes, Nanoha, one of the most powerful magical girls in any series has been reduced to a housewife. Outside of a single training fight in the midpoint of vivid, she has done literally nothing else. This show is now about her adopted daughter Vivio, something that I’m not totally against in concept, but it continues to get worse. Even Vivio herself, the new title character (Vivid) has also turned into a supporting cast member. The last Five or so episodes were completely lacking in Vivio, she didn’t even have a single important scene in the finale!

Sure, the first season has a dual protagonist dynamic with Nanoha and dark magical girl Fate Testarossa, but those were the only characters in focus. A’s managed to add new cast without detracting from the fact that Nanoha was the lead character, and StrikerS is slightly infamous for it’s lack of Nanoha. But at least in StrikerS Nanoha is actively training the cast in focus, making their victories a victory by proxy for Nanoha, their trainer.

In Vivid it’s as if they realized that Vivio is a super boring character, she’s almost instantly sidelined by her Chinese knockoff Fate-chan, Einhart Stratos. It gets worse as the show progresses, with episode 10 featuring less then 30 seconds of footage of Vivio OR Einhart, as it shows us a completely irrelevant tournament fight about characters we know almost nothing about. That fight was a joke, they built up one of the girls as a threat, but she’s totally wrecked by somebody we’ve barely even seen before, making it complete filler for a series with a very limited episode count.

This show is boring, I mean really, really boring. There hasn’t been a single exciting event of note in the entire 12 episode run, because nothing has any consequences. Gone are the first season’s world effecting, galactic level crisis events. Now we have hotsprings, loli fanservice (not that we had none of that before, but there’s more now), and tournament battles with simulated damage. That’s right; nobody is even in any danger of getting hurt at almost any point in this show, if there’s no threat then why should I care what happens? It’s not like they developed any characters into somebody I would want to root for in a sports competition.

I guess if you want a fluffy slice of lifish story with magical girls you could enjoy this. But the almost completely different tone of the series is extremely off-putting to me, a fan of Nanoha for its darker take on magical girls. And don’t even get me started on Vivio and Einhart’s magical devices, some of the dumbest shit I’ve seen in years. Nanoha’s magic device is a necklace that turns into a staff; Fate’s is a wristband that turns into a poleaxe. Vivio’s magical device is… a STUFFED RABBIT!

How am I meant to take any of this seriously when a goddamn cartoon rabbit is involved in Vivio’s transformation sequence, where she also turns into a more adult mode (when Nanoha was able to kick ass as a loli, I guess Vivio just sucks). Oh yeah, Einhart’s device is a cat, not a stuffed animal cat, an actual, normal cat. Her device is just a cat, what, why?


On the animation side of things, A-1 Pictures does an adequate job of animating the fight scenes, though there is no standout animation like you might see in an Ufotable or Madhouse production. However I do have a problem with the style of the show, and I’m not sure if this is a problem with the manga which I have not read, or the adaption. That problem is the setting backgrounds, Nanoha as of season 3 is set on an alien world full of magical technology, and Vivid is set in the same world. So why does it look like Japan? Did they forget the setting was no longer modern Japan or something; everything looks so standard it barely feels like the same show anymore.

The music is so utterly unremarkable that I have nothing to say about it, other then it’s not offensively bad so I guess that’s a plus! But no really, I don’t know much about music, nor do I really pay attention to it unless it sticks out in a big way, like Gurren Lagann’s soundtrack. Of special note however would be how absolutely poorly the music in episode 11 was handled, the episodes starts right away with a blaring rock track that doesn’t fit the action on screen and is far too loud, with similar music coming in at terrible times all throughout, all too loud as well.

Now, this part is just personal theory, but let me try and explain what went wrong. Seasons 1 though 3 of Nanoha were all written to be a TV anime, they have a distinct beginning middle and end paced for their episode counts. Vivid however, is an ongoing manga, adapting only a fraction of the content. This would certainly hurt the concise, well planned pace of the other three seasons. It still doesn’t excuse the baffling design decisions and lackluster characters however. It’s also the only reason you should ever introduce a new character in the final episode with no buildup then act like they’re important only for the show to just END, the pace is that of the manga, which is ongoing and thus does not work for an anime.

I was going to write here “this is an anime I’d only recommend to hardcore Nanoha fans” but no, a hardcore Nanoha fan would probably be even more disappointed then I am. This is barely a sequel to StrikerS and almost feels totally disconnected to the rest of the series thanks to this far more lighthearted tone, I really can’t recommend this unless you’re desperate for some magical girls, but you’d be better off watching a different magical girl show instead.

Edit: Upon further reevaluation, my enjoyment of the initial episodes the first time around was gone, and my score has updated to reflect this.

The direction authors and creators took with Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha after Lost Logia shows complete aimless story with no real ending. Nanoha was great until A's. After she grew up in the subsequent series, the story deterred. I cannot recommend the story to anyone else at all.
They're going to do the championship and then what? Nanoha is no longer the starring role (she's already 22 and unimportant - thus boring), it's Vivio. The story is poor. While all these fighting is enjoyable, I wish they went back to Earth. Showed us the normal life style again and then tell us another mishap at ... the place with which she needed to protect yet another monster or even that her friends learned/found magic to fight with her. This series completely disappointed me - just like Nanoha StrikerS.

First things first. My "reviews" system is explained on a blog entry. Which can be found through my profile.
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✦Story
You know.. it was somewhat boring and somewhat fun. From standpoint of previous seasons, this was a bad sequel because old Nanoha (1st and 2nd season) were serious and darker tuned with fun trademark magical girl spell circle Anime. From standalone point this anime was okay.

But probably my biggest complaint would be that it was too bright and cheerful and combat became sport. And the whole Anime was about cute girls doing cute stuff and then doing some flashy magic and martial arts fights. In a sense ... this whole thing is a fanservice. (cute girls doing cute stuff, nostalgia, magic, fancy battles, a tad bit lewdness etc..)

Story is for most part non-existent. And since it's a direct sequel to the whole franchise, this would be also aspect that made me axe the score.

✦Art&Sound
Art was quite good, lot of cute character designs, great looking magic, well done fights sequences and overall art is quite simple and vivid.

But hence the issue bringing 1st and 2nd season in the game. Which again I have to mention, an issue where more serious toned Anime turns into modernized generic/flat colored and artstyled piece of work. With a little bit lewd side fanservice, but minimal.

Music&OST was okay, didn't impress nor dislike it. Had some presence, but was nothing special.

✦Character
Fate X Nanoha, don't care what facts say from previous season. For me they are a lesbian married couple and Vivio is their lovechild.

Anyhow, characters I did like for the moe-blob slice-of-life side of the Anime. They were cute and fun. That there really is all to comment. Nothing serious here, simple magic school battle fiesta series.

✦Enjoyment&Overall
After 1st and 2nd series things were changed too much and went in a downhill as the whole franchise.

But as standalone this season this was fine. Cute, colorful, simple,magic circles were okay, magic overall was splendid, fight sequences were nice enough.

Nevertheless it got modernized and kinda turned into less serious and more boring than the first seasons. Fair amount disappointment, still hoped the seriousness would continue. In the end I did enjoy it for what it was, even though I did end up fast-forwarding a bit some episodes around the end.

To sum up. It wasn't as trademark magical girls and was more of a "modern generic school battle magic fiesta, with slice-of-life cute girls doing cute stuff aspect"

Get ready to do some supplementary homework for this series, because they sure aren't going to explain a whole lot in the show itself. What this feels like is you're getting the middle section of a larger story, with no hand holding about what happened before and what happens after. There is no climax or resolution, it just sort of ends.

So to start it we have yet another time skip. It's jarring watching the entire series and seeing just how often we just ahead a few years. It's fine to do it once, but you're going to lose your audience quickly if you just keep ... doing it. It's like every entry in the Nanoha franchise is a soft reboot. It's getting old.

Part of what makes it so frustrating is how many characters there are to keep track of now. They just keep introducing new ones, and expecting you to care about them just as much as you did the last batch. Why should I? Because they know characters I do care about? There's never really any story beats in this series that feel like make it so I should care about any of these new younger girls. They are superficially connected to Nanoha and so don't need to actually establish any emotional connection, apparently.

It's also strange to see how wildly the genre has shifted over the course of the last couple seasons. It barely feels like a magical girl anime anymore. It's like My Hero Academia with mahou shoujo set dressing. It's lazy. It's boring. It doesn't even have an ending. And as mentioned there is a lot of stuff that has happened since the last series that just goes unexplained because you're expected to have a working knowledge of the expanded lore from supplementary material like manga and stage play recordings. I spent so much time on the wiki just trying to understand half of what was going on, I eventually gave up trying.

6/10 at least it can't get worse, right?

Lyrical Nanoha ViVid is probably going to be one of the more difficult shows I'll have written a review for lately. It's not the series' fault, as it genuinely does try to stay on-topic with what it presents and progress reasonably. The issue is that the series feels way too ambivalent to commit to anything at times, as well as a few other issues. Unfortunately, Nanoha is no longer the series it was when it started; Nanoha herself actually barely appears outside a few seasons, and even Vivio fails to get any significant amount of spotlight. You can forget Fate and Hayate too, Fate appearing ... once or twice all season long, and Hayate only appearing a single time for a very minor scene. So, what's the hook? A girl named Einhart Stratos, who has the memories of a past lifetime and the regrets of the person who used to be, as well as his mysterious relationship with a woman.

The first major issue with Einhart is that the show rather debatably ignores her backstory and developed lore, for better or for worse. Instead, the focus shifts to how it affects her current life without really delving into her past at all, aside from where the series used it as a plot stepping stone to its current situations. Instead, her development is used to show how she can adjust to her normal life, make friends, and hone her skills. ...Which is actually a great message on its own, even if it does come off as a bit of a deceptive concept. Despite this, her character is remarkably well-developed; it's surprising how well they manage to flesh her out despite this, showing how she copes with her past.

The tournament arc, supposedly the main arc, takes a backseat and isn't mentioned for quite a while into the series, appearing somewhat underwhelming when it does by following a rather strict formula and not changing things up. I'm not saying it's bad, but it could have used a bit more creativity and thought.