Nekomimi Music

Lately, I've had the chance to watch a not-so-recent series called Mahou shoujo lyrical Nanoha. Obviously, it is yet another magical girls show and it might scare most anime viewer with its extreme cheesyness. But fear not, young otaku, it's actually better than it sounds.

Takamachi Nanoha is a young girl (about 12 years old?) who lives a normal life with her family. Suddenly, one day, she meets a small ferret who gives her a magical jewel and tells her that they must find the magical jewel seeds before they destroy the world. Up to now, that's pretty cliché and rather uninteresting, but what is interesting with Nanoha is everything around the story. The animation is very well done. There is a scene in episode 1 which probably stands as one of the best scenes I ever saw in an anime, animationwise. The characters themselves are really well detailed and well... loliness = win in my book XD.

Fortunately for the story, it evolves into rather unexpected ways. It even goes into science-fiction territory at some points. Yet, when you reach episode 9, you can pretty much predict what is going to happen until the end. Another interesting element in nanoha is the way the characters fight. Fights in Nanoha usually have a bunch of big explosions and special moves, reminiscent of mecha anime. Some battles even last for more than half an episode (especially in the second season). In a sense, this is the beauty of Nanoha: it can cater to many kinds of audience.

Nanoha is very conservative with it's music, with more classical music and, at some times, piano reminiscent of the Melody of Oblivion soundtrack. Sorry, there's not much for the electric guitar and drum freaks. Both first and second season openings are performed by Nana Mizuki, and both endings are performed Yukari Tamura. While the openings are really good (especially the second one), I do believe that the endings are a bit too childish though, at least for my taste.

There is not much more to say about Nanoha. It's a rather cheesy anime which has some nice moments. As I usually describe it to my friends "It's a mecha anime where the mechas are disguised as little girls and fight for love, justice and freedom". It's definitely worth your time if you can laugh at it, instead of finding the whole "becoming friend with the whole world" principle annoying.

(Btw, did I say that it was lolicious?)

(Oh and, Mahou shoujo super robot taisen)