About Nanoha
(Oh jeez, this has been sitting in my drafts sense September. I almost completely forgot about it. Need to update where I keep my blog posts better then I have been....)
For the longest time, Nanoha has been one of my favorite magical girl series. There are a lot of reasons for that. The first one being that it's the first thing that I've watched after watching Madoka. Since Nanoha came from before that time period, it felt like Nanoha was the first step, without a lot of knowledge of magical girls before then. One could say that it's a wild time period where I just didn't know anything about anime production and it was all new to me still. I miss that time period because Nanoha was a part of the magic of anime just being this thing I couldn't explain to a lot of people yet.
With that in mind, that brings me to why I enjoy Nanoha is because it's a magical girl Gundam series. Nanoha is literally Amuro Ray and there are so many gundam references in the show. Since I was chugging down Gundam stuff at the time, it fit with a certain synergy. The next part is that this show is literally Star Trek with magical girls in it. There is a Time Space Administration Bureau (TSAB) that has a prime directive on how to deal with planets to make sure they don't affect the place where current worlds are. All while they search for these magical items called lost logia. It's the coolest stuff. Add in some gay magical girls and you have the show.
The Beginning of Reflections
Speaking of Star Trek once again, this film starts with a plain ol sci fi scenario. One where a couple of married scientists and their two daughters stay on a planet called Eltria that is clearly dying. The scientists and their children worked hard to revive this planet after the other survivors left. Skip to the flash back later and the father is dying. The younger daughter Kyrie with the influence from the not so suspicious AI Iris to leave the planet and jumped into another dimension (Earth) because she thinks she found a way to save it. Amitie eventually follows her.
With Kyrie and Iris causing chaos on Earth and appearing on TSAB's scanners, we enter the world of our younger trainees Nanoha our hot blooded lead character, the former abused daughter Fate who has been adopted by a cool woman named LInday who is a captain of the TSAB who has a kind soul, and the recent TSAB trainee Hayate after the encounter with the book of Darkness in Nanoha A's and her four assistants that come from that book. The book itself comes from Velkian magic with triangle glyphs while the magic we enjoy mostly comes in the form of circle glyphs.
So clearly this is an encounter waiting to happen right? Kyrie and Iris are going to come into blows with the TSAB and our three young mages in some way. The plot of the film is focused on that happening with whatever magic and enhancements Kyrie and Amitie got from ancient relics or their father's research to take on the horrible planet which they are on which is dying. There is something on Earth supposedly that will allow the planet Eltria to be revived and somehow violence is the only answer. I'm sorry, I'm not hiding that I don't like this film. It doesn't make any sense.
Just Ask?
Before I dive into more aspects of this film, the start of the conflict of this film doesn't make any sense at all. For instance, Kyrie and Iris become intergalactic terrorists in the beginning by stealing earth machines and just becoming intergalactic terrorists. Their next plan is just stealing the book of darkness from Hayate and then asking for Hayate and her friends to ignore that incident just so she could do whatever plot she was thinking of. NOt to mention she has powers that go beyond most mages and her only excuse is that her father made her abilities to live on the dying planet. Sure. There is a lot more that goes on here, but this is the point where it goes wrong.
So from the get go, this film is full of logical flaws. Especially since instead of becoming an intergalactic terrorist, you can just ask the TSAB? The second I saw that these two just caused terror on unprecedented levels on Earth instead of talking to the three targets that she just knows about for some reason. The TSAB are very reasonable people for the most part and they probably would have jumped at the chance to help. They are not going to do that for people who do not follow intergalactic laws and cause unnecessary deaths. Not to mention those with high powered magical abilities beyond their own too. Just ask and this would be a short film.
Why Is This Called Reflections?
This is the part that annoys me because the title "reflections" isn't even there for legitimate reason besides a singular plot point that gets quickly pushed aside for yet another plot. Maybe the reflection was supposed to be the good sister (Amitie) vs bad sister (kyrie) plot at the beginning of the movie that gets overshadowed at the end by other things. Maybe that could be it. Or maybe it could be because Kyrie and Iris eventually summoned a darker form of Hayate to then summon a darker form of Nanoha and Fate who then fought against their original versions in the middle of a great raid.
The point is the title doesn't matter because once the evil vs good fight is over, Iris completely takes over the battlefield and Amitie and just summons in her former rival for some reason. There was almost no reason for Nanoha, Fate, Hayate, and a few others to be in this film most of the time. Even with that action scene and these three getting involved along with the rest of the TSAB for this intergalactic terrorist, it was more a battle between sisters until it wasn't. The summoned three warriors didn't even matter in the end either as Iris now controls so much more than ever before. This was the worst case of "and then and then and then" story telling I have ever seen because one scene does not connect to another at all.
This is Creepy
I've heard a lot of reputation on the Nanoha franchise about it being for Otaku and creepy people. The original Nanoha series had some moments that I wasn't a fan of like Nanoha always changing in front of her supposed magical ferret that actually turned out to be a human boy. You know, amongst other things. None of that really detracted from the show because those were small moments surrounded by a lot of good character interactions and just genuinely cool things like just magical girls combining with dimensional space travel and just good sci fi.
This movie was the first time I've watched something like Nanoha and was very creeped out by so many things. Most of the cast is Elementary school kids. Even without the film putting nipples on any of them, the camera focused on their naked tops a ridiculous amount to the point that they were almost freeze frames. The camera lingering too long can mean anything and those lingering moments meant that the show intentionally wanted us to see those and it's like…come on man. Don't you think this is a little creepy enough perhaps?
Visuals and Wrapped Up Thoughts
This show with all its faults and inherent creepiness, this film does look really good. I think that makes my last point feel even worse because of it. But there are so many cool combat scenes with explosive scenes, excellent action choreography, and excellent use of powers. So many great character designs throughout most of the show on almost every cool character scene for them too. A lot of cool environments are there and the direction itself isn't bad when it isn't creepy at all. I really wish the scripting and some generally creepy moments didn't show any of it at all. Guess I can't help that
This film is the first of two films and I just don't care enough to get the next one even if I was told it was the best anime film ever put together. I bought this film because it's Nanoha and man, it just stinks on almost every level. You know, even with Discotek finally bringing some Nanoha over and this will probably support Discotek to get the rest of the series. Really don't want any of that. I'm also thinking about burning this blu-ray or possibly just running it over with a car. It really is that heinous and horrible. Please, people who put this film together….learn to write and/or spread out your ideas better. Jeez.
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