So then I watched the Nanoha movie-- FOR WORK RESEARCH

So when you're reading this, the first Astro Toy column of the year will be up. This week I took a reader recommendation and bought a figure of Fate Testarossa from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. This was a really big series with otaku a couple of years ago, but I had zero interest.  I like to know what I'm talking about-- at least the very basics-- when I look at a toy, so I went a little bit out of my way and watched the movie that was recently released.

I'm heard a couple of descriptions of this show say "it's like shonen fighting but with magical girls" or "it's like Sunrise mecha but with magical girls." I guess you could say that, on a surface level: this two-hour movie has little going on but flying, laser-blasting magical girl action, and the transforming, English-speaking weapons are probably the coolest thing about it.

The plot is about some magic macguffins, but the movie is really about the meeting and eventual friendship of the two main characters, Fate and Nanoha. They start as enemies, they team up, in later series they shack up. The characters are really weird in this movie, in a very otaku kind of way. They're supposed to be ten-year-old girls, but they don't act anything at all like children, or even humans, for that matter. I was talking with Ko (who also just got picked up at ANN) about it and he joked that they were "lesbian friendship robots".

Yeah, that about says it, huh? These characters stare at each other longingly, struggle and fight against a villain whose motivation is "Rarr! I'm evil!" (twenty minutes is spent on this thrilling backstory), and they cry when they're reunited at the end of the movie, but they've got zero humanity.

That said there is a lot of magic and flying and shit exploding. Looks pretty nice. In conclusion, the transformation scenes are pretty uncomfortable and if someone walked in on you watching those scenes they'd probably call the cops.

Comments

[Caitlyn]

I'm the biggest Nanoha fan you'll meet, and even I agree that the devices are by far the best part of the series. Every time Raising Heart does that steam exhaust thing in the movie, I orgasm a little.