An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Friendship Through Superior Firepower – Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Spoiler Review

When it comes to Magical Girl franchises, Nanoha is one of the big ones. Possibly not on the uppermost tier (it’s hard to say anything stands on the same level as Sailor Moon), but it’s both quite large, in terms of the amount of content that’s part of the franchise, and highly recognizable. Despite this, I didn’t address Nanoha in my first Magical Girl May block of reviews, and while I’m no longer focusing the month of May on historical retrospectives of the genre, I did feel somewhat remiss in that I didn’t say anything about Nanoha.

Well, if the best time to tackle this thing was the first time around, the second-best time is right now, so that’s what we’ll be doing, looking at the very first season of Lyrical Nanoha, the one that started it all for the sprawling Nanoha franchise.

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Cardcaptor Sakura in Fate/Stay Night’s Skin – Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya Season 1 Spoiler Review

So, this is a show about a grade school girl who discovers a magic staff and then learns that she has to harness the power of magic in order to gather a set of mystical cards that are currently incarnated as magical beings and causing trouble around her city. She has a crush on a high school boy known to her, her closest magical contact is kind of a self-important jerk sometimes, and she ends up competing for the cards with a rival her age who is initially overly serious but with whom she eventually becomes good friends.

Oddly enough, this girl is not Sakura Kinomoto. It’s Illyasviel von Einzbern, at least in the Magical Girl spinoff of the Fate franchise, Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya.

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Cheerful Plunder – Bodacious Space Pirates Spoiler Review

Just saying the title of this one, “Bodacious Space Pirates”, puts you in a certain kind of mood, doesn’t it? High-flying adventures! Laser beams! Who gives a clipped penny about actual space physics? But sometimes you can’t entirely judge a book by its cover. Bodacious Space Pirates is a lot of fun, with the sort of positivity you would expect, but it does have its own themes and tone that’s a less manic chaos and more warm contentment. And I for one welcome that.

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In the Name of Fanservice – Isuca Spoiler Review

Back when I reviewed Omamori Himari, I may have mentioned that there was certainly room for a show that was similar to Shakugan no Shana, but significantly steamier, with a stronger lean towards the romance and possibly even a greater helping of ecchi fanservice to go along with it. Omamori Himari was a disgustingly incompetent show, failing any attempt it made to be just that. Isuca, on the other hand, at least comes a little bit closer.

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