Setting
(This review covers both seasons "Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha" and it's follow up "Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A's")
Nanoha is a student who spend her quite normal days with her good friends Arisa and Suzuka. One day, as they return home, she finds a wounded rodent. After taking it to a vet, the rodent telepathically contacts Nanoha: He is Yuuno Scrya, an archeologist mage who needs Nanoha's help to capture 21 "Jewel seeds" which fell on Earth and can at any time go berserk and spread destruction and chaos. To such end, Nanoha will have to learn to deal with her so far dormant magical powers, with the help of "Raging Heart", a techno-magic staff that has Nanoha now as it's master. However, things will not go as smoothly as they wish, and will eventually turn a lot more complex than they ever hoped for.
Pacing
As the title name says, "Nanoha" (in quotes, the anime) is essentially a Mahou Shoujo: Magical Girl against magical entities. However, the title inserts an interesting concept where magic is manipulated, controlled and even created also by technology: The "Raging Heart" device is one of such examples, it's not simply a magical staff, but it's actually a complex Artificial Intelligence device that focus and manipulates it's master (in this case, Nanoha) magic, giving it more power and scope. Several other mix of magic and technology as present: Space ships that use magic, concepts such as "Cryptographic key" to a magical barrier, and so on ... a welcome change in the genre.
Aside these characteristics, "Nanoha" also brings several captivating characters that eventually are a lot more interesting and attractive than Nanoha herself. And as another good point, "Nanoha" allows the main focus to switch to its secondary characters to properly introduce and develop their reasons, personalities and motives, making Nanoha sometimes be the actual secondary character. Regardless of which character you might be a fan, you can be sure they will be developed and will not be forgotten thru the series.
There are, however, two major problems with "Nanoha", and they are actually on the pacing, and affect both seasons: First is the instability of the pacing. Sometimes it drags, sometimes it's too fast, and you will eventually realize a lot of events are created quite randomly just to fill up an episode or pace up the plot. At the third season (separated review), "Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha Strike's", the directors had to tone down Nanoha's powers and change some plot developments out of the blue. This shows how the titles have a goal, but not a defined development, which is loose to the creators’ imagination. There are also plentiful events that come with no warning nor mystery (which could have added a lot of plot value to "Nanoha"). It's hard do define "Nanoha" as a fast or slow paced title because of the several pace changes among it's 26 (total) episodes.
The second issue is the lack of identity. "Nanoha" tries too hard to be something serious and profound, which it isn't, it's only a Mahou Shoujo with nice ideas. It's quite difficult to take a series where most of the characters, even one of the most powerful leaders of "Time-space administration Bureau" are 12 year olds seriously. Not only that, the main heroine that is trusted even by the Bureau is 12, the famous archeologist responsible for dangerous "Jewel Seeds" is also 12, the intelligence specialist on board the Asura ship is also 12, and so on. "Nanoha" is certainly a teen title, but it tries too much to add complex concepts and footage in and void attempt to be "adult" and serious, while keeping a cute and children oriented environment. It does not add up. The best moments are actually when they stop trying to be something they are not and embrace their original genre - and thankfully, these are the last episodes of both series, therefore giving a nice closure to both, even though we still get our quota of cliché and forced events nevertheless. Each individual season have a slow start not for it's slow pace (as mentioned, it comes and goes), but because you cannot really decide what you are watching: a standard Mahou Shoujo or something more. By the time it gets stable, it also gets better.
Conclusion
If "Nanoha" fails on it's pacing and identity, it is very successful on every remaining aspects. The characters are captivating and well developed, the art is fabulous, the soundtrack is more than appropriate, and although unstable, the pacing and plot are also pleasant and delivers and excellent entertainment. If you can forget the random physical-technological jargons thrown to try and add seriousness and depth to the series, you will find the whole series quite memorable. The surprises are left to the pacing instability (since they add events to fasten or slow down the pace, it eventually gets a lot of interesting surprises, though it's kind of annoying when an important information is 'learned' suddenly and changed the whole direction the plot is taking while it's quite clear every character should have known such information from start). It might be worth mentioning that Nanoha aired at 1am in Japan, as clearly not meant to children, but actually to mahou shoujo lolicon lovers ... which basically sums up the same.
The perfect title for Mahou Shoujo fans, and an excellent title for everyone else, regardless if you are looking for action, strong characters or a good development, "Nanoha" might only annoy those who are too critic to let the mentioned issues go, but even so, all the good points will get you in a "love or hate" relationship with the title.
Without restrictions, "Nanoha" is fit to anyone.
Observation: "Nanoha" is a spin-off from "Triangle Hearts" anime, where the main characters were Nanoha's siblings. However, there are no connections other than that between the titles.
