Four episodes of patient waiting were finally rewarded as the Nanoha series we all know and love finally started in episode five with an abundance of beamrape, and of course the ~5 mins of henshin scenes.

Episode Rating: 9.5/10

The episode gave me a scare at first, opting to start with a small flashback of Kyaro as a child…er, more of a child. Apparently her latent magical powers were so great and uncontrollable that the village thought it unsafe to keep her, and thus sent her off. Even the TSAB argued that her powers were far too unrefined for combat, but Fate decided to take her in anyways.

The flashbacks don’t last long though, as we’re thrown into action, after nearly a month of build up. Nanoha and Fate take to the skies to clear the path for the rookies, swatting down the droids with ease. Upon landing, the forwards get a taste of their newly upgraded devices, amazed at their convenience and strength. Teana and Subaru easily clear away the small droids and begin their advance to the relic. Kyaro and Elio, however, encounter a new, stronger, model which is equipped with advanced weaponry and a huge anti-magic field (AMF).

GAR!? In MY Nanoha?

The unfortunate lolis are thrown off the train, into freefall. But Kyaro saves the day by transforming Fried into his true form, a gigantic dragon, which she manages to keep fully under control. She applies AMF negation and power boost enchantments on Elio’s Strada and Elio breaks through the droid with one strike.

And as a bonus, we’re finally introduced to the human behind the droids, the main villain. He seems to be your typical mad scientist type, complete with pedo grin. He collects data of Nanoha, Fate and the forwards, valuing it higher than the actual relic. He also mentions that there are living subjects of Project F (Project Fate? lol) among them.

Thoughts

Warning, the following may be considered NSFW.

Ok, so rather than the battle, we all know what this episode was about. Henshin scenes! So, without further ado…

I must say, the animation team knows their audience really well, lengthy and skin filled henshin scenes aplenty. To further illustrate that point, take a look at Elio’s scene, it was like, 1/3 as long as the others, and fortunately, no skin was shown =D

*An interesting note, of all the girls, Subaru was the only one who’s pantsu were not shown…does that mean she goes commando =O!? Soda argues that she doesn’t and provided a fairly conclusive argument that she just blasts off all her clothes at once. Which would be fitting, given her style of doing things, but I’ll withhold my final opinion until concrete evidence is given for either case.

In terms of the episode itself, it succeeded in making Kyaro my favourite newcomer, leapfrogging over Subaru and Tia. In addition to being a pink haired loli, she has an interesting and traumatic past. It seems to have shaped her abilities, instead of using her power on offensive magic which she is not yet able to control, she opted to become a support mage, with the desire to help and protect those important to her.

I have little else to say about the episode in general, as not many plot elements or significant events were presented. I hope that this is just the tip of the iceberg and that plenty of beamrape action is to follow.

No henshin scene? Isn’t it sad Rein Zwei ;_;

~ Shirukii ~