Reviewing Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha the Movie 2nd A’s
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha the Movie 2nd A’s is a 2012 animated action movie based on the 13 episodes long series of almost same name aired between October and December, 2005. “The Movie 2nd” and “the Movie 1st” bits make one think they really should have English speakers doing double check on those movies’ title. When A’s tv show aired in Japan, Shane Black, a white guy best known for his screenplay of Lethal Weapon, made his directorial debut with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
Lethal Weapon, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and the A’s movie some share some threads. All three are buddy cop flicks setting during Christmas time. Not on Christmas eve like the first 2 Die Hard movies, but during the weeks leading to that second most important festival for Christians. “Buddy cop” comes in garden variety though. Lethal Weapon has an ex-military nut job and someone weeks from retirement, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang has the unlike cooperation between a thief and a private investigator. The A’s movie has a couple of child soldiers deputized by magical time cops.
Swordswoman wearing black and self-cocking gun
My most recent viewing of A’s movie came after I drunk a small can of Bud and reading through 41 volumes of Berserk, not in that order. The combination led to me to take the following screenshot.
The only cool thing about being child soldiers in Berserk is that they can wield weapons way larger than themselves. So, I guess designer of A’s movie gave their resident blondie wearing black a light saber with a “handle” already as tall as she is to nail the whole children go to war business.
As sequels, both A’s tv show and movie go for that action comic for boys style of ever escalation. As the duo face off against more powerful opponents, they are going to need more fire power themselves. “More fire power” in this case comes in the form of guns that cock themselves.
Yours truly first watched the A’s tv show back during early 2010, a couple of weeks after playing through Mass Effect 2. Bioware’s decision to have manual reload in their space sequel looked suspiciously lifted from that anime. Though the bullets in the anime are not just for offense. For one Nanoha used the first round just to generate a stronger energy shield and for two Fate get her gigantic light saber with three of those magical bullets.
2012’s A’s movie might have come out during a time it would not get recognition it deserved. In 2011, novelist and screen writer Gen Urobochi came on the map with Puella Magi Madoka Magica, a series can be seen eating some of this movie’s lunch.
For starter, Abnormal Mappings of this world tend to call Fate’s “stoic wearing black” archetype a Homura like after the same archetype in Madoka. Then for many, Madoka along with its screenplay writer were the ones giving magical girls guns, while the original Nanoha tv show did so seven years earlier. One thing Madoka could not take is the buddy cop vibe. Urobochi’s non-liberal mentality did not allow him to have two people doing governments’ bidding in happy go lucky do fashion.
The A’s movie being a designed-by-committee (a description, not criticism mind you) flick certainly embraces the tropes set up by Lethal Weapon, down to how different attention paid to the duo’s families.
The “Riggs” in this case, Nanoha being the star of spinoff from the Takamachi household, her family does not get much screen time at all. And to continue the first movie’s copgenda er, agenda, Fate’s, more or less the “Murtaugh” here, relationship with the cop mom adapted her took up quite a chunk of screen time. Well, mama copper’s link to the case is another reason. Still Fate’s relationship with her new mom would continue to be a storyline in the sequels after this one.
“Dark” knights rise
With that third Nolan helmed Batman movie came out less than a week after the A’s movie, I could not resist the wordplay of moving that one letter “s” around. Of course, we cannot have cops just standing around without heads to bust in an action movie. As the poster implies, there are at least five heads: Guardian Knights of the Book of Darkness, Dark Knights in short.
There are several ways to call this colorful bunch: Power Ranger; role-playing game party member or even visual novel potential love interests and other roles. If you don’t think all 3 descriptions can be applied to one same bunch, you just don’t know about Sakura Wars.
On the most top we got Hayate Yagami, whose unfortunate encounter with wheels led her into the mad world of magic. Well, she suited up after a car accident in the sequel as well. Funny enough, she outranks both Nanoha and Fate in the 2007 series strikers.
On the second line from left to right we got Zafila, Reinforce and Shamal. Zafila is the only man of the bunch and usually appears as a big dog with blue fur. Guess calling the family pet “good boy” is irresistible. Reinforce is the interface of aforementioned Book of Darkness. Don’t let this poster fool you, she is drawn with the usual anime saucer eyes in the movie so she would not stay bad guy by the end. Shamal is the healer of this party. With everyone else wielding magic with gun, spear, hammer and sword, her rings of power make her the most mage like character of the bunch.
On the third line there are two heroines of this movie usually dual against. Signum on the left is the leader of this bunch and by Power Ranger rule she fights with a sword. A sword one would guess Platinum lifted for their Metal Gear spinoff since there is a mechanism to make it more deadly coming out of the sheal. Vita on the right is a hammer wielding berserker, do not take my word for it, they drew her eyes differently in the heat of battle.
In the 2005 tv show, this lot were assisted secretly by some crooked magical time cops. But for more or worse, that subplot was cut out of this 150 minutes long movie. The knights’ function is to protect Hayate then that function led them to literally fry a bigger fish with the good guys. The focus is solely on action here and the production value of different scenes showed it. The movie has an “all are fine” epilogue and it is not fully animated like the first movie’s. Most of time and money were spent on action set-pieces before, one would assume.
There was blood
Yours truly first saw this movie back in March, 2013, as part of a double bill with There Will Be Blood, the Paul Thomas Anderson film. Cannot remember the order. Unemployment at the age of twenty-three led to many a sleepless night. I spent another one of those playing through Bioshock Infinite on Hard in one sitting.
Or maybe it’s the stark contrast between those 2 cinematic epics (158 and 150 minutes) that made me going through both in one sitting. There Will Be Blood is a drama about a man tolerating everyone and everything around him, with a few set pieces peppered in for good measure. A’s is an action movie about people fight against then for each other.
This A’s movie might be the one with closest link to video games of the bunch since the 2 Ace Combat “clone” they made for PSP both got “A’s” in the titles. Though characters wise, games’ original character would appear in the 2017 and 2018 sequel movies. Oh well, why not end on a video game joke then.
11 years old Nanoha petting Vita in the epilogue. Does this look like Nintendo Switch patronizing Playstation Vita or is it just me? Well, it's just how late the third movie came out actually.
(To be continued in Eat your heart out, “Jack Bauer”)
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