Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
Series logo
魔法少女リリカルなのは (Mahō Shōjo Ririkaru Nanoha)
Genre	Magical girl,science fantasy
Created by	Masaki Tsuzuki

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha (Japanese:魔法少女リリカルなのは,Hepburn:Mahō Shōjo Ririkaru Nanoha) is a Japanese multimedia franchise that encompasses fiveanime television series, four theatrical films, multiplemanga anddrama CD adaptations and sequels, as well as model figures, plastic models and toys fromBandai. Its inaugural installment was the 2004 television seriesof the same name, analternate universespin-off of theTriangle Heart series.

The series is named after its protagonistNanoha Takamachi. At the beginning of the series, Nanoha is a 9-year old schoolgirl in modern-day Japan, who is swept into a conflict betweenextra-dimensional powers vying for control overmagical artifacts they had discovered on Earth. Nanoha herself is revealed to be tremendously powerful in the extra-dimensional techno-magic and in later installments, leaves Earth altogether to pursue a magical career. In the latest entry,Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force, she is 25. Nanoha's role has gradually diminished in later installments, and she only appears briefly in the 2016 spin-off animeViVid Strike!.

Nanoha Takamachi first appeared as a minor character in theerogevisual novelTriangle Heart 3, released on December 8, 2000.^[1] She was first cast as amagical girl on a merchandise CDTriangle Heart 3 ~Lyrical Toy Box~, released on June 29, 2001.^[2] Nanoha's first animated appearance was in the first episode ofTriangle Heart 3OVA adaptation, released on July 24, 2003. All three titles, as well as the entire spin-off franchise starring Nanoha, were written by Masaki Tsuzuki (都築真紀,Tsuzuki Masaki).

In the plot premise of the original series,Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha (2004), 21 "Jewel Seeds", highly destructive artifacts from another dimension, are accidentally scattered across Earth. After Nanoha assists an injured extradimensional magician in collecting them, she is drawn into a magical battle against a female mage namedFate Testarossa, who came to Earth to collect Jewel Seeds for her mother Precia. Attracted by their activity, the interdimensional police TSAB ("Time-Space Administration Bureau") intervenes to secure and to seal the artifacts. In the end, Nanoha convinces Fate to rebel against Precia, who is defeated and apparently dies.

InMagical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's (2005), Nanoha continues her magical training. Six months after the original series, she and Fate encounter the "Wolkenritter", four magic knights who steal others' magical abilities to saveHayate Yagami, a wheelchair-using Japanese girl. Since the Wolkenritter are skilled in Ancient Belkan combat magic far superior to theirs, Nanoha and Fate fail to stop them and the Book of Darkness, an ancient artifact bound to Hayate, is activated. A worldwide catastrophe is only prevented thanks to TSAB and most importantly, Hayate's intervention. In the following years, all primary characters leave Earth to pursue magical careers in the TSAB homeworld Midchilda.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS (2007) takes place ten years afterA's and is set on Midchilda. Hayate, now a Lieutenant Colonel of TSAB, forms a special Riot Force 6 to counter the impendingterrorist crisis organized by Dr. Scaglietti, a former colleague and accomplice of Precia Testarossa, and his combatcyborgs ("Numbers"). Nanoha, Fate, and the Wolkenritter join the unit, along with four young mages whom they personally train ("Forwards"). Despite their preparations, the unit fails to protect Vivio, a girl targeted by Scaglietti and adopted by Nanoha, and the crisis strikes in full force, stopped in the nick of time by Riot Force 6's heroic efforts. The unit is then dissolved, with its members returning to their original posts.

A Drama CD titledMagical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS Sound Stage X (2008) is set three years after the Jail Scaglietti Incident. It features the characters first introduced inStrikerS, mainly the Forwards and theNumbers, investigating a serial murder case on Midchilda. Their investigation eventually leads them to the Mariage [sic], semi-sentient humanoid weapons from the Ancient Belkan era, and their elusive creator, Dark King Ixpellia.

Vivio's story is continued in the mangaMagical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid (2009-2017), which is set four years afterStrikerS. Vivio now attends a magical academy on Midchilda, where she meets Einhart Stratos, another descendant of the Ancient Belkanroyalty. Together with their friends, the two of them participate in the Inter-Middle, a magical combattournament for young mages. A spin-off anime series,ViVid Strike! (2016), stars a teen magical martial artist Fuka Reventon, who trains under Einhart for a rematch against her estranged childhood friend, Rinne Berlinetta.

Another manga,Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force (2009-2013, on hiatus), set six years afterStrikerS, focuses on a new protagonist, Thoma Avenir. After Thoma rescues a mute girl named Lily Strosek on remote world, he unwittingly becomes a fugitive from TSAB. The ex-members of Riot Force 6 join forces once again to avert a new crisis caused by dangerous Ancient Belkan legacy, the Book of the Silver Cross, to which Lily is apparently connected, and the Hückebein family, an interdimensional terrorist cell with sights on Thoma.

ThePlayStation Portable video gameMagical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Battle of Aces (2010) is set in analternate timeline which diverges from the main series at the end of the second anime series. In it, Nanoha and Fate refuse to seal Reinforce, allowing the Book of Darkness to regenerate its defenses and use the heroes' own dark clones to attack them. In the sequel,The Gears of Destiny (2011), the heroines must battletime-traveling humanoid Gears for the future of their respective worlds, and even meet characters from the future (of the main timeline).

The first two theatric movies were largely faithful adaptations of the first two anime seasons, but starting withMagical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Reflection (2017), the movies' continuity sharply diverged from the main one by cross-introducing the Gears (who are human in this continuity) to the Earth after Reinforce had been sealed.Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Detonation (2018) concludes the story arc that started inReflection.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Innocent (2012-2014) is a spin-off manga series set in auniverse parallel to the main franchise, where the main characters are ordinary girls who battle each other in a magical card game called "Brave Duel". A follow-up sequel manga,Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Innocents (2014-2016), featuring younger Subaru and Teana was published after the first spin-off ended.

To date, there have been three anime television series produced bySeven Arcs. The first series,Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, aired in Japan between October and December 2004. The second series,Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, aired between October and December 2005. The third series,Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, aired between April and September 2007. The first two series were licensed in North America byGeneon and distributed byFunimation Entertainment. A theatrical retelling of the first series,Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha The Movie 1st, was released in theaters on January 23, 2010, with an adaptation of the second series,Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha The Movie 2nd A's, released on July 14, 2012.^[3][4] The third and fourth movies,Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Reflection andMagical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Detonation, released in 2017 and 2018, have an original story based on elements from theA's Portable games.^[5][6]Reflection was released on July 22, 2017, whileDetonation was released on October 19, 2018. An anime television adaptation of theMagical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid manga series aired between April and June 2015, and was produced byA-1 Pictures.^[7] In 2016, a new original anime was released,ViVid Strike!, once again animated by Seven Arcs, which focuses on new original characters, Fuka and Rinne. A new anime television series, titledMagical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Exceeds Gun Blaze Vengeance, was announced as part of the series' 20th anniversary on December 28, 2024.^[8]

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha novel is an adaptation of the first season, while theA's manga andStrikerS THE COMICS are collections of short side-stories expanding the respective anime series.ViVid andForce are standalone, independent story arcs that take place several years after the events ofStrikerS.The MOVIE 1st manga, similar to theA's andStrikerS manga series, expand on the storyline of the movie.Innocent is set in a parallel world to the main franchise.

Twofighting games based onA's were released byNamco Bandai Games forPlayStation Portable in January 2010 and December 2011 respectively. Characters from theNanoha franchise appear in the crossover role-playing game,Nendoroid Generation, which is based on theNendoroid series of figures.

The franchise takes an innovative approach to themagical girl genre, focusing much more on combat whereas typical titles focus more on characterization, as well as being targeted at a male demographic. ICv2 praised theNanoha franchise for taking a more serious approach tosocial issues such aschild abuse than other magical girl anime.^[21]

John Oppliger, an analyst forAnimeNation, identified two ways in which theLyrical Nanoha franchise deviates from the magical girl genre conventions: the tone and feel of the conflict and the presentation of its central heroine,Nanoha Takamachi. About the former, he observed that although another magical girl series,Futari wa Pretty Cure, preceded the firstLyrical Nanoha anime by six months in introducing an unprecedented amount ofviolence to the genre, the fights inPretty Cure were still strongly tied to the emotional state and drama of their participants. Whereas inNanoha, the battles are akin to "magical gunfights"; they appear objective, mechanical, and deadly and are inspired more by thescience fiction andmecha genres than by the traditional magical girl conflicts. Regarding the latter, Oppliger described the show as trying to evokesympathy for Nanoha Takamachi instead ofempathy, i.e.Nanoha presents its heroine from an externalpoint of view to make the audience feel for her but notwant to be her or to be like her, as other magical girl series do. Such perspective is, according to Oppliger, "used for conventionalotaku anime" and makes the anime more accessible to theolder male demographic.^[22]

• Official website(in Japanese)
• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha (anime) atAnime News Network's encyclopedia

• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
• Mass media franchises
• Fiction about magic
• Seinen manga
• Shōnen manga
• Japan-exclusive video games

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