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Nanoha’s really grown on me, from a series I didn't think much of the first time I saw it to one of my favorite franchises today. I was excited when they announced Vivid, because it's the first new Nanoha anime to come out since I really became a fan. So how does it stack up? For me it was a 7.5/10 series (rounded down to 7 for reasons I’ll get to) and mostly met my expectations, but it also had some issues that kept it from matching the heights of previous seasons. Here are a few of its biggest strengths, weaknesses, and things that could ... go either way depending on your personal tastes. If you don’t want to read everything you can skip to the tl;dr section at the bottom for my quick take on whether or not you should watch Vivid.

Strengths:
+ Some of the new characters. Corona and especially Einhart are worthy additions to the Nanoha cast, with the latter’s personal growth driving much of the story. Rio has less to do in these 12 episodes but also shows some promise if there’s ever a second season. Several characters who played smaller roles in StrikerS also get more (and welcome) development.
+ Voice cast. Returning veterans like Nana Mizuki, Yukari Tamura, and Kana Ueda have been voicing these characters for a decade and don’t miss a beat here. The real star of Vivid to me, though, was Mamiko Noto as Einhart. She's a complex character who has to be played as confident and ambitious, but still likable and sympathetic, and Noto's performance has the right mix of noble-born grace and emotional vulnerability to make the character work. I also liked Yumi Uchiyama in a small but memorable role as a delinquent fighting in the tournament.
+ Lots of well-animated fight scenes. The switch from Seven Arcs to a higher-budget studio in A-1 is most noticeable in the fight choreography, which compared to earlier seasons has more dynamic motion and hand-to-hand combat, a much wider variety of combat styles, and a whole lot less of characters just standing in one place and beamspamming each other.
+ World Building. StrikerS gave us some of the history of Midchilda. Vivid goes further back in time, exploring some of the history of the Belkan home world and the Ancient Belkan empire. Anyone interested in learning more about the Nanohaverse will enjoy those parts.

YMMV:
* The entry barrier. This is NOT a series for first-time Nanoha watchers. Most returning characters get little or no introduction (and a lot of them are walking spoilers for past seasons). Some, like Ixy, never even appeared in the anime before, only the audio drama CDs, but Vivid still expects you to know who they are too. The show doesn’t review old concepts like intelligent devices or the differences between Belkan and Midchildan magic, either. Veteran Nanoha fans will appreciate not hearing all that again, but anyone coming into this series without watching the first three seasons is going to have lots of unanswered questions.
* Missing old favorites. This is basically a spinoff series focusing on Vivio and her new friends, and the returning cast with the biggest roles all come from StrikerS. Except for one arc, even Nanoha and Fate are rarely seen outside their homes, while other fan favorites from seasons one and two only make brief cameos or don’t appear at all.
* Genre switch. Even though it has transformation scenes and a few other magical girl trappings, Vivid isn't a true magical girl series. It’s really a shounen tournament battle series with all the staples of that genre: training scenes, monologues about getting stronger, rivals-turned-friends, new characters who are abruptly introduced and given backstory two minutes before their first big fight, etc. If you like that kind of anime, great. If you don’t, Vivid’s not going to change your mind.
* Fanservice. Nanoha’s no stranger to fanservice anyway, but compared to previous seasons Vivid ups the stakes with lots more panty shots, ripped clothes, girls bathing together, and so on. A-1 also updated the old character designs to look "cuter" than before. As usual, some fans will welcome these changes, and some won’t.

Weaknesses:
- The Stakes. The first three seasons of Nanoha all involved major threats, with deadly consequences if Nanoha and her friends failed. Vivid’s stakes are so much lower that it practically feels like a slice-of-life show compared to its predecessors, and the dramatic tension that powered the climaxes of earlier seasons just isn’t there.
- Vivio. While I applauded Mamiko Noto earlier for the way she balances Einhart's personality, Vivio's a much more straightforward "cheerful child" type, and Kaori Mizuhashi doesn’t have to stretch herself much in the role. Unfortunately, it also makes Vivio a rather one-note character, and not nearly as interesting or as developed as her rival Einhart. That may change if we get a second season, but saying that also brings us to one of the biggest problems with this series.
- The Ending. As in, there isn’t one. It just adapts 12 episodes worth of material from the manga and stops. Now this isn't an issue if A-1 announces another season, but right now Vivid is glaringly incomplete. That's also the biggest reason I’m only giving it a 7, at least so far.

Tl;dr:
Watch It: if you liked all three prior seasons of Nanoha and you’re just happy to spend more time in its universe, even if it’s mostly with a new set of characters.
You May Be Disappointed: if you really just want more of the classic season 1 and 2 characters (none of them have large roles in this series), or if you aren’t a fan of shounen tournament battle anime, since that’s Vivid's main genre.
Don’t Watch It: if you’ve never watched Nanoha before, because you'll only get confused and spoiled. Go start with the first season instead. You can always come back to Vivid later.

“Kanzaki Tomoyo, can you swear with certainty to God that superpowers don’t exist in our world?” So asks Andou Jurai of his friend Tomoyo, after she chastises him for pretending that superpowers actually exist. As Andou continues ranting about probabilities, another character sighs that there’s nothing worse than a defiant chuuni. Moments later, everyone watches in shock as a bright light appears in the room, and black flames erupt from Andou’s right hand.

This opening scene sets the table for the rest of Inou-Battle, a supernatural harem comedy adapted from Kota Nozumi’s light novel series. The mysterious light leaves each of the five main ... characters with a different superpower. The four girls, who also fill common harem archetypes, get the sort of powers schoolkids at recess always dream of having. The tsundere can slow or stop time, the team mom can heal and restore things, the childhood friend can manipulate the elements, and the loli can create matter out of nothing.

Then there’s Andou, whose power looks flashy and cool but is completely useless. His “Dark and Dark” flames (as he names them) aren’t even hot enough to burn anything, but he loves them anyway just because it means his dream of having superpowers has come true. Andou is the heart and soul of the series, a character whose goofy enthusiasm and defiant chuuni attitude carry Inou-Battle through many of its best and funniest moments. Refreshingly, he is also a rare male harem lead who pays attention to the thoughts and feelings of his female friends and isn’t a pervert. He’s also a good listener and surprisingly insightful sometimes.

The dual nature of Andou, his flashy but useless power and the goofiness that masks his best qualities, really sums up the whole series. Most of the time, Inou-Battle is smart and fun. Despite the setup, one of the running jokes is that the cast rarely need to use their powers for anything besides goofing off, because there’s nothing for them to fight. So for most of the series the “battle” part is pushed off to the side, while superpower-enhanced slice-of-life and harem comedy hijinks take center stage. The comedy can be very clever, and many common genre tropes, from loli fetishes to mistaken love confessions, are lampshaded and parodied to the hilt. Novice anime fans may not get all the jokes, but veterans will smile and laugh knowingly.

One of the things that makes Inou-Battle slightly frustrating, though, is that there are times when it teases greatness, going beyond the bounds of the harem comedy (or mocking it), to give us scenes that actually have something important to say. Unfortunately none of those scenes are followed up or explored further in any meaningful way, and each time things soon go back to the status quo. It seems like the writers, like their main character, are afraid of saying too much; they keep getting spooked and retreating back to safe ground again, like Andou retreating back to the chuuni persona that he’s most comfortable using to express his feelings.

As for the “battle” part itself, there actually is a larger world out there where other people have powers and really are fighting battles; unfortunately these scenes mostly come late in the series and get crammed in at odd moments, disrupting the flow of the narrative. So what could have been an interesting parallel background story if it had been better integrated from the start of the series ends up being little more than an unwelcome distraction instead.

Visually, Inou-Battle is decent. Although this is a Trigger series, their signature visual style is downplayed quite a bit in favor of a more standard-looking comedy show. It's not unpleasant to watch by any means, but compared to the best animation that came out this season, it's pretty ordinary. The OST is fairly anonymous, but the opening and ending songs are both catchy enough that I've found myself humming them occasionally. The voice cast, on the other hand, is very good; my favorites were Nobuhiko Okamoto as Andou, Haruka Yamazaki as Tomoyo, and especially Saori Hayami as Hatoko; the latter has one signature scene in particular that will be remembered for a long time.

Inou-Battle is at its best when it’s being a harem comedy for anime fans who don’t take harem comedies too seriously. It helps that all five of the main characters are quite likeable and intelligent, and they actually know how to talk to each other when a conflict arises, like real people. I’m not normally a fan of harem shows, but I enjoyed this series. It could have been much better, especially if it hadn’t messed up the secondary plotline, but overall it’s still good, and at least worth streaming if you think it might appeal to you. If Inou-Battle ever gets a second season, I will gladly watch more of these kids and their everyday lives.

I did not know what to expect when I began watching Yuuki Yuuna is a Hero. The previews teased that it was going to be another slice-of-life series, but looks were deceptive. While it has some SOL elements, at its core it's a magical girl show, and a pretty serious one, too. Here’s my final review of the entire series, as of 12/26/2014. If you just want an overall recommendation without any other details, feel free to skip to the tl;dr section at the very bottom.

The Plot In a Nutshell:
Middle school girls in a "Hero Club" perform small everyday acts of heroism in the normal ... world, but also become heroic magical girls protecting the planet from strange creatures called vertexes.

Background/Influences:
Yuuki Yuuna is an original series created by Takahiro (Akame ga Kill!), and it blends elements from three different anime genres. First are its magical girl ancestors, and this one comes from the lineage of adult magical girl shows like Lyrical Nanoha and Madoka Magica. Fans of those series will recognize the influences of both, although Yuuki Yuuna still tells its own story in its own way. Second is slice-of-life, and except for the dark clouds that are almost always lingering under the surface, some of the mellowest scenes wouldn’t feel out of place in a Kyoto Animation series. Third is character drama, and here the series actually shows some surprising Key Visual Arts influence (Kanon/Clannad), along with other influences from Angel Beats and the Persona series (Yuuki Yuuna’s director, Seiji Kishi, also directed both Angel Beats and Persona 4 The Animation, so this shouldn't be a surprise). All three genres are done well enough individually that it could have focused on any one of them and been a decent show, but the blend of all three really elevates it above the sum of its parts.

Moe’s Scale of Female Cuteness:
While this isn’t a true moe series, all the girls in the Hero Club can be awfully cute. Most of their club activities are ordinary community service work, like fostering kittens and performing puppet shows for kids. They also hang out together sometimes outside of school, eating udon, singing karaoke, and doing other fun things together. The catch is that none of this SOL stuff is there just to be cute and funny – while some of it may seem frivolous at first glance, the writers are deliberately giving you time get to know the girls and their personalities and motivations by showing you how they behave and act around each other. All the girls have their own personal demons they’re wrestling with, and most of them did not have happy childhoods. Tensions occasionally flare between them, and even in the most seemingly cheerful moments there are lingering undercurrents of anxiety and doubt about the job they have to do and the risk to their lives and well-being, which all makes these scenes even more effective. One of Yuuki Yuuna's greatest strengths is that there's a genuine chemistry between all the main girls in the cast - while they have their occasional disagreements, you never doubt for a second how much they all care about each other, especially the two sisters (Fuu and Itsuki) and the two best friends (Yuuna and Togo).
Most of the slice-of-life stuff takes place in the first half of the show, and while some (especially non-SOL fans) may find these parts a bit slow, it’s still worth paying attention to it because a lot of it is setting the table for the second half of the series. Along with letting you get to know the characters better, there’s also quite a bit of foreshadowing too; I noticed a lot of hints the second time I watched the series that were easy to miss the first time.

Round One…Fight!:
As pleasant as the girls try to make everyone's daily lives, when the alarms sound on their phones, it’s time for them to become magical girls and protect the world from the vertex threat. There are several vertex battles throughout the series, varying in length and scope, but some of them can be pretty tense affairs, especially when multiple vertexes (vertices?) appear at once. The girls are skilled combatants with a variety of strong weapons, but they’re not immune to injury and the vertexes are tough opponents who are smart enough to coordinate their attacks and adjust their strategies during battle. It usually takes a total team effort for the Heroes to have any success against them, which leads to some entertaining and occasionally nailbiting fights.

Art and Sound:
The animation is a bit inconsistent - it can be great in some scenes and merely passable in others - but the overall quality is solidly good. The fight scenes take place in a surreal, colorful alternate world, and showcase most of Yuki Yuna’s best animation work. These scenes appear inspired by the artwork of Shigenori Soejima (Persona 3/Persona 4), as well as the twisty, hyper-organic landscapes of Roger Dean’s paintings, and I’m excited to see how they’ll look in Blu-Ray someday. They also use a fair bit of CG though, so be warned if that’s not your thing. The real world scenes, while still generally cheerful and colorful, have occasional touches such as the unnaturally bent and ruined suspension bridge appearing in several background scenes that subtly remind us this world isn’t quite the carefree place it appears on the surface.
The opening and closing songs (like most) will be hit-or-miss depending on your musical tastes. Personally I liked the opening immediately, but the ending needed time to grow on me. The OST itself, however, is outstanding. Most of the tracks fit their scenes perfectly, and the battle music especially stands out as some of the very best in the show, full of soaring choirs and pulse-pounding orchestration. Even the quieter tracks have a few gems, though, such as a very nice flamenco-styled classical guitar piece that appears a couple of times. There’s also not a lot of repetition either. Only a few tracks are used more than once or twice, and they’re all songs (like the main transformation theme) that you’ll enjoy hearing multiple times anyway.

Rating:
If I rated Yuuki Yuuna on nothing but my personal enjoyment, it would get a 10. I’ve already watched the whole series twice, I know I’ll watch it again in the future, and if Pony Canyon ever gives us a North American release, I'll buy it. To give it a fair review, though, I can’t entirely overlook the uneven pacing in the first half of the series, the occasional inconsistency in animation quality, and a few (not many) awkward transitions between scenes. That said, Yuuki Yuuna is still a gem, even if it’s one that’s not completely polished. The characters are easy to like and they all have wonderful chemistry with each other, the OST is outstanding, the themes of the story (which I wish I could actually talk about here without spoiling everything) are timely and appropriate, and despite a few rough patches, the story threads eventually come together in a very satisfying way. It’s a spirited show that’s a little rough around the edges, but like its characters it has a lot of heart and tries its best. And much of the time, its best is really, really good.
First half: 8/10. Second half: 9.5/10. Overall: 9/10.

Tl;dr! Should I Watch Yuuki Yuuna or Not?:
Yes, if magical girl mixed with some drama and slice-of-life sounds appealing to you. The first half isn’t quite as good as the second half, but if you're able to stick with it, your patience will be rewarded. Just be warned that this isn’t a relaxing series at all. If you’re expecting Aria with a dash of Cardcaptor Sakura, you'll be disappointed. It’s more like Lyrical Nanoha with a dash of Angel Beats.