Impressive.
Just that one word would be enough to describe just how good the movie was.
The story in the movie and in the TV series itself bears much resemblance, only a small number of anomalies but comparing both sides, the way the movie tells the story and its additional details, the movie wins hands down.
The animation is good, the whole movie was reanimated, something different from the Madoka movie where the scenes were just enhanced from the TV series. In fact, Nanoha really need such great animation to make it really cool to watch, especially this time round when the devices are enhanced with their new cartridge loading system.
Other than the devices having a major animation upgrade, the plot itself did added some new details and also some backstory in which certain things can be clarified. There were some loopholes here and there still but overall it was still entertaining to watch. Certain scenes had more emotion in it, like how they show Vita becoming all desperate to save Hayate from her fate,
Signum acknowledging in tears that she is unable to cease her actions as Hayate was very important to her, Hayate losing her knights to the Book of Darkness, and the dream where Fate reunites with her mother and sister before leaving them behind to return to the real world to save Nanoha.
One of the more significant changes would be Admiral Lindy's backstory on her family. It was although clear in the TV series where Chrono was her son but little was shown, or known about her family. The movie version shed more light on her family, showing that her husband had once fell victim to the Book of Darkness 11 years ago, leaving Chrono and her behind and that could possibly be the reason why Chrono wishes to take on the case in secret, maybe to avenge his father? A plausible argument but nonetheless a meaningful addition to the plot itself.
Another was the explanation of why Nanoha and Fate didn't get attacked for their Linker Cores later in the TV series that was left unexplained. Which the movie backed it up by listing that Linker Cores can only be collected once per individual.
It does seem that the additional plot developments tend to centre around Admiral Lindy, but this time, it was possibly a loophole in the storyboard itself.
When Lindy was attacked by the Knights who were after her Linker Core, she held Durandal in her hands and had only shown some slight attack movements before getting reinforced by Nanoha and Fate. Which in the end led to the fight between the knights and the duo, leaving Lindy behind... somewhere... Basically right after Nanoha and Fate arrived with their new devices, Lindy just disappeared. I was so looking forward to perhaps seeing Lindy in action with Durandal but oh well, just the staff members just somehow forgotten about her.
There was this awkward moment too, where Nanoha just seems too optimistic. Although her character is one of the more optimistic type of person, but having seen almost all her attacks making no scratch to the Book of Darkness even when fired at point blank range, it'd be about time to start feeling despair but the movie made her think that maybe she's just not trying hard enough. Well in my POV, if you are not trying hard enough yet, then something is really wrong when your friend had already be absorbed in, the world is getting destroyed and yet there is still room for power upgrades? I do believe that the ACS Strike Flame is already one of her main powerhouse moves that she has and THAT was even denied? Time to feel pessimistic girl... It would have felt more normal if she were to say "No way..." instead of "Looks like we got to try harder"
Leaving those aside, I actually enjoyed the amplification of the emotional scenes in the movie itself.
At the point where Hayate is shown her knights being stabbed by NachtWal, the seiyuu really did a great job in expressing Hayate's despair, her scream felt like pure sadness piercing through the air while she took on the despair after losing her loved ones. Similarly with Fate's dream world, her feelings with her mother and Alicia and Fate herself breaking down after seeing what she had always dreamed to have materialised in front of her, it was painful to accept that all those were not real and were mainly just to delay Fate no matter how real they seemed to be. Accompanied by Alicia's touching speech with Fate and her wish to stay together forever and hoping that this would all be possible in the real world before she faded away, really brought tears in my eyes. After seeing the 1st movie and understanding Fate's situation, and seeing how she's confronted with a dream-like scene while being still attached to her old lingering feelings of her mother and Alicia, its real sour to see them having to part like that.
Moving on to the upgrades, 1st of all, Durandal itself got a upgrade for itself,
with detachable "dragoon-like" systems like those in the Gundam series, amplifying Durandal's freezing abilities.
The darkness of the Book of Darkness also got a massive animation upgrade,
looking clearly more badass and destructive now compared to the old one in the TV series.
Fighting scenes were more badass now, more detailed and looking more professional than the TV series itself.
Minor details of the devices that each mage holds were also looked into, especially the new cartridge system and the mode changing mechanisms. Back in the TV series where little transformation of the device itself was made, the movie showed the changing of mode rather clearly, transformers-style. The more obvious device change would be Vita's Eisen when changing into Gigant Form, where the device is shown slowly transforming into a larger size hammer rather than the more magical "disappear and re-appear" kind of transformation the old TV series had.
What came as the more badass and detailed animation would be Fate's mid-air reloading of Bardiche, now that explains why their devices always had sufficient cartridges inside them, at least the movie did take the effort to "explain" this, in a cool way too.
Overall, this is really an impressive movie for all Nanoha fans and an even better summary of the series itself for non-Nanoha viewers. Leaving the TV series aside, the movie itself would already be sufficient for the plot and watching the action scenes in the movie is really candy for the eyes. Having a deeper plot development and a more emotional remake of Nanoha A's, this is truly one remarkable movie.
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credits to Animesuki users for their awesome animated gifs
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