天下制覇

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Annoyingly, this was a double length episode where the only good cutting points were about 18 or 30 minutes in. So I guess we'll just do the double as one, which is why the screenshots may seem unusually disjoint.

Impressions:

And here we have the girl version of Black Torch, slightly better on every level. Cutesy adopted pet sister who's secretly a super demon, fuses with the main character due to large stabby monster dude, recruited by team of super teens with similar powers. Admittedly, that's what Nanoha always kind of was. But at least this had people throwing punches, fireballs, and some shooting of high artillery, not just "teleports behind and evaporates/stabs you." It really could've done with way less fire effects, but then you would've been able to clearly see the animation there, and I suspect it wasn't that impressive. Mind you, way above average, especially for this season, but when I think of impressive opening action scenes for trashy shows, this was well short of stuff like Horizon, Tact Op, or Engage Kiss, with way more explosions and poses instead of actual choreography.

I also don't think that the double length episode did it any real favors. The middle especially got very, very stretched out, which prevented the sudden stabbing from having as much impact since they were waving those death flags with a lot of gusto, to be followed by another few minutes post stabbing of reminiscing. Also, this is why you confirm your kills. And don't get me started on the literal spotlight opening on her when she hugged her dead pet's tattered hoodie. 

It was… fine. As I'd expect from a Nanoha show, unlike those awful Vivid things. I would've really wanted to see a truly impressive action sequence, but everything else was just shounen by the books. Competent, but not notably so. And it still has the ugly shadow of the Nanoha franchise hanging over it, which is also how it ended, with "sure, you thought this main character was cool, but she's nothing compared to this nostalgia bait," which leaves a sour taste in my mouth to end things on.