Now Streaming: MAGICAL GIRL LYRICAL NANOHA EXCEEDS GUN BLAZE VENGEANCE, Sisters Fighting Together Forever

A masterfully-told origin story, the best I've seen this year.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha EXCEEDS Gun Blaze Vengeance S1
The first episode is now streaming on Crunchyroll. Subsequent episodes will debut every Saturday.

The doubled-sized episode begins with Shiina, 17 years old, demonstrating her prowess as a hunter on an island off the coast of Tokyo.

She is not hunting any sort of ordinary prey, however; she is hunting invaders from space who remain on the island, some time after their kind wreaked devastation upon Tokyo and much of the mainland. Shiina's parents were killed in the attack by the alien creatures.

She saw 11-year-old Setsuna wandering through the crumpled, burning city, and took her in, becoming her unofficially adopted sister. They have built a life together, living on property owned by Shiina's parents, and the two girls have drawn closer than ever.

Naturally, Shiina is highly protective of Setsuna, so when a hulking stranger appears at the gate, and then bashes it down and displays a huge alien appendage for a hand, the girls go on the run, desperate to survive, and ready to kill any alien species that crosses their paths.

While on the run, something happens that completely changes the trajectory of their lives. Watching it without having read anything about the show beforehand, I found it absolutely shocking, yet brilliantly handled.

From the opening moments, the show is effortlessly engaging, but 'that moment' truly steps it up, and from there it's entirely compelling, flying through its double-episode length running time. At the conclusion, when I wondered where it could possibly go from there, it surprised me again, opening up delightful possibilities.

Highly recommended. Here's the official synopsis, which happily doesn't contain any spoilers for the first episode:

"Thirty years ago, aliens attacked Earth and nearly brought humanity to extinction. Since then, mankind has clawed for survival, fighting the invaders for land, and the UN established EXCEEDS, an agency to stave off alien threats. On a remote island in a world of chaos, young hunter Shiina yearns for a quiet life with her sister, Setsuna, but a single incident draws her into the larger battle."

Note: the trailer below focuses on the season as a whole, and suggests strongly where the story will go.

Image ©NANOHA EXCEEDS PROJECT.

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