Episode 1 - Is This a Mysterious Encounter?
In a clearing surrounded by trees, an injured boy in strange clothes is attacked by a blob-shaped monster. He holds up a small red jewel and a glowing circle appears in the air, blocking the monster and causing pieces of it to break away. It retreats, but the boy is too exhausted to give chase. Collapsing to the ground, he prays for someone to hear his voice and help him. His body glows and changes shape, turning into a small animal which lies motionless next to the mysterious red jewel...
Nanoha Takamachi, a seemingly ordinary young girl, wakes from a strange dream as her alarm goes off. Living in the city of Uminari, Japan, Nanoha lives a happy life attending school, helping out in her family's café, and playing with her best friends Alisa Bannings and Suzuka Tsukimura. At school on this particular day, her homeroom teacher tells her class to start thinking about their future careers. Talking to her friends after school, Nanoha says she has trouble imagining her future career — somehow, she doesn't feel like she fits into society.
On their way to cram school, Nanoha, Suzuka and Alisa take a shortcut through a wooded park. Nanoha is startled to realize that she saw this place in her dream. Suddenly, she hears a voice in her head, crying out for help. Following it, she runs into the trees and finds a small ferret lying injured on the ground, a red jewel on a collar around its neck. The girls take the animal to a nearby veterinary clinic, where the doctor says it should recover soon. They wonder what they should do if they can't find its owner.
That evening, Nanoha asks her family if she can bring the ferret home. Her parents say it shouldn't be a problem as long as she takes responsibility for it. As she gets ready for bed, she suddenly hears the voice from before inside her head, and somehow realizes it's the ferret communicating with her. The voice implores her to come at once, saying there's great danger and it needs her help.
The amorphous blob monster has smashed its way into the clinic, and is threatening the ferret. Nanoha, running over from her house, arrives just in time to see them running outside. The ferret leaps into Nanoha's arms and speaks to her directly, to her brief shock.
As they run away, the ferret says he's come from another world to find something, but he needs help. He tells Nanoha that she has the right "nature", and asks if she's willing to lend him her strength. Nanoha is somewhat confused, but readily agrees. Giving her the red jewel he carries, which he calls "Raising Heart", the ferret walks her through an incantation to register her as its user. A huge light bursts forth as it activates, and the ferret realizes Nanoha has even more magical power than he realized.
While they're doing this, the blob monster catches up with them. The ferret tells Nanoha to visualize a magical staff and armour for herself; she hastily comes up with a design based on her school uniform, and transforms into her new outfit.
Then she turns to face the amorphous monster bearing down on them...
Tropes
- Animation Bump: Famously, the character animation suddenly and inexplicably becomes incredibly detailed and fluid at two seemingly-random points during this episode. The first is when Nanoha sits down to dinner with her family, and they talk about whether she can keep the ferret. The second, which lasts only a few seconds, occurs when Nanoha is running down the street after Yuuno contacts her. The latter, being an action scene of sorts, at least makes some kind of sense; the former is straight out of left field.
- Blush Stickers: Nanoha acquires these when Yuuno licks her finger.
- Boy of My Dreams: Nanoha first sees Yuuno in her dream. It's unclear if she sees the whole first scene as the audience does; if so, she presumably doesn't remember much of it, since she's clearly unaware of Yuuno's human form.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The show at this point plays like a pretty standard magical girl story. Among other things, there is more focus on Nanoha's school and family life, both of which will fade from prominence by the halfway point of the season (and which will barely appear at all in later seasons).
- Good with Numbers: Nanoha demonstrates this when she's called on to solve a difficult math problem in class. She promptly works out the answer in spite of not having been paying attention.
- Gratuitous English: Alisa shouts "Be quiet!" (in English) at a noisy dog, more or less out of nowhere. She's never seen doing such a thing again, and this is pretty much the only allusion to her being non-Japanese in the entire series.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: The blob monster has glowing red eyes, which instantly establish it as dangerous.
- Talking Animal: Yuuno takes the form of one of these after his first battle with the Jewel Seed monster. It's never really explained why, or whether it's a consciously chosen spell versus an innate ability. The generally assumed explanation is that it helps him conserve energy and thereby heal faster.
