While on her way to school Nanoha Takamachi, a third-grade elementary student, stumbles upon an injured ferret-like animal wearing a bright red stone. She leaves him in the care of a local veterinarian and happily plans on adopting a new member to the Takamachi family. That night, a mysterious voice calls out beseeching her help. Nanoha races over to the veterinarian's office to find the very same animal being chased by a dark moster. After being rescued for the second time, the ferret asks Nanoha to use his magical power to stop the dark monster. He hands her the red stone and asks her to repeat a magical incantaion. The stone begins to glow and Nanoha magically receives armor and a magical staff transformed from the very stone she was holding. Nanoha ungracefully, yet instinctively uses her new found powers to defeat the monster. After the battle the ferret identifies himself as Yuuno Scrya, the red stone as Raging Heart, and the origin of the moster as a Jewel Seed.

Being a show in the magical girl genre is hard. It risks being compared to the epitome of that genre (in my opinion of course) Cardcaptor Sakura, or written off as just some other show meant to appeal to girls and fanboys in their mother's basement. Nanoha takes all those preconceived notions, throws them out the window and deals with them with a divine buster (one of Nanoha's biggest attacks). We aren't talking chasing the wood card here, or using the power of the wand of Pegasus to stop the bad guys stealing hearts; we are talking little girls beating the hell out of one another... a lot. I would actually venture to say that this trumps Cardcaptor Sakura in this genre and easily takes the top of it. CCS was a fun ride but it was long and didn't really hit big until the end.