Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha EXCEEDS Ep.03 - Towa x Shiina are so cute together!

Episode 3 of Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha EXCEEDS: Gun Blaze Vengeance, just as expected, starts intertwining the "majin hunter" group heroines with the protagonist, Shiina, in preparation for an eventual clash between the two groups in the near future. The one who interacted directly with her is Yorumi Towa, the apparent leader of the group.

Of course, both of them had no idea about the other's real identity. The first half of the episode felt like two newly met high school girls saving a cat, walking around the city, eating together, and generally having a cozy, relaxing time. This is important because it makes the stakes bigger once they realize they're working for separate factions.

Towa and Shiina emanates a huge yuri aura whenever together, hopefully it'll turn into something as the story develops.

Her eyes glowing red make Towa look even more beautiful to be honest. It reminds me of some other character from the past, but can't point out who...

We got a glimpse of Towa's past in the second half of the episode, and it seems like she was the result of experiments made by some crazy woman (or, most likely, a Majin) on young children. That made her more and more resolute to take things into her own hands and clear out any human who willingly becomes a Majin.

It's also nice to see the parallel, because it seems like she has the same power as Shiina: being able to absorb the monsters' energy. This makes me wonder if Setsuna was from the same facility that Towa comes from. That would make the link between Shiina and Towa even stronger and more emotional.

Nanoha and Fate were mostly absent in this episode, and that worries me a bit. I do understand that they're sort of "guest stars" in this series, but it would defeat the point of being a "Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha" series if they were there just as background characters, wouldn't it?

I'll be honest: the animation department has been slacking hard on this series. It feels like a cheap production most of the time, both in the quality of the character drawings and, most importantly, in the animations. There are lots of panning and other techniques used to avoid animating the characters.

Classic crazy woman doign experiments, she's probably going to be the final boss of the series. Hopefully she will pay for what she did...

Still, throwing yourself in the water was overly unnecessary Towa. I understand why you did it, but still... you know?

Next episode is titled "Yorumi Towa Origin," and from the preview, we hear a young female voice saying "sorry" to her. I speculate we're probably going to learn more about the facility she was in and how these Majin infiltrated every level of human society.