Magic Knight Rayearth
Alternate Titles: Rayearth
Original Japanese Release Date: 1994
Episode Length/Run-time: 20 Episodes
Summary:
Three junior high girls: Shidou Hikaru, Ryuuzaki Umi, and Hououji Fuu, meet at a school trip to Tokyo Tower. Suddenly, a bright light envelops them and they find themselves transported to the fantasy land of Cephiro. Princess Emeraude brought them there to save the land from the evil High Priest Zagato. With the guidance of Guru Clef, and the help of their new mascot the bouncy, rabbit-like, uber-cute Mokona, they are sent on a journey to become the Magic Knights in order to save the princess, and the land.
Review:
Alright, as always it’s time to get the specifics out of the way. Magic Knight Rayearth is a 20 episode series which came out in Fall of 1994 and ran through to 1995. It was produced by Tokyo Movie Shinsha based off an original manga by CLAMP which was three volumes running from 1993-1995. There IS a follow-up manga and series to Magic Knight Rayearth, aptly titled Magic Knight Rayearth 2, but I am not reviewing that because I have not seen it. Makes sense, right? Both the manga and the series have been licensed in America, so if you want to get your hands on it, it should be pretty easy.
This series is hailed for following the first arc of the manga relatively closely. Which should be pleasing to many manga fans out there.
This anime feels like an RPG come to life on a screen. If Lodos war was D&D Rayearth is the spitting image of every JRPG fans game. Cephiro is a fantasy world full of large crystals, flying fish (literally, flying), gryphons, mages, and of course magical girls. The characters are as equally cliché as the world. Fuu is the quiet shy girl with glasses, Umi the entitled rich girl who seems to initially care only about getting home in time for her fencing tournament, and the spunky tomboy Hikaru.
So, yeah, the series starts out exactly as it looks. The girls learn of their powers, get into some battles, and fall into some clichés along the way. But it becomes significantly more than that. As is CLAMP’s style often times the series is full of forlorn love, taboo relationships and heartache. If you’re a girl, this addition really helps make the series IMHO.
The major con of this series is the animation. Where the character designs seem enchanting and different in the manga they just seem jarring and odd. Their faces are angular and odd looking and their eyes take the “big eyed anime character” to a whole new extreme. The animation is also poor, even by 1990s standards, the low frame rate makes the action sequences (something many Shojo series lack) clunky and odd. This is barely excusable just because these action series serve more to provide a catalyst for the emotional storm brewing in the series than a flashy soiree. Music is average, about what you’d expect.
What is best about this series is the ending. Magic Knight has a fantastic, unexpected, and emotional ending that you REALLY do not see coming. This series is the exact opposite of what we normally talk about, good series that end up bad. This series starts out with you expecting a little, and it ends up giving you a lot.
Overall, it’s a shojo magical girl anime, so there’s really so much you can expect . But generally people looking for the high-budget action sequences are going to stay away from this anyways. On a magical girl show scale, I’d give it a 4+. But this isn’t a magical girl only review site, so overall it gets a 3.5, slightly above average.
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