Magic Knight Rayearth

Hikaru Shidou, Umi Ryuuzaki, and Fuu Hououji are strangers brought together by fate when they meet during a seemingly normal field trip to Tokyo Tower. Accompanied by a great flash of light, they hear a mysterious woman's plea to save "Cephiro," and the junior high heroines are suddenly swept away by a giant flying fish. Afterwards, they arrive in an unknown land, where they encounter a man called Master Mage Clef.

Clef informs the girls that they were summoned by Princess Emeraude to fulfill their destinies as Magic Knights, restoring peace and balance in Cephiro. The formerly lively and peaceful land has been in disarray ever since High Priest Zagato imprisoned the princess, who acted as Cephiro's pillar of stability. The Magic Knights reluctantly accept Clef's words as truth and embark on a journey to save Cephiro from the clutches of evil.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Shidou, Hikaru Main

Shiina, Hekiru Japanese

Ryuuzaki, Umi Main

Yoshida, Konami Japanese

Hououji, Fuu Main

Kasahara, Hiroko Japanese

Mokona ing

Shiratori, Yuri Japanese

Ferio ing

Yamazaki, Takumi Japanese

Zagato ing

Kosugi, Juurouta Japanese

Clef ing

Sasaki, Nozomu Japanese

Emeraude ing

Ogata, Megumi Japanese

Ascot ing

Takayama, Minami Japanese

Presea ing

Shinohara, Emi Japanese

Hirano, Toshiki Director, Storyboard, Chief Animation Director

Urakami, Yasuo Sound Director

Oobari, Masami Episode Director

Motonaga, Keitarou Episode Director

Reviews

Dec 9, 2008

Retro8bit

Recommended

Magic Knight Rayearth was a fresh new take on the female warrior/magical style back in the 90's, that still holds up very well today.

Story: 7/10
Basically we follow three high school girls who get sucked in an alternate dimension, and need to defeat the main enemy oppressing the land, and thus make it home in one peace. Its pretty straight forward in that regards, but along the way they end up meeting endearing friends and allies that assist them in their mission(s). You will also be treated to nice little back stories on a majority of the main characters, and learn their strengths and weaknesses alike. ... There will also be little side quests that the girls have to go on, that steer way from the main plot in order to keep things a bit more fresh and preventing it from growing stale. The plot twists that happen are pretty surprising as well, both with the over all storyline as well as with the characters, but I won't say what because I don't wanna spoil it for ya. The ending, while not truly epic or anything like that, is a most satisfying experience. The action scenes are also pretty nice, very fluid and thought out, even if it may show a bit of repetitious during some of it. However it is not all without its flaws; the most frustrating thing I found with the story is that it tended introduce one too many fillers at some points, and at those times I just wanted them to get on with it already! They also implemented a bit too many characters for this number of episodes, some of the villians we never really got to know much about, and seemed to be their only to keep the cast number large. Wasn't that bad and they worked out a majority of the character's story sequences as much as possibly could. So while it does have a few fillers and may tend to drag on a bit. It has great character interactions, moving moments and good action scenes. I feel I should mention that although it does have a good number of combat and action scenes, it does play about 30% or more of the series in a somewhat more cutesy and comical approach. Nothing too major, but they are there.

As far as offensive material goes, there is some blood in this title. Now while a good portion of the episodes can get away without showing any of the red stuff. There still are a few scenes where the girls get stabbed and blood is dripping down from them, or running along their wound. It never really comes off as exaggerated, but is still there none the less.

Artwork: 8/10
Most people may frown when looking at the clarity of it today, but the colors and detailed background were truly at their best when this came out. Nothing ever feels truly over done with it, and does make you feel attached to the scenery. The character design is also pretty charming to look at, they each have a scenes of style and flare to where you can tell that Clamp (makers of it) really made an effort to give them a nice appeal. My only complaint with it was the facial expressions, they seemed a bit too stiff at times, and I sometimes found it hard to connect with what they were feeling during the appropriate moments.

Soundtrack: 6/10
Like the artwork, it does show its age as well. Most of it does match well with what is going on, and does have an ere to adventure and struggle, even though the only real main memorable background music plays during the battles, all else of it is pretty discrete and sparse. I loved the opening and closing to this, both are sung by the same singer and are played out like a high pitched kinda of bouncy magical girl beat. I can tell you now though, it certain won't appeal to all, as some may find it a bit too cheesy and girly. Now regarding the voice actors, I think they did a pretty good job of giving the right girl the right role. While some voices may feel a bit over exaggerated, (especially regarding some of the villains) I think they pulled it off pretty well.

Characters: 9/10
I really dug them, they each have a certain amount of depth and likeness to each. As the story progresses you get to know them more and more, along with what their greatest attribute is, as well as greatest fear. They compliment one another very believable-ly, and you really get a sense of the friendship they all share, as they struggle to make their way home! Nobody ever comes of as a pest or cliche, which really make you believe the story that it implements. Again I only felt that they added a tad too many people for its episode length.

Bottom Line: 8/10
Magic Knight Rayearth remains a good solid watch that should still appeal to a well rounded majority of anime fans out their, while it does contain a few filler style episodes and a few repetitive fight scenes, if you can get past that then you'll be fine. It overall remains a fun and enjoyable little series that will satisfy you once it ends, all while leaving you with a sense of remorse because its over.

Please keep in mind that this review was regarding the first season of Magic Knight Rayearth, the second one is a whole new ball game, and I felt it just didn't live up to the first one. Just so you are aware of which one I was speaking of.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jan 14, 2015

ktulu007

Mixed Feelings

Welcome back to magical girl month. Let's talk about Clamp again. Yes, the same studio behind xxxHolic and Cardcaptor Sakura. Now, I've already talked about their most famous magical girl series and, although I could look at one of its films, this month let's look at the other major one, Magic Knight Rayearth. One of the odd things about Clamp is that their anime adaptations all seem to be handled by different studios. Cardcaptor Sakura was a Madhouse production, Production IG did xxxHolic and this series was handled by TMS, a studio that's done a lot of famous stuff like Lupin, Detective Conan, Sonic X ... & Monster Rancher. None of which I've reviewed. So, let's take a look and see how they handle Clamp's work.

Story:

Our narrative opens at Tokyo Tower where three different schools have all come on a field trip at the same time. That seems a bit convenient, but I'll let it go because I honestly have no idea if that's actually a thing that happens for Tokyo Tower. It is a famous landmark, maybe it's a perfectly normal occurrence for multiple unrelated schools to visit at the same time. In a flash of light three girls, Fuu, Umi and Hikaru, appear in a strange world with floating stones. They meet a tiny man who calls himself Clef, the master mage. He tells the girls that to return to their world they have to revive the Rune Gods, become magic knights and save their land called Cephiro. Their princess and the pillar of their world, Emeraude, has been kidnapped by a villain called Zagato. But Clef's exposition dump is interrupted by the arrival of Alcyone, one of Zagato's minions. Clef buys time for them to escape, telling them to find Presea, a master blacksmith who will forge weapons for them. So, the girls set out on their quest to stop Zagato and save Cephiro.

Let's start with the story issues. The biggest one involves a character death. I won't spoil who dies, but I will say that at this point it's been established that Fuu has healing magic and while this character is dying she doesn't do a thing. Later, they tell you that she tried her healing spell off-screen after the events you see, but there's still the problem of why she didn't do it sooner. Why wait until this other character stopped talking and moving to try and help them? Was she worried that she'd interrupt their speech by acting while they were still talking? It just makes the magic knights seem pitifully slow to react and incompetent. The worst part is that there are two easy ways to fix it. Method one, Fuu gets knocked out in the battle and doesn't wake up until it's already over. Method two, the character in question dies instantly. No time for a death speech or for healing magic. Honestly, the fact that they have the scene and only explain quite a bit later that Fuu did anything at all just makes it look like the writers forgot she had the healing spell or didn't think of having her use it at the actual critical moment, only realising they'd screwed up later on.

There are some more minor issues too. For example, the magic knights spend way too long fighting the same few minions. Zagato is shown as having five major underlings and more than half the series is spent with two of them. Which results in the other three having really rushed conflicts with the knights and most of them not getting much screen time or room for development. The story is also pretty predictable since it relies heavily on cliches, but it's also intended for a pretty young audience so they'll probably find the events somewhat surprising, at least.

So, what does the series do well narratively? Well, it is good at foreshadowing the events that are coming, which will give the intended audience a good head's up and some sources of tension. The heroes journey element is also done fairly well with a nice, steady progression. The romance elements, though not exactly good, are better than what you'd expect from Clamp's usual works. For one thing, only one of the girls gets a love interest, although the sequel might change that. For another thing, he is important to the plot and, in a rare move for Clamp, he's not far too old for her nor is he related to her. Granted, that's only a positive because Clamp is usually pretty pants at writing romance, but I'll give them credit for writing one that isn't gross or overly intrusive. I also do like that all three of our heroines do share the focus pretty evenly with all of them getting the spotlight at times, their own subplots and their own shining moments.

Characters:

The characters are pretty mixed. Hikaru, Fuu and Umi do get a respectable level of development and are somewhat fleshed out. However, the side characters are pretty weak. The vast majority of them follow a very basic and common character type with nothing to distinguish them from any other character who follows that type. They aren't terrible or offensively written but they also aren't good or interesting. Even the love interest is just your typical charming rogue character. They try to make the villains sympathetic, but most of that just involves using the lazy “they're doing it for love” excuse without putting any actual effort into making them the least bit compelling or three dimensional.

Art:

I won't lie, the series does not look good. Yeah, it was made back when everything was hand drawn so it's bound to be a bit dated by today's standards, but even when comparing it to other anime that came out around the same time, or earlier, it looks pretty bad. I will grant that there are some interesting designs, both in of characters and environments, but the animation is choppy and there are a lot of really noticeable art errors, usually having to do with drawing faces.

Sound:

Our main three are voiced by Shiina Hekiru (Hikaru), Yoshida Konami (Umi) and Kasahara Hiroko (Fuu). All of whom give competent performances, albeit not the best of their careers. You could say the same thing of the acting as a whole, it's competent but not anything special. The music is... there. It's not bad but it's not really good either. It's okay.

Ho-yay:

There's a bit. The series does have a lot of moments where Hikaru, Umi and Fuu strengthen their relationship and some of those seem to go beyond the realm of friendship. Still, it's obviously not deliberate and nothing comes of it. So, I'm calling the ho-yay factor a 3/10.

Final Thoughts:

Magic Knight Rayearth is a pretty standard series. It has some things that are pretty well done and others that are pretty badly done, but most of it is in between the two. All in all, it's average. If you're curious about it then it won't hurt you to check it out but you also won't be missing anything if you skip it. My final rating is a 5/10. Next week we'll continue the month with a look at Umi Monogatari: Anata ga Ite Kureta Koto.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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May 15, 2020

Hyouron

Not Recommended

Ahhh, Magic Knight Rayearth. Reeking of nostalgia, when magical school girls were all the rage and believing in the self and one’s will, against all logic, was all a heroine needed (never mind the will of the antagonist). Way back, even prior to the establishment of stereotypical characters. Have to give it some credit for being those foundational series before the importance of character growth and narrative became as established as it is today. It’s also so difficult to be harsh on the loopholes, flatness of characters, and inconsistent storylines when it was a children’s show. Though it was there when anime had just started ... to boom, it had some good plot twists given the monotony.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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