Anime Review: Magic Knight Rayearth
Review Magic Knight Rayearth
I have briefly reviewed Magic Knight Rayearth in a previous article (see Dungeons, Dragons and anime) and know I am following up with a more in-depth review. As I have told you before, Magic Knight Rayearth ( Rayearth for short) Is the tale of three Junior High school girls who's school field trip to Tokyo tower turns out to be more than they thought it would be. Instead they transported to the magical land of Cephiro and given the quest to save princess Emeraude from high priest Zagato. And why do they have to save the princess this time? The reason is that Cephiro is the land of the will and it is Emeraude's will that keeps the whole place from going crazy.
The three fourteen year old girls are Hikaru, Umi and Fuu. Hikaru is a cheerful innocent girl who doesn't look a day past eleven. Umi is a rich and rather selfish ( still likable) girl. Fuu is smart, bespecled girl who points out obvious things and making interesting inferences. Together they are the Legendary Magic knights. At least that is what clef says. Clef is a short little master wizard who is the main source of exposition in the story, although he gives them armor and tries to teach them magic. However his speech gets cut short, when a minion of Zagato attacks. So the girls are sent to meet someone who will give them weapons, and summons a bird to send them on their way. But the girls are intercepted by a minion of Zagato by the name of Alcyone. Fortunately Hikaru pulls off the one spell she learned so far, and dispatches Alcyone. So begins the show Magic Knight Rayearth.
Magic Knight Rayearth is a magical girl show but one of the better ones. Unlike most shows of the genre this show is never bogged down by a tedious and repetitive plot structure (Watch almost any Episode of Sailor moon and you will see what I mean). Although the show is fairly episodic it never feels overly long or padded. Most of the episodes are devoted to character development to some degree as the girls have to mature a bit before they can become true magic knights. Even so the show doesn't get to serious as the character interaction is quite funny at time, especially after Mokona, the Mascot animal that appears in every magical girl show shows up.
The artwork in Rayearth is very good. As you can expect from a series based on CLAMP Manga everything looks great. Even so remember this is a TV series and not an anime movie or Oav with a huge budget so there are limits to what they can do. The scenery is especially good for a television series. It has nothing in the way computer graphics, so you would probably state the animation as old school. This is one of the better examples of old school anime is design terms as the drawing is excellent and you get intricate drawings that you often do not see in newer anime.
One very good thing about this series is that although it is a magical girl show the show is still watchable when you are an adult. I guess it is just another good thing about it being a CLAMP series. It also has the feeling of an Rpg show, or rather a parody of one, especially with the comments that Fuu makes sometimes. It should be noted that there was a Rayearth video game made back in the day.
Overall I think Rayearth is a wonderful anime show and if you have nothing pressing that you just have to get next I would suggest picking this up. I give this a rating of very good.