Magic Knight Rayearth

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.

Try to mix Sailor Moon, Fushigi Yuugi and Aura Battler Dunbine and you get this animme but I say it appeals to outside the audiences of those animes as well. In comparison to Sailor Moon, the girls are in another world and have no need to conceal their identities. However, they don’t make highly dramatic speeches of why evil is wrong or anything like in a super hero shoujo like Sailor Moon. But like Sailor Moon (specifically in the Stars series), Hikaru does try to emotionally reason with enemies and plea with them that fighting is wrong. The anime in comparison to other magical ... girl animes is more masculine and physical, and the way the characters are presented and developed in being more dependent than just their magical powers, but their own natural fighting abilities and their big hearts.

When I say relying on their own natural fighting abilities I mean things such as Hikaru with Kendo, Umi with fencing, and Fuu with archery. It’s not like Sailor Moon where she is managing to avoid a fight until she finds an opening to use her signature move of the season. With Fushigi Yuugi, its girls are transported to another world and they are seen as the savior. But these girls in MKR are chosen to be warriors and not celestial priestesses and have to fight their enemies themselves with minimal help from time to time. As for Aura Battler Dunbine, it’d be a spoiler if I explain it to you but if you see at the every end of the opening credits, you’ll get an idea of what I mean.

In the end, with the way the story progresses, it’s as if you are watching an old school Japanese style RPG game.

The art is of course by Clamp, so you’ll be able to recognize the way they draw the size of the eyes and the distinctive style to them. The eyes are the only thing that just looks alike but the characters have good variety to their design such as their uniforms, shapes of their faces and bodies. But in terms of other factors like hair styles and what not, it’s typical what you see in other animes like natural colored blue hair and what not so that’s always been a basic acceptable standard in anime. Because the majority of this anime takes place in another world, it is at liberty to allow more types of fictional creatures like Innova with his ears and have wicked costumes like Caladina’s skimpy gypsy outfit and Zagato’s heavy armor. The armor and the costume designs are very captivating and the environment of Cefiro is really breath taking and something out of Final Fantasy almost with floating continents and more in a world of middle ages but with monsters and magic.

Of course like other magical girl animes a lot of recycled footage is used such as when they use their magical powers. Like every time Hikaru uses her flare arrow or something, it’s the same animation sequence with a red background and so on and so forth. But this was made in mid 1990s and a certain percentage of anime was like that and acceptable. But for those of you that more new into anime, this might annoy you more than it did with me because I got into this anime when it first came out. Then sometimes for humor’s sake, characters get miniaturized. I say this it to keep it appealing to the kids and to give it some humor. I can handle it, but for some people, they might find it annoying. Other than that, when they are not relying on magic to fight, the use of their natural fighting abilities plays out well and gives more exciting build up with the fights and makes it more enjoyable like that.


The music is very excellent and beautiful. The opening theme Yuzurenai Negai meaning an Unyielding Wish is one of my favorite opening songs of all time. I like how it builds up very slow in the first few seconds and then bam, it becomes more like rock and pop. It has a good sense of tempo and pacing and the lyrics are a great way of telling the overall theme of having a strong will and always stick to your dreams. In other language versions like the English and Tagalog versions, they try to keep the song faithful. I know the Sega Saturn version in English has a different tune to the song from the anime version though. The ending theme Asu He No Yuuki or the Courage to Tomorrow is more pop-ish but shares the same things in a more light hearted context.

The background music especially when the next episode recaps the previous is very intense because the situation of the show is presented that way. The music has a variety of ways of setting the atmosphere and tends to be more orchestral because of the setting in a more midevil world.

The voice acting in the Japanese version is perfect. I really love the cast. I like Ryotaro Okiayu as Innova. Just perfect. Same with Juurouta Kusogi as Zagato perfectly matches his look. The English voices on the other hand, not too great and is why some anime fans hate dubs. Personally, I thought the Saturn game’s dub cast was much superior and more faithful to the characterizations. Such as Hikaru being tomboyish and rowdy, Umi being formal, and Fuu being intelligent. The regular anime dub just didn’t cut it for me.

This anime is more universally appealing that other magical girl animes because of the action and story isn’t all that feminine in comparison to other predecessors. Before the anime and manga came out, there was the Saturn game that came out in late 1998. It was the last Saturn game to come to America. It comes with some great stickers and high quality box art. The game itself is like the old school Zelda games like Link to the past except you have control of 3 characters. The graphics are still excellent in terms of background but the game play style has the characters chibi-ized like in Zelda. It offers great challenges and the story itself still faithful to the original material, but offers an alternate story with more characters and development. It’s a high recommendation for Saturn owners. You’ll enjoy the anime for the characters, action, and unpredictable story.

Action. Adventure. Girls. Mecha. That should be enough for some of you, go watch it. For the others, well, I could shill this series all day. I'll talk a bit about both MKR I and II, because yeah the whole thing is cool, really cool. Possibly my favorite work of fiction.

Magic Knight Rayearth looks cool. Everything about it, the aesthetic. The armor, the weapons, the robots, the setting, it all looks awesome. Big jewels set into bronze trim everywhere. Weapons and armor that get more powerful and transform as you use them, some hardcore RPG stuff. Red, green, and blue. Fire, wind, and water. Classic ... stuff, great stuff, tried and true color-coded magical girls just work. The aesthetic of the series alone is enough to make it worth watching, but it's got plenty more backing it up. I don't want to bore you with a long review so I'm just gonna list some of the stuff that makes it great:

Varied, interesting monster fights. Deeply moving villains. Beautiful romantic tragedy. Enormous crystal palaces. Sexy scantily clad women. GIGANTIC MAGIC ROBOT SPACE COMBAT. Come MKRII, political intrigue. Fantastic anti-villains. A literal Iczer chick. Gorgeous hand-painted backgrounds. Spaceships. Shoulder fairies. Demiurgic responsibilities.

Take everything that's awesome and put it into one series and you have Magic Knight Rayearth. Hikaru, Nova, Lantis, and Eagle are some of my favorite characters in fiction, they are simply without flaw. Mokona is my self-insert. If I could force everybody on the planet to watch one anime series, this would be the one. Is that enough? Really the first four words of this review should have been enough.

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 terms 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.

Magic Knight Rayearth is something I feel like I have a special connection with, not because I saw it at a young age, but because it was the anime I always wanted but was always just out of reach. I was first exposed to it by way of the Sega Saturn game ads, which showed off classic CLAMP art that I did, and still do, consider among the best styling you'll see of its kind. I wanted to watch the anime, but it wasn't readily available at the time, and I never thought to check out the manga (which Tokyopop had recently put out), because ... I was never big into comics and the like.

Years later I was able to watch the series in its full glory, and it was everything my 11 year old self could have hoped for: an SNES-era RPG in anime form, executed pretty flawlessly. The CLAMP style is animated better than pretty much anything I've seen (okay besides maybe X/1999?), and the music and overall atmosphere compliment it exceptionally well. You'd almost swear you've heard some of the music in a Square game of old.

The characters and story aren't especially deep, but they don't need to be. Every character manages to be likable and/or interesting; so pretty much all of them are memorable in some way. The anime builds interest slowly but steadily, and doesn't feel like it drags on, despite being significantly longer than the manga. The payoff at the end feels that much better for it.

The new Blu-Ray release looks and sounds fantastic. Just like I had hoped, the art not only holds up in HD, but looks much better for it.

So if you have nostalgia for the mid-nineties as far as both anime and video games go, you'll probably find a lot to love here. It's the perfect anime that really has something for everyone.

i never thought i will write a review of an anime~ well i guess ill try~ I just finished re-watching this anime~ I miss this anime... last time ive seen it was 1996 or 97... and become one of my all time favorite... cant believe that this is a Shoujo type of anime XD~

Story: 7
Its a story about a 3 random girls that been summoned from earth by a princess from a different planet and the only way home is to save their planet Cephiro but there's more to it than that... The story was made so that children and children at heart ... can easily understand it. All about the power of friendship, not giving up no matter what and the power to believe. Its like a typical RPG game.

Art: 9
This is the part what i like most about MKR. Character design made by CLAMP is always beautiful, specially the uniform of the 3 girls, its soo cute with the color of their respected element. Next is their armor design, at first it looks like a plain armor but as soon as the story progresses and they level up (level up?!) it become cooler and coolerspecially their last armor, same thing with the swords, i love it specially Hikaru's sword design. The Mecha design, hmm not that bad...back in the day seeing those mecha makes me excited, specially when they combine. Emeraude's design is good too, simple yet elegant. Zagato wearing a black robe make you think that "oh.. the bad guy". Love it when they are in chibi mode...

Sound: 8
i dont know why but i really like the opening song of MKR... maybe because it was translated to my language and i often sing it (until now) when im still a child~ battle theme and SFX is good too. As for the voice actor/actress, they do a good job in their role~ specially Emeraude that's always pleading for help.

Character: 8
Hikaru the small, energetic and tomboyish type. Umi the ojou-sama type, and Fuu the girl with glasses. A little background story about them is fine. i take only a little interest in characters...

Enjoyment: 8
If u seen many kind of good sword and magic scene, you'll enjoy this a little. Well as for me i found it nostalgic. i really enjoy this anime when i was a kid, all those slash and magic scene specially Zagato's magic spells... There's only a little mecha fight which can be seen in the last two episode. When i saw it now i find those boss fight a little crappy~ easily beaten when their equipment leveled up...

Overall: 8
This is a great anime for boys and girls of all ages~ all i can say is just watch it... XD

Magic Knights Rayearth is one of my all time favorite anime from the 90's as well as my first anime. The story is about 3 ordinary but unique girls: Hikari ( the red-headed tomboy), Umi ( the classy upper-rich Lass) and finally Fuu ( the smart and kind gal) who are mysteriously summoned to a Magical Land of Cephiro by It's Pillar ( basically it's Leader) Princess Emeraude to save the Land. The Girls are greeted by Master Clef ( the princess' right hand, Looks like a child but is actually older than the girls) and explains to them that they must save The Pillar ... from Zagato ( the main villain), to do that they must find the Rune Gods to battle him and his Henchmen. Though reluctant at first (well except Hikaru) the girls eventually makes up their minds and do their job in order to get back home. As the story progress, they gain new armors, weapons and powers as well as allies and enemies. They are aided by a cute creature called "Makoto" ( whose sole purpose is to summon to summon their tent, give comic relief and acts as a compass to the princess). As the story Progresses they eventually findthe real reason they are summoned and must make the ultimate choice.

Magic Knight rayearth is a very unique anime. Unlike Sailor Moon which also has the same artstyle it also involves mecha in it which I was not excepting since the main characters in this series are girls. Magic Rayearth is another series by Clamp I noticed that when Makona appeared in the 1st episode. Now I think everyone should give this series a try it's got romance ,adventure,comedy, and hardships you know like your friend gets captured and you have to save them it's a awesome anime I say it's on my top ten anime list right now.

So, what happens when you cross Fushigi Yugi, Sailor Moon, and a Dungeons and Dragons vibe with way too many comedic jokes? Well, I guess this shows it. The characters are pretty much generic, the story is pretty generic and to top it all off, the main characters seem rather stupid, including Fuu who is supposed to be smart. In fact, the only real character that actually had the right thought in the head during the first episode was Umi who kept trying to get back home. Of course, she slowly gets into the swing of the other characters after the first one.

I’m not going ... to lie; the characters are dip-shits. They are completely stupid most of the time without any real reason to be stupid. It did surprise me though just how smart Hikaru was once in a while, only to have it crashing down moments later in her stupidity. She has almost no holds bar over going head first into a fight and so its no wonder she levels up faster then the other two. Every single character, not just the main characters but even the side characters seem to have this strange way of explaining far more then they really should at any given time. It pretty much becomes a large monolog as they explain a very small piece of the plot.

Umi is pretty much a loudmouth who will always speak her mind and sadly, that means be the annoying whinny brat all the time. She whines about everything, ‘I’m tired’ ‘My feet hurt’ ‘When will we be able to go back to Tokyo?’ stuff like that. She’s one of my least favorite characters even though all the characters do tend to become whinny throughout the show. Fuu is a rather sweet girl who always seems to care for anyone but even with that, she will not go head long into battle without some sort of plan. And then when you least expect it, she will do something stupid without thinking of the other people in her group. It’s like she has multi-personality disorder or something because she never does what she says.

Ferio is a rather odd character in that he always seems to be switching sides all the time. I get kind of surprised that anyone actually believes a word that the trickster says. And Clef isn’t any help because he’s a stone who when he talks to them from the heart, his lips don’t move at all so you have no clue if its really him or actually a trickster at times.

So, now this paragraph is about a big spoiler that I really have a problem with. The ending although a good twist, comes out of the blue and doesn’t really make much sense. The rune gods turn out to be mecha’s and they have to kill the person that summoned them. So much for saving the good princess from the ‘evil’ sorcerer. Turns out the sorcerer was misunderstood and was killed for no reason at all. I’m all for killing one to save a thousand but in this case, at least four lives were lost all because a princess went gaga over a guy, not to mention whoever else died by monsters and other catastrophes. This princess was a spoiled little brat in that aspect. Don’t take me wrong, I’m all for love, but this just kind of got ridicules.

The animation jumps all over the place and goes from normal, to chibi, to overly dramatic rather fast. I believe one of these scenes did this in about 3 minutes. Not only that but they place a lot of still shots or really little movement as though they were hurting for cash, what I consider cheep ass animation tactics. In fact, after Clef is turned to stone, every time he ends up talking, he doesn’t move his lips at all in the hologram that shows him. I mean come on, if you want to show him when he’s supposed to be speaking, move his mouth at least a little bit or just do his voice with no image of him. Every character looks generic, we have the generic looking bad guys, the generic looking heroines, the generic looking side-kick plush toy, and to top it all off, a generic looking princess to bring this whole world into perspective. All the characters have really wide eyes that pretty much take up most of their faces, which have really pointy… jaws and cheeks? Characters are also really long legged like in the Sailor Moon shows, sometimes going to an extremely elongated body like in xxxHolic. Characters do not have to look like they are thrown in a taffy machine one minute, then really chibi the next.

The English dubs are all about comedy it seems but I don’t blame it all on the dubbers. The animation also shows this but I already talked about that. Fact of the matter is, they seem to crack jokes this way and that, breaking any good drama the show could have had with a witty little joke. It throws me for a loop that they would do such a thing but I haven’t read the manga yet so not sure if Clamp actually did that as well. I do like that when they are getting a bit to obvious, they actually point it out. When going about picking voices, I believe they decided to pick the generic character voices. Julie Maddalena, who played Yumi from Chobits, Meiling in Cardcaptor, as Hikaru. Bridget Hoffman, who played Belldandy in Ah! My Goddess and Chitose from Chobits, as Fuu. Wendee Lee, who did Urd from Ah My Goddess and Ururu from Bleach, as Umi. Unsurprisingly, they do a good job though I get tired of these characters.

What makes a "Fantasy" anime so good? When someone says fantasy, the very first word that comes to my mind is "saving the world". Magic Knight Rayearth is one of those anime who stood up in this kind of platform. Yes, very common and very predictable. The anime aired in 1994, a lot of anime produced this time are fantasies. As a kid, I grew up watching a lot of old school anime and most of them are actually about a group of people saving the humanity, incredible powers and needless to say a very bad animation style..

[b]The Story -[/b]
The story itself is very common, ... nothing new about saving the universe, the world or other countries.. I've seen this anime before when I was a kid but I didn't have the chance to finish it actually until yesterday. The story is predictable except for the ending. CLAMP's works are known to have unpredictable and unbelievable endings. As you can notice from their other works like Chobits and Code Geass, they went crazy on their endings which makes the story so good and yet so bad (it depends on what kind of people are watching) but imo the ending of this series is not that good but I have to admit that it is very unbelievable. I was caught up watching the series because the pacing was fast but in every end of each episode you will be able to know what will happen to their next adventures.

[b]The Art -[/b]
The animation is bad but considering that the anime was produced in 1994 I would say there's really nothing I can do about it. One thing I like about the series is how CLAMP managed to create a very good and quite detailed robot designs for their rune-god characters. I think this where they got the idea for Code Geass' Knightmare designs.

[b]The Sound -[/b]
This is where the anime stands out. The opening and theme "Yuzurenai Negai" by Naomi Tamura brought life to the whole series. In my whole time watching anime, this is the second or probably the third time I got mesmerized by a good sound tracks like Clannad and Angel Beats. They made different variations of this song and inserted it in the series and guess what... it really added some good feelings and excitement while watching the series.

[b]The Character -[/b]
Three MCs got warped into a world known as "Cephiro" but surprisingly, they don't look like they are scared or anxious or they just lack emotions? The characters are like jobs in a very popular RPGs. Magus, Knights, High Priest, Summoner, Illusionist, Blacksmith and a princess. Each character develops very slowly but surely.

[b]The Enjoyment -[/b]
I can't say I really enjoy the series because of all the plot holes I found while watching it. Bad animation, the story is predictable and other noticeable holes made it hard to finish the series. I can sit for whole day and watch a 24 episode long series if it is very enjoyable but this time I wasn't.

[b]Overall - 5/10[/b]
Nevertheless, it's still a good thing that I finished watching a series that I started when I was a kid. The only thing I like about this anime are the OSTs. If you like fantasy anime then you might want to check this out..

Want to watch some old school maho shojo? Well go for it, with Magic Knight Rayearth, but be warned, don't expect pre-teen romance, glittery accessories and lacy uniforms you won't get it here.

Story: 9
I – as many of my anime loving friends- am a big Clamp fan.
Love the way they can tell a story and how they seem to make original things while doing it. This was no exception.
You get really hooked in the story itself, as it slowly unveils through their journey, even though the main plot may be a bit cliché at first – Endangered princess in a parallel world needs rescuing ... from evil wizard, and only the chosen ones can do it properly yada yada yada – it all comes out to a surprising twist in the end.
This was the first the first Maho Shojo I’d EVER watched where the girls actually…. Fought?
I mean, the main action did not consist in delicate swirls, and heart shaped attacks. They had swords,they cut beast with it, they even bled occasionally. I’m not all for violence, but in a way is quite refreshing seeing some realism in such a fantastical and delicate genre by nature.

Art: 5
Honestly, I hated the animation and art in this one.
I started watching it because I saw some random scans from the manga, and honestly it looked really alluring. When I started watching it like… 4 years ago, I was a bit shocked with the way they adapted it, even though I don't usually prioritize art over plot when I watch anime.
Evey time I say this about this anime I get the quick reply “Oh, but it was made in 1995, c'mon, don't be picky” and somehow that excuse doesn't make sense to me, if you think about some beautiful animes made even earlier than MKR, for example Sailor Moon.
Is one of those cases in which you shouldn't even look at the manga before watching the anime, because the art will look pretty bad as soon as you have a reference.

Character: 7
So, I gave it a 7 just because you don't get that much character development in the series. I mean, you know them superficially but you never get to know that much about each of the girls’s background story, asides from the fact that Hikaru’s family owns a kendo dohjo, that Umi’s the captain of the fencing team in her school, and that Fuu… Ahm… you actually don’t get any info on Fuu, at least in the first season, besides that she can shot a bow.
By the other hand, I love the way they don't emphasize any of the girls particularly in comparison, there's never a precise “lead” character, they're all as important, and that's quite interesting. All the characters are interesting, but not explored enough.
(and don't get me started


In the overall this is a solid 8.
If you can get past the art – which I eventually did – you get immersed in the mysterious world of Cephiro, with Umi ,Fuu, Hikaru and Mokona in search of the path to saving princess Emeraude and Cephiro from the destruction Zagato represents.
It can bee goofy and fun at times, and a bit dramatic some other times, but it's alway enjoyable.

Magic Knight Rayearth is a classic story about ordinary people from Earth who get transferred to another dimension to save another land. The characters are likable and innocent, but a bit childish. The animation was good, with the nice 90's style that was popular (huge eyes, spiky hair and all).. The characters were somewhat developed, the story really only focused on the main three, not really explaining others who helped them in their journey. It was a good story that was enjoyable.

This season alone would be enough to put the anime into my top 10 favorite of all time.

It's a story thoroughly crafted, with a bittersweet lesson about the hardships and injustices of one's life within the world. The soundtrack is simply wondrous, helping the voice actors' perfomance with a solid boost, especially during dramatic scenes.

Characters are well developed, with the three main characters having well established arcs concluded into the story seamlessly. The villains also adds to the plot's purpose. Although the last few episodes can feel quite rushed, they still manage to deliver the intended narrative by all metrics.

The visuals, though old by ... today's standards, compensate for its age with elegant uniqueness. Machinations of the representation for the characters have quite specific deliveries at key times, contributing to the feel overall of the series, even at the naive moments.

The show overall deserves a 10 out of 10 in my book, definitely an experience worth revisiting.

This is a surprisingly well done older anime. Three girls are thrown into another world and are tasked to save it.They overcome a trial after trial, each testing their resolve, their friendship. And in the end...

The anime is quite simple in its structure, but it is done with love, and as a result it is interesting to watch. Relatively simple premise works well, fights are interesting, and story is interesting as well, every character is well designed, and the music is magnificent. So in the end you get something that resembles a lot an interesting fairy tale rather than your typical isekai anime.

Detailed breakdown ... below:

Story: 7/10.
THe premise is very simple, however actual journey from start to the end is handled very well. Characters develop and get stronger, they experience many fights, and once again, even though many story turns are quite simple, they're touching, and have feeling of importance about them.

There are minor issues. On some occasion the anime start padding story wit hflashbacks. It doesn't happen often, but there are at least two episodes that were quite obviously artificially extended.

Art: 7/10
Very nice characters done by clamp. Meaning triangular faces and attractive big eyes. Characters are stylezed and at the same time are well detailed, designs of enemies are very interesting to look at as well.

The only issue is that in some circumstances backgrounds looked like they lacked quite a lot of detail. That didn't happen often, but I've spotted few such moments. I've also noticed recycled animation on some attacks.

Overall the art could be described as "higher quality old-school".

Sound: 8/10:
There are some truly amazing musical themes here. The combat theme, for example, adds weight to any situaiton in which it plays, and has both noble and tragic feeling to it. So, sound part is great.

Character: 6/10:
Well... there is character development going on as gfirls progress and grow stronger, and their interactions looked convincing and lovely enough. However, this is a formulaic anime. Meaning a character follows his or her central idea or role from start to the end. So, It is not an extremely deep psychological analysis of every character. They have a type, they act within bounds of their type, and in the end it looks good.

Enjoyment: 7/10:
I actually quite like it. This anime has somewhat pure and naive quality to it, and somewhat simple scenario and tropes offer a nice change compared to overly convoluted plots of other anime. This is a fairly straightforward story, and its straightforwardness makes it even more attractive.

Overall: 7/10.
Overall: I'd recommend to watch it. It is a quality anime that mostly goes in the straight line from start to finish, but despite that it is still very interesting. Cute/interesting characters, amazing music. What's not to like?

So the bottom line is: Even though this is not a Evangelion, it is definitely a solid title, and it is worth watching.

In a 20-episodes season, I wasn't expecting 6 filler episodes, especially episode 9. All of the filler episodes can be skipped (7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 17) and you won't miss anything, even because some of them don't make sense like how two antagonists interact on episode 9 and on episode 10 they seem to be interacting for the first with each other.

This series is also a bit weird because it feels too short by the amount of upgrades the Magic Knights get, but since most antagonists are boring and the fights are shallow if the show was longer it would have been a drag.

Funny ... thing is that I watched a couple of episodes in the 90's (I have a vivid memory of that waterfall Zagato's minions hide), but I was never interested in this show, even now as I was watching it, I took a long time to watch only 20 episodes of this show. It feels a bit a drag, all characters besides the protagonist trio are forgettable, Presea is good too, but being a side character she doesn't show up much.

Something worth praising is the opening, it has beautiful animation, the singing and the lyrics are great, probably one of the best I ever heard.

Honestly, I'm not writing this review about the whole show per se, but for people to skip the whole filler episodes, they are not worth your time, and don't have anything good to add, unless you are REALLY enjoying the anime.

I liked the show until the 15 episode when I started realising what the fight was actually was about. It first remainded me of Sailor Moon. It was very cute and nice. But the end was a bit annoying. What I thought was : "If the people of Cephiro cannot pray for it's peace and safety then Cephiro deserves to be destroyed. Putting all this on one person's shoulders is too much!". I did not like the ending and did not buy all that will be reunited in death stuff. Also in my opinion the villans are the Rune-Gods, Clef and Mokona. They all lied ... and deceived the girls for the benefit of a world that deserves to be destroyed. I hate liars and those that lie cannot call themselves good no matter of their motives.

I started watching this show since I was very little and I fell in love with it. I wanted to be just like Hikaru. The series might drag a little in between but overall its a great series that I recommend to everyone.

You basically follow the story of 3 girls that are sent to another world. For them to to be able to come back to Tokyo they need to save the Princess of that world first. I have the whole series and I lent it out to my friends and they've loved it too. If you're fan of shows like Sailor Moon or ... Slayers you'll definetly like this series.

Let's start off with something obvious, and which is even mentioned in the story itself; this is a video game.

You travel through the landscape, you collect "plot coupons", you level up, you get more stuff, you meet challenges, make allies, oppose the bad guys, and eventually you have enough plot coupons to send off for your ending. That's the entirety of the 20 episodes of the first season.

Even though you now know this, it still really does keep you guessing till the last episode.

Granted the plot twists are NOT shocking, they are NOT the huge surprises, but they are enjoyable and they ... do advance the story sufficiently that even though you won't be sitting on the edge of your seat, you will be anxious to see what's next.

Surprisingly the characters, while simple concepts, are not just two dimensional. They have depth to them, they are interesting and they have personalities.

Plus the anime is not written for old men. It's written for the typical 12 year old girl, with themes of love and friendship and desires and more. There's cute elements, but not enough to make someone barf. There's chibis, but they only appear as a way to emphasize extremes of emotion. So there are elements of everything there for everyone. No up skirt shots, no extreme near nude transformation scenes, but they are cute and look nice.

I can recommend this to anyone with children to watch. It's good solid fare for you. Rewatch value? Probably not going to, but you never know.

This show has a special place in my heart as it's the first anime I've seen in TV at around the age of 6. I have rewatched it once or twice as a teenagaer - and now again, as an adult.

Do I still love it, would I recommend it? Yes, with a 'but'.

I believe the strong part of Magic Knight Rayearth takes time to reach. The early episodes (or, perhaps, the majority of S1) may be difficult for newcomers to consider captivating enough to continue watching. Season 1 is an adventure story that defines its goal outright, progresses a bit in every episode, has ... its share of seriousness and comedy, but only becomes special and begins to stand out - in my opinion - towards the end, from episode 16 on. In these last 5 episodes, as we're heading for the season finale, the atmosphere becomes darker, drama increases and the resolution of the story is absolutely tearjerking.

The above is the reason why my previous rewatches of MKR always started around that point. To me it's the moment when the show becomes good, shifts into a darker, more grim setting and remains in it for the entirety of next season (which is my personal favorite) as it explores the consequences of events from S1.

Overall: 7/10 (arithmetic mean of 6/10 and 8/10 for the respective parts)
If early episodes make you skeptical about the show, it gets better, especially if you're in for the drama.

P.S I find music another strong point of the series. The opening song is outstanding and most soundtracks are beautiful & fitting (Zagato's theme, Emeraude's theme as well as many others).

Internet confession time - I have been digging into the anime & J media I experienced as a teenager. I remembered this e-game I played called Season of the Sakura. I found some commentary about it and discovered that the main characters were based on the characters from Magic Knight Rayearth. What a trip! Maybe I should check out the actual series.

So I did a little bit. I went through a few episodes of the beginning and a few at the end. Watching 1/2 of the series doesn't put me in good position to write a definitive review. So I'll write a little one. ... Take it with a grain of salt.

Story
Three high school girls get transported to a fantasy world to be its saviors. They meet friends, fight enemies, level up, and eventually discover the true nature of their mission.

The set up takes place in the first ten minutes. Our gals get whisked away to the fantasy land. We get the idea that the princess who transported them is in distress and needs their help to save the world. We meet the some allies, the bad guy, and bad minions. It's a decent start.

The end of the story, the twist, is actually pretty good. It turns out that Zagato and the princess have something more going on and the princess has a different interpretation of the Magic Knight's mission. No spoilers here.

Characters
There are the three main girls: the smart one, the fiery one, and the calm one. They are designed so you can tell which one is which by looking at them. I love it they do that. From what I can tell, the characters act true to their personalities throughout the entire story. They're cute too.

There is Princess Emeraude who summoned the girls to the world. She seems distressed and to need some princess saving. She is imprisoned (presumably) by Zagato, who is the main baddie. He has giant shoulder pads and a deep voice.

The mascot is Mokono, a rabbit thing, because animes need cutesy mascots.

Art
The characters have a distinct look: giant eyes, eye shadow & lashes that extend off the face, brightly colored hair, and a color scheme. I like that the personality of the characters can be inferred from their look.

This anime looks like it is from the 90s. Everything is hand drawn, frames are reused frequently, the colors are faded, and the motion is choppy. I don't mind it, to be honest.

The designs are interesting. The MCs color schemes are consistent with their elements. The backgrounds are average for the most part. Many modern animes have backgrounds that can probably pass as wall art. Not in this anime.

The normal animation breaks into cuter animation occasionally to play up humor and panic. It's anime.

Sounds
The voices are good. The characters sound the way they should. It's pro work.

The music is pretty good. The OP is distinctive, upbeat, and catchy. The ending theme is not quite as catchy. The songs sound very 90s with the light rock/pop feel. I like.

The sound effects are not good. The strikes sound like squeaks. The magic sounds are cheesy. Cartoony sound effects punctuate their moves.

Enjoyment/Overall
I had an okay time with MKR. It is like a less girly & more adventurous/ dramatic than Sailor Moon.

I think it's kind of funny how I came to watch MKR. It added to the enjoyment.

Overall, it was decent. I remember hearing that it was popular when it was released. I can see why. MKR is targeted toward girls, has a cute fantasy setting, and is adventurous.