Customer Reviews

Magic Knight Rayearth - Memorial Collection 1

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This box set contains 29 episodes on 7 DVDs, which comprise the second (and last) season of Magic Knight Rayearth. The packaging is beautiful: a heavy box which opens in the front with artwork of the magic knights on the front and sides. This is by far the best box put out by an American anime company, and it puts the season 1 box to shame. Absent some spelling errors on the individual DVDs, the packaging is simply top notch.

As for the show, it is a fair bit different than the first season. An underlying current in the first season was that the show was something of a parody of Japanese RPGs (role-playing games). Here, the situation is more serious; somewhat unexpectedly, the show has more humor as well. The magic knights, three 14-year old girls from Tokyo, are summoned again to the world of Cephiro by an unknown force and find it crumbling. Cephiro is ruled by a pillar, one person whose will rules all; in the previous season, Cephiro lost its pillar, and it is now crumbling into nothingness. To make matters worse, three other worlds are invading it and a dark enemy has appeared from within. The show does start a little slow, and there are some saccharine moments--but those are to be expected if you saw the first season. On the other hand there's no concerns about nudity (although there is an innocent exchange reflecting a girl's anxiety about her chest) or language or graphic violence, so it's a fairly safe title for kids to see. Note that there is fighting, death, and occasional blood, so this is not a show for those who want to avoid all violence. If you've seen the first season and liked it, you'll like this: at once darker and funnier, with characters you came to like.

Okay, I went and bought this dvd series out of curiosity and a recommendation from a friend. He said the mechs do magic which piqued my interest. Anyways, first off, I'd say this series is best described as Sailormoon meets Escaflowne meets Fushigi Yugi. It's like Sailormoon in that the three girls in the anime wear mostly that sailor-type uniform and do magic. It's like Escaflowne in that they are taken into another world that blends a bit of machinery and primitive culture. It's like Fushigi Yugi in the fact that alot of humorous elements in the series use the "superdeformed" image of characters to show some cuteness and laughs. It's a pretty good light hearted series at first and turns a bit serious at the end. Not quite as emotionally involving as Evangelion or Escaflowne, but it still has some good emotional moments. The art style is similar to El-Hazard in my opinion so it might not be the cup of tea of some individuals. The same can be said of the super-deformed part. If you found this aspect annoying in Fushigi Yugi, you might definitely find Rayearth annoying. On another note, people say this dvd is the first season which it is, but the series does end. Meaning, you are not left with a cliffhanger and pulling you hair out at the end of the series such as in Fushigi. So, if you are worried that you'll have to wait to see the current story arc of the first season end, have no freats because the set stands on its own. My only reason for giving this series a 4 star rating is in the fac that there were quite a bit of glitches in the extras. I couldn't get the Omake endings or Alternate Endings to work properly. When choosing options, the cursor takes forever to switch to another selection. And when the show starts, I couldn't switch the default language, English, to the Japanese track straight from the start of the show. I had to go back out into the menu and do it manually from the set-up screen. However, there were no problems with the show itself except for one or two pixellated scences which I noticed. Still, its a good series to add to any anime collection.

Magic Knight Rayearth isn't a pure 'magical girls in sailor customes' anime, nor a 'parody on magical girls in sailor customes' anime either.

Instead it finely balances between these two things, which not many anime try (or succeed in if they do try). What I mean is, the main characters (Hikaru, Fuu and Umi) aren't completely convinced the world they've been transported to (to save the world etc..) is real and yet the anime isn't reduced to a string of silly jokes about it, or a 'serious' anime about good vs evil.

The animation is average, the story reasonable (well, if I want to be objective, I happen to _like_ heroic fantasy, good vs evil, heros triumph over bad-guys etc..). If you want to know more about the story, search the Web for 'rayearth' or 'cephiro' (Google is good for that), because I won't elaborate on it.

The packaging is nice, a thin cardboard box with the 5 dvds in keepcases in it. The box is more of a wrapper itself, yet with nice print and raised golden areas/scrolls and such. A small thing, but better than a plain paper wrapping, I say :)

I only had one problem with the dvd (could be my software dvd decoder) on my pc. The Japanese language + english subtitles somehow was displayed as Japanese with japanese subtitles (?), but as soon as I realized that that was actually japanese with english subtitles it wasn't a point. After that I actually skipped to the dvd menu (which I usually don't on my PC) and found it was correctly written there, must've been either my player or some internal name messup on the dvd.

Anyway, if you use a normal player you won't have any problems. One thing I found annoying was that the chapters aren't organized logically (at least not very), which makes navigating outside hte menus (i.e. with a dvd player on a pc, I know I keep repeating myself) a bit nasty, which actually made me use the dvd's menus for once, which are nice and shiny, if a little slow on my setup.

Concluding, if you can see past the sugary theme (it's girls anime after all) and like me, like Clamp's style this is good value for your money (8 and a half hours!).

Else I recommend you either pick up a copy of the manga first (Mixx Manga has an edition, but rather badly translated) or rent/borrow a tape of one of the episodes.

Enjoy,

***Warning: contains spoilers!***
If you have watched season one of MKR, and most of you probably have, the second series has some major deviations from the manga (while the first season pretty much followed the manga). Overall, this season is darker and somewhat more violent than the first season, and the relationships between characters are examined more closely. Ok, now since I properly warned you in the beginning of this review that I am going to reveal important plot points, don't be angry or bitter if you feel all this spoils your precious MKR2 watching experience.
First of all, new characters were added, namely the villian characters of Nova and Lady Debonair. I thought these were interesting additions because of how these villians were created. Nova was inadvertantly created by Hikaru just before she left Cephiro after killing Zagato and Emeraude in the first season. Her intense negative emotions about killing Zagato and Emeraude created Nova. I thought bringing this character was an effective way to force Hikaru to deal with the conflict inside of her. Lady Debonair was created in a similar manner, although she was created by the fear and uncertainty of the people of Cephiro. Lady Debonair's character gave the different "factions" (Cephiro, Autozam, Chizeta, Fahren) an ultimate evil to unite against. Isn't that what we like to see, a showdown between the forces of good and evil?
While I thought the two aforementioned characters brought some interesting aspects to the series, I thought that it could seem a bit "cluttered" at times, jumping back and forth between what was going on with Nova and Debonair and Chizeta and Fahren and Autozam. The way they kept going back to Alcione was especially annoying to me, but I guess she provided a way for Debonair to invade Cephiro's castle. And Debonair's laughing was VERY annoying...
The second major change was the ..The third major change is the absence of any important function of Mokona. True, in the first season he guided Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu while they became Magic Knights. But in the second season he is reduced to just being cute and jumping around and saying his standard variations of the word "puu." ... In the anime however the role of The Creator is never mentioned and the Magic Knights summoned themselves to Cephiro. It was interesting to find out in the manga that Mokona had created Cephiro in response to humans on Earth. Unfortunately, all this was left out of the anime.
Also, as a stated in the intro, this season of MKR is darker and more violent. There are more battles and more blood ... But the battles and actions sequences were exciting.
The relationships between various characters are more pronounced in the anime than in the manga, it seems that everyone is in love with everyone else. ...Overall, I liked MKR2, despite the major changes. There were changes I thought were improvements but there were changes that I thought were steps backwards, but I love MKR and still loved the anime and thought it was wonderful. Decide for yourself if you can overlook the major changes. Happy watching!!!

This set--the only way to get the show on DVD--contains the whole first season of Magic Knight Rayearth on 5 DVDs. For those worried about cliffhangers, have no fear: the first season is a complete story.

Rayearth deliberately resembles a Japanese console role-playing game (like you would play on a Playstation). Three girls are drawn into a fantasy world and set with the task of saving it; as they progress, they (in role-playing game terms) go up in levels and gain new powers. Also like many role-playing games, the story often focuses on little morals such as the value of friendship and the like. This may be somewhat too saccharine for some; on the other hand, there are many bloody battles (unlike many shows, especially when edited for US tv, these girls bleed when they fight). The end, without spoiling anything, becomes quite grim in tone.

Assuming you don't mind a little saccharine in your anime, there is nothing to complain about here. The artwork is gorgeous, as it is derived from CLAMP's original comic (also available in English and recommended). The score is fabulous (I bought an import CD to get it), and the English language dub is well-acted and voiced. If there is any little nitpick, it is that the vocal tracks were also dubbed, and there is one point in the title song where the singer can't quite match the high note of the Japanese singer. But, if that's the worst thing I can think of, that is some evidence that this is a great show.

I agree with almost everything the other reviewers said. Although I found the first season to be a little bland and childish, the second season blew me away. The themes are far mature and you can work with it to form your own opinion, I was grateful for the much needed romance factor that was mostly absent in the first season. However, I do not agree with the reviewer who said that Hikaru getting more time than the three knights was a downside. In the manga, sidekicks are generally made into different people, but in the first season of this anime, they basically were triplets. Everything one said, the other mirrored, changing it slightly. I am eternally grateful that the second seasong had less off this, althought I picked up a lot of it with Umi and Fuu(this sidekicks). I also certainly don't have a problem with Eagle's voice actor being a girl, although I think the voice is out of place a bit for such a hottie, or someone so tall ^_^ Happy viewing, you should definetly buy this.

It's called the "Memorial Collection" because it's a DVD Boxset including the first half of the series. They fixed the annoying "-ster" suffix that was applied to the names in the sub VHS version. That's a big plus to me ("Fuu-ster" is rather annoying and not quite an accurate translation of the -chan suffix used in Japanese).

Well, I recently watched this and really enjoyed it for all the reasons much more eloquent writers have stated below.

One point to note is that it is quite a bit different from the second "season" of Magic Knight Rayearth manga. Hikaru questions herself more (and is empowered less by her own loves and beliefs), but there is a lot more romance. Things just barely hinted at in the manga take striking form in the anime. The ending is also a bit different.

Is this bad? Not at all. I enjoyed the manga and I enjoy the anime, and they're two separate things. Nothing wrong with comparing them, but it's important to keep in mind that to just make the manga exactly as is into an anime would be, well, not that exciting. I mean, once you've read the manga, why watch the exact same thing? ;) Just don't go into the anime thinking it will be exactly the same.

Still, there is some satisfaction to the romance angle that the anime explores. The manga is quite short and so didn't touch upon that all too much.

As a note for younger viewers, there's only brief nudity (in the opening sequences) but no swearing, sex, etc. At least, none that stood out in my mind.

So in closing, if you sort of enjoyed the first season of Rayearth, or thought it needed "more," well, I think you'll LOVE the second season. The first was just "okay" in my mind. The second is one I'll watch again, and enjoyed it completely.

Admittedly, I've tried to bump this series off the pedestal of No. 1 in my rankings with anime like Utena and Cowboy Bebop. It's still my favorite.

I like RPG-style stories, and MKR is just that. The characters are very well-developed, including the "villians". Many people claim the plot meanders. I disagree. The pace does start out slow, but as Cephiro is placed in increasing danger, you can feel the pace change.

The characters may seem Sailor Moon (hackcough) like at first, but the three protagonists are much more courageous andstrong willed, not to mention that they're able to inflict serious damage with a sword.

The last volume is undoubtedly the best-I highly doubt if anyone saw the twist at the ending. If you're like me, you'll cry.

The music isn't excpetional, but it does its job, and the ending number is actually good, something of a rarity in anime, I've found.

The second season of Rayearth is really a must see if you liked the first season. As other reviewers have stated, it's considerably more serious then the first season, but it most certainly has its lighthearted moments.
There are a few downsides, of course...for example, Hikaru becomes the sole main character. In the manga, the relationship between the three Knights is much more balanced, with each girl getting about equal screen time. The animation in the show can get a bit off at times, but that's what happens with all anime at one point or another.
Honestly, I would reccommend the manga above the anime at any point in the Rayearth series. The manga art is breathtaking, the plot more intriguing, the story is faster-paced with fewer 'filler' episodes....and NO NOVA! And there was much feasting and rejoicing!
Of course...with the anime, you get Ogata Megumi as Eagle's Japanese voice actress (Yes, he's played by a girl, you got a problem with that?!). So that more then makes up for Eagle's fate. (IwillnotspoilIwillnotspoilIwillnotspoil...)
Overall, buy this if you're a Rayearth fan. But buy the manga first.