Magic knight Rayearth overview part 2, enter the secondary characters

Killing monsters without fear of panty shots

While the idea of having a single or small group of teenagers save the world, this or any other, is pretty par for course when it comes to anime the simple truth is that they can never really save the world on their own. They need things like cool weapons, secret training from ancient masters and their own harems if the world is going to be saved from darkness. As of the end of episode 1 all the Magic Knights have is some odd costume breastplates and shoes of different sizes as well as the single fire spell that Clef taught Hikaru. Needless to say unless all their opponents are chained to the floor or lobotomized Hikaru, Umi and Fuu are way over their heads.

Maybe if I am cute enough they will let me go

As fortune and the plot favor the protagonists they have been sent to collect some more of the precious bennies needed to save the world with. What they find is a strange wall in the middle of a forest that opens up when they touch it. Inside they find a creature who looks to be the love child of a rabbit and a marshmallow (Mokona who shares the name with one of the members of the show's creation team, CLAMP) messing up a library. Just then they trigger the building's security system and a cage comes crashing down trapping the trio. Out comes a woman angry enough with whomever has been messing with her library to commit comic torture (Presea) . As it all turns out to be a big misunderstanding and Presea lets the girls go and fulfills her role as dispenser of weaponry. However these are not the true weapons of the Magic Knights; those can only be obtained by finishing the side quest of obtaining Escudo from the spring of Eterna. Those weapons have the ability to evolve which as Fuu points out avoids the problem of having to cart around money that icky monsters have dropped to the latest town's weapon shop to have our heroine's arsenal upgraded.

Oh snap my love interest is dead already

Other than a filler monster fight that wraps up episode 2. Episode 3 Take our protagonists through the forest of silence. It should be noted that in many rpgs that a forest is usually considered the first and generally lamest dungeon that one has to go through in the course of a quest although it is important as a place to gain xp. As to add insult to injury the Forest of Silence is a place where magic doesn't work making Hikaru's flame arrow useless for the time being. Another important thing learned in this episode is that Mokona acts as the party's tent feature as it can manifest food and lodging whenever needed to restore the group's hp. The main conflict occurs with Ferio the mysterious npc that shows up to help our protagonists through the current dungeon. The rest of episode 3 consists of wandering monster fights and Fuu and Ferio bonding in a very Tsundereish way.

Obligiatory reflection on the power of friendship

Episode 4 begins the very same way that most of Episode did, another wandering monster fight interspersed with some musing about the regular citizens of Cephiro fall under the category of scared and rather rude villagers. This continues until the episode's midpoint when the villain from Episode 1 Alcione, shows up to snipe Umi. As she decides to take this fight far more seriously than her previous one as she is able to fight Hikaru into a corner. Mokona's deus ex machina power flares up again allowing Umi to contact Clef who allows her to learn her own magic in time for her to upset the battle raging and save her new found friend. Fuu also learns magic in this manner which she uses to gain the role party cleric, um I mean uses to heal Umi's wounds. Thus ends the first disc of Magic Knight Rayearth which incidentally is the place where I choose to end this post. Look for part in the near future.

Rayearth overview part 1, And so I begin to post stuff about this show

While it is customary in most anime blogs to cover the most recent shows with near obsession with posting the second the show has aired I will hold off on that at least until October when the fall season begins. Until then I will blog about older shows like Magic Knight Rayearth. For those of you that know nothing of the show yet Magic Knight Rayearth is a mid nineties fantasy shojo anime show with a mecha twist (which I will explain later) and is considered to be the first big hit of the famous manga creation group CLAMP. It was also a DVD boxset that was just sitting on my shelf until the past couple of days.

the perfect pictire to start a blog with

Magic Knight Rayearth begins with with a scene of Tokyo Tower's observation tower where three different schools are having their school trips. Out of the blue an image of a girl asking for the Magic Knights to save the world of Cephiro. The image is only seen by three girls who are shunted of to another world as they can tell by the fact they are now riding on a flying fish and can see a floating island in the distance. Not knowing even who the others are the girls introduce themselves. They are Umi, a somewhat snobbish person who does most of the complaining about the fact that they have been shanghaied into a different dimension, Fuu who is the smart character (as evidenced by her glasses since smart people have poor eyesight) and Hikaru a peppy little girl who looks like she is only ten despite being fourteen like her fellow main characters. The trio are then introduced to Clef who explains that they are the Magic Knights who have been summoned by princess Emeraude to save the world of Cephiro.

Stop manhandling the exposition mouthpiece

The world of Cephiro is in danger because princess Emeraude who is the pillar of Cephiro has been kidnapped by high priest Zagato. The result is that the land is now overrun with creepy monsters who are created from people's bad thoughts. Zagato is such a strong villain the denizens of Cephiro could not handle him requiring this show's heroes of legend to step in. Being that ordinary school girls could not stop Zagato where knights and wizards failed Clef gives the girl's their first suit of armor and bestows magic upon them. He only begins to teach Hikaru how to use her magic when danger strikes. Zagato has been spying on them and now has sent one of his minions’s to kill the Magic Knights. Fearing for their safety Clef summons a gyrphon and whisks the girls away to find their next plot coupon um I mean Presia who will craft weapons for the Magic Knights. The rest of the episode falls prey to the sequential evil syndrome found video games as Zagato appears to finish off Clef himself while he sends the weakest of the main minions after the Magic Knights only to be defeated like a goon. Besides keeping the main characters and thus the show alive this major brain fart on the count of Zagato does make sense later only in that this show expressly describes it self in acting like a roleplaying game.

Umi had absolute Zettai Ryoukai even before the term was coined

But that is enough for Today. Next time I will hopefully cover the rest of the first DVD as well as some other episodes.