Super Robot Wars Anime Marathon #9: Magic Knight Rayearth

Oh man, this one was a doozy. Unlike most of the other anime I’ve watched since starting this project, Magic Knight Rayearth is pretty long. I know that 50-episode anime are nothing unusual, but despite the amount of time I’ve spent watching these series recently, I have very little experience with them overall. I mentioned in my Code Geass entry that I can only recall one other anime of that length I’ve watched to completion. Well, now I can add another to the list, I suppose!

Magic Knight Rayearth is a really cute series about a trio of middle school girls who get whisked away from Tokyo Tower to the mystical world of Cephiro, summoned by Princess Emeraude. Ostensibly, they’ve been summoned there to save the world of Cephiro, though why it had to be them specifically is never really discussed. The framework seems really only to exist so that these three girls—Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu—can embark on an adventure where they will learn magic, acquire magical armor and weapons, and vanquish fearsome monsters. Honestly, that’s kind of fine with me. The three fish-out-of-water girls are suitably charming and have funny interactions with each other as they learn to harness the powers of fire, water, and wind, shepherded by the requisite mascot character, Makona.

Makona gives me strong moogle energy.

From the start, it’s very clear what kind of dynamic the girls have. Hikaru is small for her age and sensitive to that, but she’s as determined and energetic as someone twice her size. Umi comes from wealth and as a result, she’s accustomed to her privilege, meaning she’s quite unsettled when thrust into another world. She comes off as very rude and entitled in the beginning, but softens as she grows accustomed to the environment and to her new friends. Fuu is more the intellectual type (of course, she wears glasses) and is also allergic to contractions. I came to grow attached to her peculiar way of speaking over time. It sounded forced and inauthentic at first, but the more the voice actress committed to it, the more it seemed more intrinsic and natural to the character.

The entire first season is a set of concise adventures where the girls overcome trial after trial. They’re railing against the principal antagonist, High Priest Zagato, who employs a variety of minions who are willing to die to impress him. There is Alcyone, an ice sorceress who is quickly dispatched early on, only to return much later. There’s also Ascot, a mop-headed little brat who can summon giant monsters to do his bidding. Despite his stated affection for them, he puts them in considerable danger on a regular basis. Caldina is a pink-haired trickster who is voiced with a very bizarre Southern accent. I looked up her voice actor later and discovered she also did the voice of Rogue in the original X-Men cartoon, so that’s interesting. There’s Lafarga, who is a swordsman formerly in Emeraude’s service but now enthralled by Zagato. Finally, there’s Inouva, who is a man who is also a giant wolf demon.

High Priest Zagato

The bulk of the anime’s first half is concerned with meeting and subsequently conquering these various threats while the girls grow ever stronger. It’s not until near the end of this part of the series that the “mecha” aspect of the series even crystallizes. Evidently, part of what makes a Magic Knight a Magic Knight is a pact with a Rune God. Rune Gods are basically just dragons when you meet them, but after their worth is proven, they transform into what are basically giant robots. They don’t have cockpits or anything like a traditional mech. The girls are beamed into the Rune Gods’ cores, where they mostly just flail around and cast their spells in much the same way they would in normal combat, except now these spells are extraordinarily more powerful and being performed by mystical creatures of legend.

The Rune Gods

Zagato himself has a Rune God, as it turns out, which begs the question if he’s technically a Magic Knight, I guess. Either way, the Magic Knights and Zagato clash, at which point the entire premise of the anime is turned on its head. I won’t spoil that here, but it makes the series’ events remarkably less straightforward in retrospect. Even so, after the deed is done, the Magic Knights are permitted to return back to Tokyo and continue to live out their lives, only to be summoned right back for the next season, when new troubles arise.

In the anime’s second half, things get quite a bit more complicated. The stakes are different, but at least this time the Magic Knights aren’t being misled on why they were summoned there to begin with. Due to the events of the first season, a power vacuum has been created and a new Pillar of Cephiro must be appointed. This has led three neighboring countries (which are interchangeably called planets and countries in somewhat confusing ways) to invade Cephiro, vying for power for their various reasons. Many of the initial episodes introduce characters from these countries as well as explore their motivations. These countries are the cyberpunk country of Autozam, led by the silver-haired Eagle Vision; the Chinese-themed Fahren, led by a child princess called Aska; and the Egyptian/Arabian-themed Chizeta, helmed by twin dancers Tatra and Tarta.

Tatra and Tarta. Which is which? Who knows!

On top of these three countries invading Cephiro, there’s also a mysterious and sinister threat lurking in the shadows, whose motivations are unclear for the majority of the anime’s second half. This is Lady Debonair, who is also linked to Nova, a girl that strongly resembles Hikaru and seems to exist primarily to bully her. Later, we’ll learn that she has all of Hikaru’s powers as well.

Nova

Even though the second half of the anime is longer than the first, the convoluted nature of the plot seems to hurdle along at a breakneck pace. So many different beats are established that very few of them have time to really develop or land the way they need to. The first season was very straightforward and ended with a solid twist. The second season has all the same characters from the first, but many of them have aged up due to some timestream shenanigans in Cephiro. Many are on the Magic Knights’ side now. Presea, who forged the Magic Knights’ weapons in the first season but died early on, has now returned, but it turns out it may not really be her. 

At one point, the anime starts pairing characters off in a seemingly random fashion with absolutely no foreshadowing that any of these matchups were coming. There was never any suggestion that Caldina and Lafarga would become romantically involved, nor that Ascot would harbor feelings for Umi. Fuu and Ferio’s relationship is established in the first season, but almost every other romance subplot comes completely out of left field. Most glaring of all is Hikaru’s feelings for a new character, Lantis. Lantis is Zagato’s brother. From what I can see, this is a character in his mid-20s at the very youngest. I would like to remind you that Hikaru and her friends are middle school girls, but it doesn’t stop the anime from treating Hikaru and Lantis’s relationship as a crucial plot point, one that Hikaru’s doppelganger, Nova, uses to taunt her. At the very least, this relationship never materializes, but it’s kind of gross the anime ever lingered on it.

Dude, you're 25, maybe shut that down.

I’ve never read the Magic Knight Rayearth manga and don’t have any particular urge to, but I have to wonder if some of the romance elements in the anime came from obligations from that manga. Maybe they made a bit more sense in that context? That’s the only thing I can think of because they come across as entirely nonsensical in the context of the anime. 

One thing that I really liked about the first season of the anime is that it struck me as having a very similar structure to a classic Japanese RPG. These characters start out fairly weak, but grow stronger over time as they take on harder and harder foes. They learn new spells and acquire new weapons and armor as they journey across Cephiro. There’s even an early episode that references this very fact where Fuu mentions that their journey reminds her a lot of a role-playing game. There’s even a really adorable mockup of the characters in a Dragon Quest style UI with HP and MP and everything. I think this is a big part of why the anime really resonated with me at first. (Side note: There are definitely some Magic Knight Rayearth video games out there that I absolutely would not mind playing.)

This scene really made me smile.

The second season doesn’t really feel that way. It’s much more concerned with the invasion plot, the motivations of the villains, and protracted struggles with the various competing forces. There’s not nearly as much movement or growth. Mage Knight Clef mentions very early in the second season that things will be different in their second jaunt through Cephiro, that they may even learn new spells and abilities. This got me excited because I was expecting to see more of the growth that I liked from that first season. It turns out Clef was really exaggerating, though, because the anime completely abandons the concept of their magical armor evolving as they grow stronger and none of them learn new spells until close to the very end of the series.

I also didn’t find the new villains particularly compelling, at least when it comes to the Big Bad. The explanation for Nova’s existence is ultimately kind of confusing and Debonair herself is just another diabolical villain with no depth. I realize that’s what an anime targeted towards teens and young girls kind of needs, but it’s just not something I found particularly engaging. I might have been fine with it if the second half of the anime was structured similarly to the first and the story it told wasn’t so disjointed. 

In summary, Magic Knight Rayearth is a cute anime with fun art and fun adventures, but it falls apart in the second half. Also, why is everyone so creeped out by those genies?

Nothing creepy here.

Super Robot Wars Anime Marathon #8: Gun X Sword

Actually, I have extremely vague memories of watching the first episode of this anime shortly after it was released. Back in those days, I was spending most of my free time on message boards, and on at least one of them, discussion of new anime was pretty common. I wasn’t a regular in that community, but it was how I was exposed to some of the very few anime series I’ve watched in the past. I think this was also when I watched The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and AIR, neither of which I remember that well.

When I watched it this time, absolutely nothing looked familiar, which I guess isn’t surprising considering this anime came out in 2005 when I was still in high school. On this belated second watch, I was tempted to classify Gun X Sword as mecha-adjacent, but the Armors become important pretty quickly in what is otherwise a pseudo-Western. Our hero is Van, a gangly cowboy type dressed in an ill-fitted tuxedo and large black hat with a ring dangling from the brim. Considering the dry, hot climate the anime’s setting suggests, I have to imagine Van is uncomfortable at literally all times.

He probably looks angry because he's too hot.

Van passes through the town of Evergreen at the story’s outset, where it just so happens that a pigtailed young girl named Wendy is being accosted by a group of thugs. Van might have left things well enough alone, but since he was in the area, he swiftly dispatches Wendy’s would-be attackers with superhuman agility and a large sword before collapsing from exhaustion. Grateful to her savior, the young Wendy offers to be Van’s bride, which is played for humor but mostly just grossed me out. When this offer is declined, Wendy offers Van paid work to defend the town from the brigands who have been terrorizing the area for some time. Van’s not interested, though. He has other things on his mind

Van’s origin story is told in bits and pieces throughout the anime, but it’s made clear very early on that he’s on the trail of The Claw, a mysterious villain who senselessly took his wife’s life. Although Van’s an obstinate loner, he nonetheless assembles a team of allies along the way, including Wendy, who follows him from the very beginning. Wendy has a goal of her own since her brother has gone missing. She feels she’ll have a better chance of finding him if she tags along.

Wendy

It’s worth noting that Van, reclusive anime hero as he is, is also a huge goofball. One recurring gag that frequently made me want to gag is Van’s relationship with food. It’s not clear why he finds food overwhelmingly bland, but because he does so, he drowns everything he eats in every condiment he can find. This means a steak becomes a river of mustard, ketchup, horseradish, mayonnaise, and whatever else he can find. It’s not that funny and it’s pretty gross, so it’s a trait I could have done without.

Van slathering his meal with mayo, probably.

Many of the episodes in the first half of the series feel like self-contained stories as Van travels from one town to the next. Inevitably, there will be a threat in the area that results in Van needing to summon Dann of Thursday, his glimmering white Armor, from space. It’s not clear for a long time why Van has a magic sword that morphs and sprouts holes when he uses it to summon his mech. It’s equally unclear why he always grips the ring on the brim of his hat and shifts it to the other side. In fact, I’m not sure that the second part was ever explained, so I can only fall back on the Rule of Cool.

There are two episodes from early in the anime that stood out for me. One is the episode in which Pricilla is introduced. She’s an Armor Rider who uses her hilariously designed pink mech in an arena against other competitors. In a genre where a lot of these mechs look very similar to each other, seeing an agile machine that looks a lot like a bipedal rabbit is a lot of fun. Pricilla is also a fun, energetic character who is portrayed as quite skilled and capable, even when she ends up battling Van himself.

Pricilla (on the left, of course)

Another standout for me is another set of early character introductions. Van runs into a group of loudmouthed old-timers in a bar who are boisterously congratulating him on taking out some renegade Armor Riders. In doing so, they reminisce about their own days as Armor Riders, perhaps embellishing some of their deeds. Most of the other bar patrons dismiss their stories as complete fabrications. Why not bring out the Armor now, some of them ask, as proof? Nero, the group’s grizzled de facto leader, dismisses this idea. There would be no need to pull their Armors out of retirement unless the need was grave. Of course, like clockwork, a giant tentacle Armor attacks the town, and the need suddenly becomes grave. A night of hard drinking has left Van out of commission, so the old-timers have no choice but to pilot the El-Dora V, an enormous Armor that very heavily resembles Super Robots from 1970s anime. I thought this was such a cool callback to anime of that era and also really enjoyed that these old guys are implied to have been a group of teens in just such an era. Equally interesting is that their fifth member, Chizuru, has long since passed. The four remaining members (or three, since Carlos is always asleep) prove they still have it, even hungover from a night of habitual drinking. 

The El-Dora V

Van also frequently crosses paths with the enigmatic Ray, an agile gunslinger with long, blond hair. It seems Ray’s path is similar to Van’s own since his wife was also inexplicably slain by The Claw. This doesn’t go very far in making them friendly with one another, however, as their meetings frequently amount to deadly duels. Even when Van runs into Ray’s little brother, there’s little that can be done to mend their relationship, at least at first. Like most important characters in this story, Ray also has an Armor called Volkein, a red monstrosity outfitted with some powerful cannons.

Ray

The narrative thrust of the anime amounts to Van traveling from town to town, trying to get information from various baddies about the Claw and his whereabouts. Along the way, we learn more about Van, his Armor, and more about the planet of Endless Illusion, the desert world that our characters inhabit. Once the villain’s motivations became clear, I can’t say I felt particularly invested in the story. The latter half of the anime is mostly a series of battles against minions of increasing power, as we have all seen many times before in other anime and in many video games. This is yet another example of a story in which the journey is far more important than the destination because I did enjoy Van’s interactions with the characters he met along the way.