So I'm just rewatching the first season of one of the first animes I enjoyed, Clamp's Magic Knight Rayearth. I've never seen Sailor Moon, so this was my introduction to magical girl with sword anime. I just wish I had seen this one a few years earlier, for example at 13 or 14 because I think I would have really enjoyed seeing three girls saving a world and kicking butt on-screen.
My thoughts on the first episode are as follows:
The three main girls all sound pretty different. Fuu, for example, sounds like no 14-year-old girl ever sounded ever except when giving a speech about humanitarian issues in front of a large audience of adults. She refers to herself by "watakushi" instead of "watashi" which sounds very formal.
Hikaru, by contrast, sounds very childish compared to the other two. She almost sounds masculine. (I think she used ~nda instead of ~ndesu.) And Umi is the most bratty and self-centered of the three. I can't think of particular phrases she uses now, but her voice is very whiny.
Another character we meet is Clef, and he refers to the three girls as "o-mae" or "o-mae-tachi," which surprised me at first because it's talking down to your conversation partner. I think this is just to show that although Clef is drawn to be kind of a dwarf, he is actually an adult talking to children who he's trying to guide. On the whole, he's puts up with a lot from the three main characters, and he only gets a little ticked at Umi once in a while.
It's a gutsy move by the story writers to have this character taken out by the main bad guy at the end of the episode. Because there's obviously a lot of work in this character design and character personality. It's a corny anime, but there is real danger in this world. So far the three girls haven't even come to a consensus that they want to help the land of Cephiro. Fuu and Hikaru get right on board, but Umi is more skeptical. I'm kind of on Umi's side.
Another character we meet is Alcyone. It's very hard to take her seriously in the outfit she wears. Her voice is very soft and feminine, which I think is supposed to hide the crazy underneath.
All the villain characters are hiding behind these waterfalls in a huge cave, while Zagato, the main baddy stands in the center. I wonder if all the minions have any facilities back there. Do they have any furniture? Or do they just have to stand around waiting for Zagato to ask them to do something? The architecture doesn't work at all. But it looks cool.
You very rarely see Zagato's arms in this series, as I remember. But you do see them once in this episode when he casts a spell. His costume is pretty huge, with a bunch of robes and cloaks and a wacky headdress. But I think that sort of fits the character. He doesn't move around a lot in this series; he just sort of sends out his minions to do shit for him. So he's more the quietly menacing villain.
The word "kehai" was used in this episode. It was translated as something like "the sign of my presence." That was useful for me because I had to learn that word for the N2, but I find it hard to use in a sentence.
I am interested to see the characters introduced in the upcoming episodes. So I will keep noting anything interesting about the plot or the Japanese language version.
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