For some reason, the Second season set of Magic Knight Rayearth is numbered as if it is the continuation of the first season, so the the individual disks are numbered 5,6 and 7. So this review is of the Disk labeled 6, just so you don’t get confused.

On Disk 6, Hikaru, Umi and Fuu set off to defeat the enemies that crowd Cephiro now that their Pillar is gone. Accompanying Hikaru is Lantis, Zagato’s younger brother. The three girls battle another giant robot in space and we meet our honorable foe – Eagle of Autozam. He tells us of the tragedy his planet faces if he doesn’t get the resources of Cephiro. More interestingly, we learn that he and Lantis were friends.

The girls run into multiple minions of Debonair-sama, our newest evil sorceress; among them is Halcyone, Zagato’s former minion. And, we meet Nova, the evil-twin-like character, whose power echoes Hikaru’s and whose one desire is to kill Hikaru – because, she says, she loves her.

There are two really excellent things about the battle being taken into space – way less of Puu, which can only be considered a victory for sanity, and Eagle and Lantis. Their backstory is by far the most interesting piece of the story yet to be told. I’m sorry to say that Nova remains, for me, an utter bore. However, if you like evil/alternate-twin Yuri, then maybe she will do it for you. My attention is rarely captured by monomania.

Fuu and Umi has been relegated to the position of Hikaru’s backup team, and the fight between Debonair and Cephiro (and every other country and Cephiro) takes a step back to let the battle between Hikaru and Nova become the plot driver. Hikaru suffers more hit points than her magic can handle and, as the disk comes to a close, she is bereft of sword, Ma-shin and confidence.

Obviously for Cephiro to survive, Hikaru will have to power up. And we still have one disk to go.

I find watching this series invokes a kind of nostalgia in me. Although I never really watched it the first time around, Media Blasters glowly yellow subtitles that always looked so old-school, are very much at home on this hand-drawn, no CGI to be seen, anime. It’s easy to get caught up in a fantasy where that was a purer time, but realistically, for the folks making the anime, the deadlines were just as tight and there was just as much – if not more – work to do. Also, wow are the body shapes on all the characters weirdly out of proportion. Any one one of the girls would be too thin to hold up a shoe, much less a sword. So, nostalgia be damned, in many ways the animation being put out now is a million times better than this. Just sayin’. Nonetheless, for family friendly anime – especially for girls who want to be the hero – this kind of thing can’t be beat.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 4, but it’s all creepy
LoserFanBoy – 1

Overall – 7

My favorite disk so far, as Eagle loses it after Lantis confronts him. ^_^

Hikaru, Umi and Fuu have put their past adventures behind them and are struggling to move on. Of them, the one that struggles the most is Hikaru, who is deeply concerned about the well-being of the inhabitants of Cefiro now that those adventures have left them without a Pillar for support.

When the three are suddenly called back to Cefiro, they realize that the Pillar, Princess Emeraude, was the only thing protecting that country from invasion. And, indeed, it seems that there are other countries on their way to invade right now! Thus begins the complete collection of Magic Knight Rayearth, Second Season.

Of course, Hikaru, Umi and Fuu once again don the armor of the Magic Knights in order to protect the land they love. To their shock, they learn that the Princess left a younger brother and that High Priest Zagato had a brother. The reveal of the Prince’s identity radically changes the story of one of them.

But I’m going to be honest here. I don’t care about any of these people. I was watching for one and only one character. Eagle. There will never be another reason for me to watch this series, fun as it is. There was a nice bonus of a character brought back for this second series, but I won’t spoil. (Neither should you. Comments with spoilers won’t be published.)

Technically, the remastering didn’t really look as good on this series as it did on the first. Any comments on it are moot, however, as Media Blasters is, for all intents and purposes, gone. Nonetheless, the remastering is really quite wonderful. The packaging is a little perplexing – two multi-disc packages that make up the entirety of the season, that come in a box. I have no idea why they changed their packaging so often, but I sincerely don’t think I have a single series MB put out that is packaged the same as any other series that MB put out.

Disk One of this collection gives us a hint of what is to come – there is some serious discussion of the Ma-Shin, the giant mecha that are the three girls’ ultimate forms. What secrets and mutating armor we will see, and whether Lantis and Eagle are the couple I expect them to be, is yet to be known.

FWIW:

Art – 7
Story – 7 but really, this was all expository.
Characters – 8
Yuri -0
LoserFanBoy – 1

Overall – 7

Just to continue to be honest, I don’t really “watch” this season, so much as listen to it. ^_^

It’s always disconcerting when something like Koihime Musou actually stops staring at girls tits and tells some bits of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms in an almost sensible way.

It’s also kind of wasted, as no one is watching Koihime Musou ~ Otome Tairan for a retelling of the Romance anyway.

Luckily for Yuri fans, Volume 2 starts off with one of the least sucky episodes overall, in which Koukin and Sonsaku have a spat, and Kogai locks them in a warehouse to make up…and so they do, in time-honored fashion. This episode also contains the only genuinely amusing line of the series, in which Shuri mentions that she needs the Kotou pill (for an utterly idiotic subplot) and she knew it was a Son family treasure – to which the reply is something like, “Nah, it’s not a treasure, so we have no idea where it is. It’s in there somewhere.”

After a few more episodes related to cat ears and boobs, the story suddenly notices that it’s fairly deep in towards the end of the story and, so, with a few weird turns and about a million handwaves, the allianced generals defeat Ukitsu, who wasn’t really nearly that important in the original (except he may have haunted Sonken after his death, but that’s probably apocryphal.)

Anyway, Disk 2 is why I remembered this series sucking less than the rest of the series. I’m glad I didn’t entirely make that up in my head. Phew.

Ratings:

Art – Colorful
Story – Schizophrenic
Characters – Breasts DO NOT DO THAT
Yuri -There is some
Service – Infinity

Overall – Once I scour the cat ears and boob stuff from my brain, I will only remember that it was the least sucky Koihime Musou series. And I will be happy with that.