The Magic Knight Rayearth OVA is a retelling of the
story from the manga and TV series. Instead of being whisked away to a mysterious
land, this time Hikaru, Umi and Fuu start out as friends when warriors from Cephiro
appear in the Tokyo Tower area, and Tokyo Tower itself morphing into Cephiro castle.
Character relationships and alliances are changed somewhat and be prepared to
have a few of your favorite characters from the manga/tv series biting the bullet.
The character designs are scrumptious, the mecha
designs have been vastly improved, the animation and music is good. Gone is the
humor, leaving only a few cute moments from Mokona. The action scenes are quite
decent and the show sometimes feels like a mecha action anime. Unfortunately the
story is complete nonsense with constant references to clichés such as
friendship, faith, destiny, saving the world, spirit and passion burning inside,
ad infinitum. Nothing wrong with these as long as they're used in moderation,
whereas Rayearth just takes itself too damn serious. Character motivation
is as murky as mud and it gets a bit tiresome when most characters feel like imparting
faux wisdom from time to time.
