Magic Knight Rayearth!
I watched the first fifteen or so episodes of Magic Knight Rayearth about fifteen years ago, making for a nice symmetry, yeah? But, alas, I couldn't get my hands on the rest of the series (I was watching fansubs borrowed from a cousin) and never finished watching it...until now!
I went into the series already knowing about the big season 1 spoiler re: Emeraude, but it was still quite moving, and remained moving whenever it was brought up in season 2. It really was quite the plot twist.
I loved both seasons! But season one had more cheesy hilariousness, while season two had more, uh, plot. I had a hard time adjusting to the change in tone, actually. My little brother and I were so disappointed by the lack of leveling-up and random monster encounters at the beginning of season 2. But it turned out that the second season was the better of the two. For one thing, it had Nova, who turned out to be a nifty double for Hikaru. Pretty complex stuff for a supposed kids' series! Presea's sister was a good plot twist too. Lantis was kind of boring, and his fairy was annoying, but I liked Eagle and his crew, and eventually came to like the fake Chinese nation and the very fake Middle Eastern nation as well.
One of the things I really liked about MKR was the feeling that it was a series for girls made by girls, and there wasn't going to be any window dressing on that. There were no "kick-butt chicks" who were really just kick-butt guys with ponytails attached to their heads. Hikaru, Umi and Fuu were somewhat bland, and they were all definitelly "types," but they really felt like barely-adolescent girls to me, with their insecurities and too-niceness and idealistic wishes for everyone to be happy. Somehow, when you see an "ordinary" girl like that in a shounen series, she just comes off as annoying and oblivious, but in MKR they rule the world so you better not mess with them, no sir.
I think I'm gonna have to watch more shoujo series from now on. MKR had no dragged-out fight scenes, and I could understand most of the Japanese pretty easily, because girls use more formal, standard Japanese than boys (Plus in the first season the girls basically kept saying the same five lines over and over: "Umi!" "Fuu" "Hikaru" "We will save Cephiro!" "Let's return to Tokyo together").
And now, the important question is...does anyone have any fic recs for MKR? I'm not looking for any characters or pairings in particular, I just want some well-written fic.
Hm, I should get my hands on the MKR manga one of these days.
I went into the series already knowing about the big season 1 spoiler re: Emeraude, but it was still quite moving, and remained moving whenever it was brought up in season 2. It really was quite the plot twist.
I loved both seasons! But season one had more cheesy hilariousness, while season two had more, uh, plot. I had a hard time adjusting to the change in tone, actually. My little brother and I were so disappointed by the lack of leveling-up and random monster encounters at the beginning of season 2. But it turned out that the second season was the better of the two. For one thing, it had Nova, who turned out to be a nifty double for Hikaru. Pretty complex stuff for a supposed kids' series! Presea's sister was a good plot twist too. Lantis was kind of boring, and his fairy was annoying, but I liked Eagle and his crew, and eventually came to like the fake Chinese nation and the very fake Middle Eastern nation as well.
One of the things I really liked about MKR was the feeling that it was a series for girls made by girls, and there wasn't going to be any window dressing on that. There were no "kick-butt chicks" who were really just kick-butt guys with ponytails attached to their heads. Hikaru, Umi and Fuu were somewhat bland, and they were all definitelly "types," but they really felt like barely-adolescent girls to me, with their insecurities and too-niceness and idealistic wishes for everyone to be happy. Somehow, when you see an "ordinary" girl like that in a shounen series, she just comes off as annoying and oblivious, but in MKR they rule the world so you better not mess with them, no sir.
I think I'm gonna have to watch more shoujo series from now on. MKR had no dragged-out fight scenes, and I could understand most of the Japanese pretty easily, because girls use more formal, standard Japanese than boys (Plus in the first season the girls basically kept saying the same five lines over and over: "Umi!" "Fuu" "Hikaru" "We will save Cephiro!" "Let's return to Tokyo together").
And now, the important question is...does anyone have any fic recs for MKR? I'm not looking for any characters or pairings in particular, I just want some well-written fic.
Hm, I should get my hands on the MKR manga one of these days.