Chatty AF 224: Magic Knight Rayearth Rewatchalong – Part 3 (WITH TRANSCRIPT)

CAITLIN: There are some shots where Lantis’s face was very pointy!

MEGAN: [Chuckles] Well, his design is very pointy in general. That was just how CLAMP rolled in the ‘90s.

COLLEEN: He’s actually three Doritos stacked on top of each other.

[Laughter]

CAITLIN: Hi and welcome to Chatty AF: The Anime Feminist Podcast. I am Caitlin, your intrepid host, and today we are discussing the final 14 episodes of the Magic Knight Rayearth TV show. Worry not: this is not the end of our rewatchalong. I am joined today by shoujo YouTuber extraordinaire Colleen and longtime friend of the podcast Megan.

MEGAN: Okay, in case you skipped to the very end like a weirdo, my name is Megan D. I run The Manga Test Drive, where I review the first volumes of various manga and have been doing so for over a decade. My pronouns are she/her, and… what a journey this has been.

CAITLIN: [Chuckles] What a long, strange journey it’s been.

MEGAN: Indeed.

COLLEEN: And I am Colleen of Colleen’s Manga Recs. I do YouTube videos about shoujo and josei manga. My pronouns are they/them, and it has been a long ride. [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: [Chuckles] So, this has been a little bit of a cursed podcast production. You guys asked for it on our Patreon. It took a long, long, long, long, long time, but we finally did it. We finally made it happen. Do just want to note at the top that this is a series that deals with grief and loss, and I don’t know when this episode is going to come out, but we are recording it a few weeks after the passing of Nick Dupree, who was a friend and colleague of mine, so some parts of the discussion might feel a little personal, might hit a little close to home. I just wanted everyone to have that context.

MEGAN: I mean, it wouldn’t be a CLAMP series if it didn’t get heavy at some point.

CAITLIN: CLAMP has two modes: either inappropriately light or extremely heavy. So, let’s talk about the production. A lot of this show looked like ass. It looked really bad for a lot of it, guys.

COLLEEN: Yeah.

MEGAN: I don’t think it was that bad, but they definitely had to kinda spread things out a little more just because they’re dealing with so many robots.

CAITLIN: Magic Knight Rayearth kind of has— I feel like it has two modes. Either it’s the most beautiful show that you’ve ever seen, with the gorgeous hand-drawn characters and expressive faces… as I said, hand-drawn robots, beautiful, rich colors, or we’re getting into Gakuen Handsome territory.

MEGAN: [Scoffs] It’s not that bad.

CAITLIN: There are some shots where Lantis’s face was very pointy!

MEGAN: [Chuckles] Well, his design is very pointy in general. That was just how CLAMP rolled in the ‘90s.

COLLEEN: He’s actually three Doritos stacked on top of each other.

[Laughter]

CAITLIN: I did— I am very proud of myself because I was watching the last episode, which did look good, and I said to myself, “This episode especially looks exactly like Shamanic Princess,” which is a largely forgotten ‘90s OVA. And I looked up the credits, and, lo and behold, the animation director was Atsuko Ishida, who was the character designer for Rayearth and for Shamanic Princess.

MEGAN: Makes sense.

CAITLIN: Good job, me. Good job, me. We also had mechs that were original to the anime this time. They did not look like CLAMP. You could really see the influence of Hirano there, I felt like.

MEGAN: Yeah, and this is something I found about while we were watching through this: a lot of those original mecha designs were done by a guy named Yasuhiro Moriki. He is a previous colleague of Toshihiro Hirano. He worked with him previously, at the time of the show’s making, on Hades Project Zeorymer, the Vampire Princess Miyu OVA, and not the original Iczer One but the Iczer One sequels. He’s a pretty prolific designer, mechanical and otherwise. He’s still working to this day, but in the ‘90s, around the time this show was made, people would have known him primarily as a mech designer for a favorite of yours, Caitlin, both Banner of the Stars and Crest of the Stars.

CAITLIN: I wouldn’t call those favorites.

MEGAN: You like that show, and you remember it.

CAITLIN: You’re gonna get me in trouble because they are kind of “Imperialism Is Good: The Anime.”

MEGAN: Look, I’m a Legend of the Galactic Heroes fan, so I feel your pain. Anyway, he also did mechanical designs for Martian Successor Nadesico, Silent Möbius, both the film and the TV show. Getting into the 2000s, he worked on things like Godannar and Gravion. He’s not a big name as far as mechanical design goes, but I really do like his designs here. They are very sleek and slick but elegant. Reminds me a little bit of Yutaka Izubuchi, some of the work he was doing in the ‘80s and the ‘90s on everything from Dunbine to Patlabor. It’s good stuff.

CAITLIN: It is interesting that those designs contrast very strongly with the CLAMP designs, because I feel like Eagle’s mech that I can’t remember the name of right now…

MEGAN: [crosstalk] The FTO.

CAITLIN: The FTO. Like, the FTO is also intentionally designed to be kind of sleek and minimalist compared to the very elaborate… Do they use “Mashin” or “Rune God” in the anime?

MEGAN: It’s “Rune God” in the dub, at least.

CAITLIN: Well, whatever they are, whatever they’re calling them, the design of the mechs that the Knights use, very… yeah, very elaborate, very detailed, very fantasy, while the FTO is very mechanical feeling. But Nova’s mechs feel even more so like something you would see in, like, Appleseed or something.

MEGAN: Yeah, I can see where you get that.

COLLEEN: Unfortunately, with mech talk, I can’t say anything.

[Laughter]

COLLEEN: I am like… I— Magic Knight Rayearth, Code Geass, probably the only mech series I’ve ever seen.

CAITLIN: I mean, we’re hitting pretty much the limit of my ability to talk about mechs here.

[Chuckling]

COLLEEN: My ability is just whatever CLAMP has worked on. [Chuckles]

MEGAN: Like, I could go deeper if I really felt like it, but, you know, I have to be considerate of my audience.

COLLEEN: And me!

[Chuckling]

MEGAN: Still a part of the audience!

COLLEEN: [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: I did have to have a conversation with Jared about whether I’m a mech fan, because I started saying, “I’m not really interested in mechs. I just like Planet With and Promare and Gundam Wing, and I have thoughts and feelings about how the Knightmares in Code Geass feel…”

[Chuckling]

MEGAN: [singsong] Join us, Caitlin! Join us!

COLLEEN: You’re taking the step.

CAITLIN: [Scoffs] Anyway, let’s talk about something else. We got new theme songs!

MEGAN: Yes, finally!

CAITLIN: Oh, my God. I forgot about the last theme song, the last opening, which is honestly one of the most gorgeous anime openings of the ‘90s, possibly of all time. Just… I love that song so much!

MEGAN: It’s a good song. It’s also just a beautiful opening. And that was actually directed by Hirano himself. And considering the high bar that the first one set, that’s saying something. But we had to wait 43 episodes for it. I haven’t—

CAITLIN: It was the last few episodes. It’s like, why—

MEGAN: I haven’t had to wait this long for a new opening since I watched Gundam Wing, where the second opening doesn’t show up until episode 41 of 50!

COLLEEN: I’m only able to hear the first one from the first season in my head. I don’t even remember what the new one sounded like. So, I think that’s how… [Chuckles] … that’s how little impact that it had on me, especially with being so late in the series.

CAITLIN: I had a CD that was a compilation of anime theme songs, and that one was on it, along with the original first opening and the Fushigi Yugi opening and the Macross 7 opening. It was a good album. I think I had “Just Communication” on it… Some banger opening songs on that one.

MEGAN: Yeah, it’s no surprise that when Media Blasters originally released this on VHS and DVD, they just skipped that second opening entirely, and I do not blame them because that second opening is butt.

CAITLIN: It’s just… mid.

MEGAN: It’s very mid.

CAITLIN: Mediocre, mediocre.

MEGAN: You know what else is kinda mid? The writing on this part of the show, because, as before, the head writer for the second season of Magic Knight Rayearth was Nanase Ohkawa, head writer of CLAMP, and she’s a perfectly fine manga writer…

CAITLIN: [Hums skeptically]

MEGAN: As a TV screenwriter, not so much.

CAITLIN: Okay, I’m gonna push back on you. I’m gonna push back on this one. I am going to pull up a list of her credits on Anime News Network, because I feel like she did write all of the episodes for… or most of the episodes for the Cardcaptor Sakura anime, which I felt was very much the better version of that story. I think what is going on here is that there was a lot of push and pull between the direction Hirano wanted to take with the TV version and what CLAMP had already written. Because, I mean, there was that interview that we discussed in the last episode, right, where they’re kind of talking about the differences between the two series and he’s like, “Yeah, I didn’t read the manga before I made the first series,” and Ohkawa’s like, “Yeah, that was weird!”

MEGAN: [Chuckles] I mean, I would also note that Cardcaptor Sakura came after this show and she hadn’t really done much anime adaptation up to that point, so it could be that but it also could be some of her inexperience showing through, because I felt like a lot of the changes and choices made in this section and the one that preceded it came a lot from a writer second-guessing their choices, like they wrote the story previously and they went back like, “Well, what if I change this, what if I change that?” It’s like, no, you should’ve stuck to what you had previously.

CAITLIN: Yeah. I mean, we weren’t in the room, so we can’t know, but my feeling is more that Hirano wanted to take it in a certain direction and there was not a lot of cohesion between what he wanted and what Ohkawa was planning and had already written for the series. But I don’t know. You know, we are not there. We can only infer based on interviews. And we’ll get into what a giant mess that story was in a minute.

COLLEEN: Oh, I was gonna say, I do think at the very least there were some things in this batch of episodes that at least address some of the problems we had in the first half of this season, just like they were filling out the world a bit more, they got rid of the fairy girl… The only thing is just Chizeta and Fahren were still pretty meh, but I think at the very least, they were filling in some gaps in this part that were at least better than the first 15 episodes of this season.

MEGAN: That, I agree on.

CAITLIN: I want to get a full discussion about what a mess the story was in a minute, but first I want to talk about how we personally felt about the series and about how we reacted to it. I had a really hard time staying engaged with it up until the last few episodes, probably partially because of that aforementioned messy plot, also probably because of stuff that’s going on in my life, so not 100% on the show, although I did snap to attention every time they showed Eagle in that tight black turtleneck.

[Chuckling]

CAITLIN: [mournful] Why did they kill him? Why did they kill him?

MEGAN: As for me, I do feel like the show got better once it stopped pretending that Chizeta and Fahren mattered in the slightest and kind of got back to where the canon story was. But even then, it still kinda drags its heels. But I will say it ended beautifully.

COLLEEN: I agree on that. I really like the ending, and I think this half of the season was better than the first half of the season, and it is just because they were spending a little less time on the different countries that didn’t matter and they got rid of the slop characters that didn’t matter, and they actually focused on the characters that were meant to be the focus of the season. So, yeah, I enjoyed this back half more than the first half of Season 2. And the ending was really good.

CAITLIN: Mm-hm. I thought the last few episodes really pulled it together.

MEGAN: Yeah.

CAITLIN: Like, I mean, probably around when the new theme song started up and when they started focusing on the relationship between Lantis, Eagle, and Hikaru. They were being written as, like, a triad, right?

MEGAN: [crosstalk] Yeah.

CAITLIN: That wasn’t just me?

MEGAN: No, no, no.

COLLEEN: I was like, Lantis has to choose between his boyfriend and his girlfriend. [Chuckles]

MEGAN: I mean, I’m not the first one to make the joke that this part of the show is pretty much “Hi, I’m Hikaru. This is my boyfriend, Lantis, and this is his boyfriend, Eagle.”

CAITLIN: Yeah, but also Nova, who is Hikaru, is just like, “Yeah, you’re in love with Eagle. You’re in love with Lantis. Too fucking bad. I’m gonna stop you from having either one of them.”

MEGAN: And CLAMP was like, “Yeah, we’re down with OT3.”

COLLEEN: [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: Colleen, do you know how the manga ends?

COLLEEN: I don’t, so that’ll be fun for me when they start releasing the second part.

CAITLIN: Okay. [Chuckles] It is very different. Some of the themes are similar, but it goes in some truly wild directions.

COLLEEN: I can’t wait. [Chuckles] I love me an insane CLAMP plot twist, whatever happens.

CAITLIN: This is in, probably, like top percentile, 99th percentile of insane CLAMP plot twist endings.

COLLEEN: Oh, hell yeah. I hope someone loses an eye. [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: [Chuckles] Oh, it’s wild in a different way.

COLLEEN: I’m so excited now. I didn’t know that the ending was that different.

CAITLIN: So, let’s talk about this mess of a plot. When we last left our heroines, Umi and Fuu had been taken captive by Fahren and Chizeta. Meanwhile, Rayearth is broken and Hikaru must fight Nova in her mind to fix him, with the help of the fake Presea. Now, it is worth noting: nothing that happens with Fahren and Chizeta mattered.

MEGAN: Nope.

CAITLIN: Not a whit.

MEGAN: I will admit, I skipped Umi’s episode in this stretch. I did stick around, at least, for Fuu’s, mostly because her interactions with Asuka were quite fun. Like, honestly, Fuu should go into daycare, because she’s very good at talking with small children. She’s very gentle and patient, but she’s firm when she needs to be.

CAITLIN: And you know what? You need some trickster energy if you’re gonna work with young children. People don’t know that, but you also need to be a little bit chaotic.

MEGAN: And Fuu has that.

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] And we see that Fuu… Fuu’s got a little bit of the chaos in her heart. The Umi episode did have a really good sword fighting scene, though.

COLLEEN: I was gonna say the same! I thought that the fight between her and the twins was really good.

CAITLIN: Mm-hm.

MEGAN: I’ll admit, I skipped it because I’m not sitting through another half-hour of her being “Ew! Weird, gay genies!”

CAITLIN: I don’t think she did that so much. Mostly she was squabbling with Tarta and Tatra, and… Well, she was squabbling with Tarta— Which one is which?

COLLEEN: I could not tell you. [Chuckles]

MEGAN: Tatra—

CAITLIN: She was fighting with the fiery one while the Kikuko Inoue one sat by the side, drinking tea. But it had some really good… it was a really good fight sequence! Honestly, one of the best of the series!

MEGAN: Yeah, one of the positives of this half in general is it’s much more action heavy, which helps it a lot.

CAITLIN: So, Rayearth gets fixed. La, la, la. Eagle attacks. He ends up imprisoned in Cephiro Castle. The Knights actually go and hang out with the civilians in the civilian part of the castle. So, all of a sudden, Cephiro feels populated. Kind of.

MEGAN: Mostly by children.

CAITLIN: It still didn’t give a lot of sense of, like, what it is like as a society. It was mostly just them running around a big open field with women and children and cute small animals. End scene.

COLLEEN: [crosstalk] And musical— Yeah, I was gonna say, “And a musical break.”

CAITLIN: [Chuckles]

MEGAN: True!

CAITLIN: But while they’re there, Knights get attacked by monsters from Lady Debonair! But then they realize the monsters are coming from the fear inside of people’s hearts, and they must defeat their fear, and the children stand up and say, “Don’t be afraid! Trust in the Magic Knights!” which is some foreshadowing for later. Eagle escapes his prison using bombs, and he and Hikaru end up at the crown room for reasons!

MEGAN: I was gonna say, “Because we have to get the plot on track.”

CAITLIN: Yes. We can’t figure out a reason for them to both end up there. We get a flashback to Emeraude becoming Pillar and falling in love with Zagato while Lantis sits there and says, “This is wrong.” They both enter and they come out alive, which should be impossible. And it seems really intense that if someone wanted to try to enter there to see if they could become the Pillar and they were not deemed worthy, they would get killed! That’s a lot!

MEGAN: That’s CLAMP!

CAITLIN: But they both come out alive, which shouldn’t be possible, because apparently they are both Pillar candidates.

MEGAN: And notably, the Pillar crown starts to change shape.

CAITLIN: Mm-hm, and Debonair is like, “No!”

COLLEEN: And this is where Lantis has a hard time deciding who his partner’s gonna be.

[Laughter]

COLLEEN: The Pillar is actually a metaphor for Lantis figuring out his bisexuality.

[Laughter]

CAITLIN: The Pillar is a metaphor for Lantis’s pillar.

[Laughter]

CAITLIN: Oh, this is a children’s show.

COLLEEN: [Laughs]

CAITLIN: Debonair takes Lantis prisoner so that Nova can torture him more efficiently and make Hikaru upset more efficiently. Cephiro starts to fall apart, and Autozam and Chizeta and Fahren do some stuff. It really doesn’t matter. It’s nothing. It’s nothing!

MEGAN: It matters in the sense that they all kind of formally give up their claim to the Pillar.

CAITLIN: Yeah. But they didn’t need to be there in the first place.

COLLEEN: I feel like Chizeta had a little bit better of a reason to be there, but Fahren was just like, “Hey, this princess wants to…” Like, it was such a nothing reason that that one made literally no sense at all. I feel like that one— Fahren did not need to be there whatsoever. I feel like they could’ve fleshed out Chizeta a little bit better if they wanted, if they got rid of Fahren. [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: Mm-hm. I mean, I could see, kind of, Fahren from the perspective of a small child who’s reading this manga, because the theme is like “Are the sacrifices that you’re going to be asked to make worth it? You need to stop and think about what you actually want before you start seeking power just because you think that you’ll be able to get whatever you want if you have it, because that’s not the case.”

COLLEEN: That’s true. And then in that case, I would say, they would have to get rid of one or the other.

[Chuckling]

COLLEEN: I do feel like they could have done something with either one of these as long as one of them was gone, because they were already focusing so much on Autozam that it was like “Pick one or the other here.”

CAITLIN: Yeah. And Asuka’s honestly pretty obnoxious, and I could live without her. But also, Chizeta has the bad homophobic genies.

COLLEEN: Pick your poison.

CAITLIN: [Chuckles] Right? Everyone claps to believe in fairies [Lightly claps three times] and defeat Lady Debonair. The Knights fight Nova. And they realize that Nova is just part of Hikaru, and she must accept herself. Eagle dies. Hikaru ends up Pillar, and Hikaru says, “No. I reject being the sole source of happiness for everyone. Cephiro belongs to the people of Cephiro, and everyone should play a role in this.” And they go back to Tokyo.

MEGAN: They immediately go back to Tokyo.

CAITLIN: Yeah, Cephiro’s not really great at giving people a chance to settle into a transition.

COLLEEN: [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: They also got transported immediately after killing Emeraude.

MEGAN: Does it give you time to say your goodbyes or resolve your romantic tensions? Nope, you’re done.

CAITLIN: Mm-hm. Nope. So, yeah, the story was a mess! There were a lot of characters who just didn’t get to do anything. They just seemed like they were there in order to… They were there because they were in the first series and thus they needed to be there again. Ascot didn’t get to do anything. He just kinda—

MEGAN: Poor Ascot!

CAITLIN: Poor Ascot. He aged himself up and everything for Umi.

MEGAN: And he saves her when she’s in the clutch, and even afterwards, she’s like, “I love you as a friend!” And I was just like, “Ooh!”

CAITLIN: Oh, yeah, she’s like, “I love you. I love you like I love Clef and Caldina,” and he’s just like, “Oh, no!”

MEGAN: Because Ohkawa is still pushing this notion that Umi and Clef should be a couple. Why?

COLLEEN: I thought it was so funny in the dub that… I don’t know if it was the same in the sub, too, but… Oh, I forget her name already. Tan girl who is from Chizeta as well.

CAITLIN: Caldina.

COLLEEN: Caldina, yeah. So, she’s like, “Why are you in love with that child-looking elf guy?” And I was like, “Get his ass! No one wants those little tiny hands touching their thigh.” [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: God! [Laughs]

COLLEEN: It’s so… Visually, he’s just strange looking compared to Umi.

CAITLIN: Oh, well, I have good news about the OVA that we’re gonna watch for the next episode. Spoilers. We’re gonna watch the OVA, guys!

[Laughter]

CAITLIN: Real good news there!

COLLEEN: Oh, boy.

CAITLIN: Fuu and Ferio are never in the same room in this half, even though they are the most convincing couple in this.

MEGAN: Yeah, they are. Because he comes to save her from Fahren, once she’s done with her competition.

CAITLIN: Ah, that’s right.

MEGAN: Not that he really needed to. She was basically getting ready to go, but she’s like, “Okay!”

CAITLIN: “My boyfriend’s here!”

CAITLIN: Okay, but once the plot gets going, they had nothing to do.

MEGAN: Nope.

COLLEEN: Yeah.

CAITLIN: Hikaru [sic] and Umi had nothing to do. And I feel like they could have pushed on that a little bit more. Like, they touched on it a tiny bit, where it’s like Hikaru is not really letting them in, the way that she had used to during the first part of their journey. But I feel like everything gets so tied up with Lantis and Eagle that their friendship just kinda gets pushed to the side, except for a couple of exchanges.

MEGAN: Yeah. And also for—

COLLEEN: And even the—

MEGAN: Oh, go ahead.

COLLEEN: Sorry, go ahead. Oh, I was gonna say the big fight— I didn’t feel like… Like, Umi and Fuu were not there at all, it felt like. It was just, like, Hikaru’s fight, and that was it.

MEGAN: [crosstalk] Yeah. One of the big criticisms of this half of the show is that it very much becomes the Hikaru show.

CAITLIN: Well, you know how it is. You get a boyfriend and, you know, you stop making time for your friends. And then you get a second boyfriend, and then you really don’t have time for your friends. And then your boyfriends are boyfriends with each other. And—

MEGAN: Also, if we’re talking underdeveloped romances, I have to be perfectly frank: that’s kind of equally true for Hikaru and Lantis. They barely spend any time together, and most of it is just her being so anxious and him not saying anything. They have, like, one sentimental scene, where they hang out near a fountain and Lantis gives her this magic mirror necklace of love, that does become plot relevant. But—

CAITLIN: I did feel like Eagle and Hikaru had a much more interesting relationship.

MEGAN: Yes!

COLLEEN: I agree.

CAITLIN: Because they were on a wavelength with each other. They were both like, “Things are really fucked up. I don’t know how to deal with what I am going through.” But they both are like, “I’m going to become the Pillar to get through this, and I’m gonna have to fight these inner demons that are haunting me.” In Eagle’s case, it was his illness. In Hikaru’s case, it was an externalized version of all of her fears and doubt and sadness.

MEGAN: And even the dynamic between Lantis and Eagle, because they have that history together, so there’s interesting tension between them. And all together as an OT3, it’s fine, but Hikaru’s kind of the weak link here. I will also note that as novel as it was to see Lantis, the big, strong dude with the lightning sword, get damseled for once, that plot turn should be more interesting than it really turned out. They didn’t really do much with it.

CAITLIN: He just kinda stood there.

MEGAN: Yeah, Nova basically puts him in the heart of her mech and just like, “Ah, ah, ah! You can’t hit me or you’ll get Lantis.” And the weird thing, at least for me, once again, being a Gundam nerd as I am, is that it reminded me a lot of the end of G Gundam. For those who have not seen that show, the protagonist—

CAITLIN: I have not.

MEGAN: The protagonist, Domon, has an engineer assistant love interest named Rain, and due to plot reasons that are too complicated and tangential to talk about here, she’s basically swallowed by the Devil Gundam, which is like this giant, creeping evil machine that’s threatening everybody. And at the end of the show, Domon doesn’t defeat it by using his Gundam because the Gundam is literally using Rain to power it and she can’t get out because she’s so sad. And Domon basically literally has to tell her out loud that he loves her to kind of break the spell, release her, and for them to attack together. It’s honestly a really great ending. And there’s a bit of that energy here, but not as much, although I do like the fact that it’s Eagle who ultimately saves Lantis while the Knights are fighting. He’s the one who actually frees him from the suit, you know, just before he dies from soap opera wasting disease.

COLLEEN: I do like Lantis and Hikaru, but I don’t think it was at all— Like, the dynamic between them, I thought, was better in the first half, and then it was just not existent in the second half, and it felt more like they were setting up Hikaru and Eagle in the second half. So, I can see their relationship from the first part of the season, but, yeah, the second part of the season, it just did not feel like it was there at all other than Hikaru being like, “Oh, my God, he hates me!”

MEGAN: Yeah, it might have been stronger if Lantis ever said more than a few words at any given time.

CAITLIN: Yeah, it’s a little bit like “Boy and girl in proximity equals romance?”

MEGAN: “Question mark?”

CAITLIN: So, yeah, it is definitely the weakest of the three possible combinations that we have going on here.

COLLEEN: Between Lantis and Eagle, Hikaru and Eagle, and… and… No, because I still think Umi and Clef is the worst! [Chuckles]

MEGAN: Yeah, yeah.

CAITLIN: I mean, I meant in that three-way.

COLLEEN: I’m like— Yeah, I was like, so in the three-way or in the other one, because Umi and Clef [Chuckles], they clear being the worst.

CAITLIN: I mean, if we’re talking about all of the couples, I actually really like Caldina and Lafarga.

COLLEEN: They’re cute.

CAITLIN: We don’t get a lot with them, but they’ve got—

COLLEEN: [crosstalk] They’re just hanging out. [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: Well, they’ve got this married vibe. You know, they’re both grown-ups. They don’t have time for all of the adolescent staring at each other blushingly. You know? They have long since moved past that. It was in the first season, but the scene where they’re talking in… I think it was Caldina’s room, and she just comes over and sits on his lap. And it’s like, yeah, that’s a relationship between two adults who know each other and feel comfortable with each other and are talking through what’s going on in their lives together. And I know that I am not, at this point in my life, the target audience for this series, but it was nice seeing that.

MEGAN: So, you know how you mentioned earlier that the ending to the manga is very different from the ending of the show?

CAITLIN: Mm-hm!

MEGAN: I think now is the point we need to address that. And I say this not as a flaw of the show but just something—

CAITLIN: Hold on, hold on. It sounds like Colleen did not want to be fully spoiled on the ending.

COLLEEN: It’s okay. I’ll live. [Chuckles] Hearing about it will be just as fun as experiencing it.

CAITLIN: It really is completely buckwild.

MEGAN: Well, because the plot structure itself is so different, because much of the second half of the manga is the girls going around to the various factions, and they’re not so much fighting them as just telling them, “No, no, you don’t want to do this! You don’t want to be the Pillar! Just go away!” And then, of course, the Pillar selection has to be made. But at the end, they reveal Mokona is God.

COLLEEN: I’m trying to wrap my head around that.

CAITLIN: [Laughs]

COLLEEN: I mean, I guess I could understand that because from my knowledge of Tsubasa, he’s basically God there. [Chuckles]

MEGAN: Yeah, Mokona is the god of this world.

COLLEEN: [crosstalk] Does he become something, like how Kuro does?

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] No. No. No, he’s just Mokona. He gets wings! I’ve got the manga in front of me right now.

MEGAN: And it also ends with “What would you call this new land, audience?”

CAITLIN: Yes. So, the big reveal—and I have it right in front of me like, literally, I’m holding it—is that Mokona created Earth—

COLLEEN: Wait!

[Chuckling]

CAITLIN: —and he was disappointed because the humans there kept fighting. It was a world where everyone had an equal will and they kept using it to kill each other. So, he decided to create another world where it was all supported by one person’s will, and that person’s will would be what set the course for the world. And that was how they had peace. And everyone was just like, “Hey, it’s still pretty fucked up that one person has to sacrifice themself in order to keep this world peaceful.”

COLLEEN: Hm, going against God. [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: Yeah, they are fighting— Oh, he has devil wings at one point? No, that’s just lighting. That’s just lighting.

COLLEEN: So, this is just telling me I need to make a meme where Mokona is God in the Creation of Adam painting.

MEGAN: Yes!

COLLEEN: [Chuckles] And his little paw is going to touch Adam’s finger.

[Chuckling]

CAITLIN: His little paw is going to touch Clef’s baby hand.

[Laughter]

COLLEEN: No! I’ll make sure to Photoshop Clef’s baby hand onto Mokona.

[Laughter]

MEGAN: But yeah, this is why Mokona was able to just manifest food and shelter. Because it’s God! It can manifest anything!

CAITLIN: He’s not just a walking deus ex machina. He’s just deus! No machina needed!

COLLEEN: So, like, do they explain why Mokona helps them? Does he agree that the Pillar system is messed up, and in which case, is God flawed? There’s a lot to be explored here.

MEGAN: I don’t know if CLAMP thought that far.

CAITLIN: I do remember Ohkawa saying that in the manga, she felt like she had written herself into a corner. So that might have just been like, “I don’t know!”

COLLEEN: “Mokona’s God!” That is so funny. Alright, well, now I can’t wait to Photoshop this, and I will be posting it on Twitter.

[Chuckling]

CAITLIN: Yes, yes, yes. I can’t wait. [Chuckles] Another difference is that Eagle survives in the manga, and it is quite literally a canon OT3.

MEGAN: Yes.

COLLEEN: So, what is with the anime wanting to kill people they don’t need to?

MEGAN: Drama.

CAITLIN: Homophobia. I don’t think it’s homophobia. [Chuckles]

COLLEEN: Yes, because they killed Presea, because they killed Presea and they did not need to. And then they killed Eagle and they did not need to.

CAITLIN: I think that’s just Hirano is a weirdo for killing characters.

COLLEEN: I guess, because literally there was no reason to kill Eagle. Like, he was already dying from anime disease. So, like…

MEGAN: Either that or it’s just like, “Ah, damn it. Megumi Ogata is just so expensive now! We can only afford her so long!”

COLLEEN: “Get rid of ‘em.”

CAITLIN: So, yeah, so, let’s talk about the themes and motifs.

MEGAN: Yeah, because as silly and flawed as the show can be at times, there is some good thematic material to chew on here.

CAITLIN: So, as we discussed in the previous episode and was made explicit in these episodes, Nova is the manifestation of Hikaru’s fear, sadness, and doubt that she felt when she killed Emeraude, that she tried to escape from when she came back to Earth and could not get away from. Nova wants to kill her because Hikaru has left her alone. Hikaru would not recognize and acknowledge these feelings.

MEGAN: Or the fact that Nova attacks the people and things that Hikaru loves, because… you love them so much. What if they die? The only way to protect them is to push them away!

CAITLIN: And she feels like she doesn’t deserve them, either. She doesn’t deserve to love Lantis, she doesn’t deserve to love Umi or Fuu, because she sees herself as this killer now. But she won’t acknowledge those feelings, and so those feelings will not go away and, in fact, try to keep destroying her life.

MEGAN: And because she is potentially the Pillar, that’s why it manifests as Nova, where this doesn’t necessarily happen with the other Magic Knights. Her connection to Cephiro is just that strong, that it can literally manifest her feelings into a being who is still very much kinda gay for Hikaru. I mean, particularly at the early end of this stretch, it’s not gay subtext between Hikaru and Nova at this point. It’s just text. I mean, Nova—

CAITLIN: They do kiss in the last opening.

MEGAN: They kiss in that last opening. Nova also kisses her, during Hikaru’s dreadful magic coma. So, yeah, it’s like, does it still count as gay if it’s a manifestation of your own feelings or not?

COLLEEN: You’ll have to ask pro-shippers if selfcest is okay.

[Chuckling]

CAITLIN: Oh, y’all, we cannot do the pro-ship, anti-ship thing here.

MEGAN: Oh, dear.

CAITLIN: I reject. I reject. Reject! I’m making a cross with my fingers! Not bringing that energy here!

MEGAN: As much as the show struggled with keeping characters around who weren’t kept around the first time, I do like what the show ultimately did with Alcyone as a contrast to Hikaru and her guilt. Alcyone has just completely let herself be swallowed by her guilt and despair. She cannot move on past her feelings for Zagato. She basically cannot function to help save Cephiro with her magic power. She ultimately becomes a vessel for Debonair herself, a force of entropy, and she basically gives into her despair and dies. She’s a cautionary tale for what Hikaru could become if she lets those feelings overcome her.

CAITLIN: Right, because you can’t ignore the feelings that come up in grief, including the ugly ones, including the self-hatred, including the guilt. But you also… you can’t just completely give in to them. You know, you have to be able to figure out a way to move forward. Sorry, this is a little bit of an emotional topic for me right now, because I have lost a friend, I have lost my job. It has been a really hard few months for me, and I have felt a lot of the same kinds of feelings that Hikaru and Alcyone are going through in this show. And I am a largely healthy, self-actualized adult. But the first few days, after losing my job, I couldn’t get off the couch. And it was with the help of my friends that I was able to function enough to, like, eat. I’m… I’m being really vulnerable here, guys!

MEGAN: It’s okay.

COLLEEN: You’re okay.

CAITLIN: You know, and so, the last few weeks have largely been a process of accepting the feelings that I am still feeling about the way that they let me go and how senseless it feels and felt, and trying to get ready to move on and find a new job, find a new school, find new co-teachers and children that I can have these strong relationships the same way that I did before. So, yeah, no, I am not someone who needs Magic Knight Rayearth to help me process my feelings. I’ve been using Persona 3 for that more, because I am a big believer in using fiction to help process, but, you know, Magic Knight Rayearth is a children’s series, and sometimes children go through some really heavy shit. So, definitely, I can see this as a really important way for children to get the assurances of just, like, it’s okay that you have these feelings, and you can look at them inside yourself and you can say, “You are a part of me. I acknowledge it and I accept it,” and that’s okay. You will be okay. You also have to let yourself be okay.

MEGAN: Yes, and that you need to reach out to others to help you and to vocalize how you’re feeling and to let others support you in turn, even if you don’t feel, at the time, you are worthy of it, because that’s what ultimately helps Hikaru in the end.

COLLEEN: And if I can just get on my little shoujo… [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: Yeah! Do it.

COLLEEN: … my little shoujo…uh, what’s… what am I thinking?

MEGAN: Pedestal? Soapbox?

COLLEEN: Soapbox! Thank you!

CAITLIN: Podium?

COLLEEN: [crosstalk] I kept wanting to say “stool.”

[Laughter]

COLLEEN: It’s like, “A what?”

CAITLIN: You turn the chair around.

[Chuckling]

COLLEEN: So, kids… Yeah, I think that is why I am so, like, advocating for shoujo to be a thing all the time, because I feel like it’s a kids show but it’s largely geared towards girls, and I feel like if we didn’t have that, we wouldn’t get too many shows in the first place where girls will get to see a character like Hikaru and have something be like, “Hey, you’re still worthy even if you did something bad. Even if you think that you’re a bad person, you’re still worthy and you can get through this.” And I feel like you wouldn’t get to see that very often if you didn’t have stories from shoujo manga like this that focus on young girls and helping them self-actualize and stuff like that. And then I step off my soapbox. [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: Turn the chair back facing forward.

[Chuckling]

COLLEEN: Okay, normal conversation now.

[Chuckling]

CAITLIN: No, but I mean, I agree. And despite what some people may say, I am a big fan of shoujo as a way for, particularly, a young female audience to take a look at those feelings, those desires. And I might, you know, as an adult, be like, “I hope everyone reading this realizes that this is not actually something that you should aspire to. Even if you are indulging in the fantasy, let’s have a conversation about it.” But I still think that their existence is important and can be helpful to people. 

Going back to talking about Persona 3… Also, Persona 3 having a version that has a female protagonist really did underline to me the difference in how you experience art with a protagonist that matches the way that you identify. Playing Persona with a female protagonist was a very different experience for me than playing with a male protagonist, in a way that I had never really gotten to experience before because there aren’t a lot of games like that with female protagonists. And so, everything that I was going through in the game was… I was able to feel more embodied. So, yeah, it is really important that we have shoujo manga in series that are explicitly aimed at young female audiences that deal with this ugliness.

COLLEEN: And even just if they’re there for… well, not even just if they’re there for this, but showing the perspective to people who may not be used to it, too, so even just to say, “Hey, well, have you checked out this different perspective than the one that’s the common default of society?” So, just having the variety as well. And that’s another big reason why I think it’s so important, is it gives variety to the options for manga and anime, and even… Because all the age demographics are different in shoujo, too. It’s not like every shoujo is for, like, 8- to 12-year-olds. They have them for all different ages. And I just think that variety is necessary.

CAITLIN: Yes, Rayearth is specifically a very young-skewing manga that ran in…

MEGAN: Nakayoshi.

CAITLIN: Nakayoshi?

COLLEEN: [crosstalk] Nakayoshi? Yeah.

CAITLIN: … Nakayoshi, which is a magazine that is aimed particularly at a younger demographic. Honestly, Rayearth was really revolutionary for shoujo manga. The fact that it had mechs in it… It might be the first shoujo manga with actual mecha.

COLLEEN: I truly cannot think of another shoujo that has mecha.

MEGAN: Same here.

CAITLIN: I think we talked about the history of the manga a little bit in our first episode, but after Sailor Moon, which used tokusatsu structures, was a huge hit, Nakayoshi was like, “Maybe we can try something that kinda incorporates more stuff that’s quote-unquote ‘for boys’?” And CLAMP was like, “Yeah, let’s make a manga that resembles the video games that we like to play, with action and swords and mecha.”

MEGAN: It was kind of the spirit of the era, because this is the same era where Gundam Wing is happening, where “Hey, what if we try to make a Gundam show that’s kind of targeted towards girls and women?” This is the same era that brings us Escaflowne, which you’ve obviously talked about quite in depth previously.

CAITLIN: Mm-hm. Yeah, no, it’s really important to have a variety of series aimed at a variety of demographics.

MEGAN: Funny how that works.

[Chuckling]

CAITLIN: So, one thing that I did feel like was interesting is that, while it was important for Hikaru to acknowledge all of her negative feelings that she was facing, Debonair was the manifestation of the collective fear of the people of Cephiro without a Pillar, and so they have to say, “Don’t be afraid! Don’t be afraid! Deny that fear! Don’t feel afraid or it’ll just get worse,” which felt a little anti the… a little contradictory, shall we say?

COLLEEN: No, I think it can make sense.

MEGAN: [crosstalk] I definitely noticed that, too. When I was watching it and they were having the kids be like, “Don’t cry!” I’m like, what is the message here? Like, not crying isn’t gonna not keep you from feeling the thing. You’re just not crying. You’re not releasing it. So, what a weird dichotomy of messages we have here.

CAITLIN: If you are scared, you’re ruining it for everyone with your negative feelings.

MEGAN: I think there’s a logic to it, and let me explain. I think it can work if you approach it the way— Hikaru deals with it more on the personal, individual level, like, yes, you need to acknowledge all of your feelings, however positive or negative that could be, but on a larger scale, on a group scale, if you let fear overrun you, then bad things can happen because everybody is panicking and not focusing properly on what needs to be done.

COLLEEN: I see what you’re saying.

CAITLIN: I see it. I think that it could have been better stated.

MEGAN: Yeah. That’s fair.

CAITLIN: Because, you know, working with children, you don’t tell a child not to cry. You see that a child is crying, you acknowledge their feelings, and then you give them the tools to continue. So, maybe this was a little bit more nuanced than they had time for because they had to spend time with, I don’t know, Eagle and Lantis staring deeply into each other’s eyes.

[Chuckling]

COLLEEN: “We can’t care about these kids. We have homoerotic subtext to get to!” [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: But instead of the kids saying, like, “Don’t cry! You have to trust the Knights! Don’t let doubt into your heart,” saying, “Yes, we’re all afraid. We need to figure out a way to handle that fear.” You know what I mean?

COLLEEN: Yeah, I was thinking, like, if they just said, like, “You need to trust them,” and then they had a moment where they could— I think if they just said something about trust rather than being like, “Don’t do this! It’s bad for you. You’re gonna make monsters appear if you do this.”

CAITLIN: “You’re gonna fuck things up for all of us if you feel a little bit scared.”

COLLEEN: Yeah. I just feel like maybe they should have just been, like, “Trust us!” and then they had, you know, like, the “power-up of trust” moment.

MEGAN: Yeah, at the ending.

CAITLIN: Or like “Think about all of the times the Magic Knights have helped us.” Something like that.

MEGAN: Yeah, as we were saying, it’s ultimately coming down to that the people of Cephiro who are left need to not focus on the fear that they feel but on the trust and the happiness they feel over the Magic Knights. And I do think the show gets into that. I mean, that is basically how the Knights defeat Debonair in the end. Everyone basically has a big Care Bear Stare moment where they send all their positive feelings to the Magic Knights, and they are able to use that to juice up their magic to defeat her at last.

CAITLIN: “I do believe in fairies! I do!”

MEGAN: Look, it’s cheesy, but I like it.

CAITLIN: It’s a kids’ show. It’s a kids’ show. You know?

COLLEEN: Yeah, it worked for the ending better than the one episode where it focused on the kids and them creating the monsters with their fear, because the ending, I didn’t think I had any problem with it, but when it focused on the kids and they were just like, “Don’t cry,” I was just kind of like, “Well, that’s a little weird.” But I do think… I think it worked better in the ending, of everyone having the “We trust the Magic Knights!”

CAITLIN: Yeah. So, now that we have finished the TV series, do you guys have any final thoughts? Would you recommend it?

MEGAN: Watching it the second time around, I will more openly acknowledge that, yes, it is kind of a flawed work. The first season is stronger than the second. But I can’t hate on this show because its messages are so good and because it’s so important in my own journey as an anime and manga fan. So, yes, I would recommend it.

CAITLIN: Yeah, you’ve got that connection to it.

COLLEEN: My final thoughts are that… great first season, mid second season. I don’t know if I would recommend it to newer anime fans. It is a very dated show in a lot of different ways, and not even just like “Oh, it’s problematic,” but just in general it’s kind of dated. But for anyone who’s into anime and they’re willing to check out older stuff, or they want to see all the stuff that shoujo has to offer, I would definitely recommend it to someone who’s willing. But otherwise, I don’t know if I would make too many people sit through Season 2. Maybe I would just say, “Watch Season 1. You’ll get the gist of it.”

CAITLIN: Yeah, I think I would agree mostly with that, Colleen. If someone was interested in watching it, I wouldn’t try to dissuade them. If there’s someone coming along who’s had a great deal of nostalgia for it, I wouldn’t say, “Actually, that show that you love is shit,” which I might do for some shows because I’m not very nice sometimes.

[Chuckling]

CAITLIN: I also think that this could be something to watch with a child who is in the intended audience, to help lead certain conversations, to give them a framework for dealing with certain emotions that they might end up having to face in their lives, that they will have to face at some point in their lives, that they might not have that framework for otherwise. You know, I really like fiction as a teaching tool when it’s used intentionally and combined with talking about things. 

Yeah, so if someone wanted to see it as a part of anime history, if they wanted to watch it because they love CLAMP (which isn’t me, sorry), if they really, really want to see the mechas, if they played Super Robot Wars and wanted to know where the series came from, you know, I’m not going to tell anyone, “No, don’t watch it,” but I’m also probably not going to sit there and say, “Yeah, you gotta watch it!” the same way I might for an Escaflowne or, speaking of series that people have blinding nostalgia for, a Fushigi Yugi, which is the shoujo isekai that I hold closest to my heart personally and I know Megan doesn’t like and would probably reverse her opinions about from my opinions.

[Chuckling]

COLLEEN: Another series that it’s been a long time since I’ve watched, so I don’t know if I can have any opinions on it.

[Chuckling]

CAITLIN: It’s good. Your opinion is that it’s good.

COLLEEN: Okay. [Chuckles]

MEGAN: [Groans]

CAITLIN: [Chuckles] So, as we revealed earlier, we will be having one more episode talking about Magic Knight Rayearth, where we will be covering the three-episode OVA and the Sega Saturn game. It’s gonna be a wild ride, y’all.

MEGAN: Oh, yeah.

CAITLIN: I’ve seen one episode of that OVA. Very different vibes! Very different vibes.

So, thank you all so much for joining us on this journey to Cephiro. We hope that you enjoyed it. If you like what you heard, you can find more from the team on animefeminist.com, with lots and lots of podcasts and articles. You can come here and comment and tell us why we are wrong about your favorite anime.

If you really enjoyed what you heard, you can donate to us at patreon.com/animefeminist and Ko-fi, ko-fi.com/animefeminist. The Patreon is how we keep the lights on, pay those monthly recurring costs. Ko-fi is how we get a little bit extra for our projects. Recently, we were able to— Well, recently, as of this recording, we were able to raise our pay rate for contributors to $75 an article.

MEGAN: Whoo!

CAITLIN: Hopefully, listeners in 2025, because it will probably be then by the time you’re hearing this, we were able to do it again, thanks to the donations of listeners like you.

So, you can find our various social media by going to our Linktree, linktr.ee/animefeminist. There you will find our Mastodon and our Bluesky, not our Twitter because we don’t officially use that anymore. You’ll find our Tumblr.

And until then, remember: if you feel fear, you are destroying the world for everyone else.

MEGAN: [Imitating Mokona] Puu-puu-puu!

[Laughter]