30 days of scans, day 7: Favourite family/team/corps

[dejadrew]

The mature, sophisticated adult that is me could choose between many profound, complex works to select her favourite comics family.

The awestruck girl-geek that is my inner fourteen-year-old still has a weakness for the super-teams that wear school uniforms and yell out the names of their attacks.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Magic Knights.





I had a really hard time choosing between this and the Sailor Scouts, who were my first magical girl title. Ultimately, the Magic Knights won out because they are...

A: Better drawn.
B: A bazillion times more badass. By the end? They each get their own MAGICAL GIANT ROBOT. And even pre-robot and pre-magic, they all had combat skills and training of their own that they brought with them from our world. (Kendo, archery, fencing.)

Here they are using their non-magical skills to defeat one of their first monsters together. And girl-bonding.











Creator: CLAMP
Title: Magic Knight Rayearth
Series: 30 Days of Scans

Comments

[morgana006]

Man, is this flipped?

So much love for the magic knights! Is it wrong that my favourite moment with them is the end of the third volume?

[dejadrew]

Yeah, it's flipped. This is scanned off the old Tokyopop "Mixx" editions.

And I certainly hope it's not wrong, because that's my favourite moment too. What can I say? That ending blew the lid off my skull when I was a teen.

[morgana006]

Yeah, I have the newer non-flipped version. (My first volume of Cardcaptor Sakura is the even worse pocket-sized flipped type. Man.)

Oh yeah. That ending is what changed my opinion from "kinda neat magical girl anime" to "one of my favourite, subversive mangas ever".

[kamino_neko]

I really need to read the third volume... I read the first volume in Mixxzine, and a fan translation of the second (after getting it in Japanese)...was never able to get hold of the third volume in any form before I drifted off... (It hadn't yet been officially translated, and I could only find v2 in Japanese.)

[dejadrew]

If you want to pick the series up, October's a good time to do so. Dark Horse will be re-releasing the series in two big omnibus collections, with the first three volumes packaged together in one book and the last three in another. Dark Horse has been doing a really nice job with the CLAMP collections so far, from what I've seen. I'll probably be nabbing that meself.

[kamino_neko]

Thanks for the heads up. Not sure I'll be able to afford it in October, but I'll know to look when I can.

[arilou_skiff]

I play that song constantly on my IPhone.

ANd yes, MKR is awesome. Especially Fuu. And Umi. Hikaru is OK too, but not as awesome.

[hyperactivator]

I love this one so bad. I netflixed it on a whim and then fell in love.

[minyandu]

Ohohohoh, this really remind me of the good old days, lol.
Go, Hikaru! :D

[mullon]

Wait...Mokona?!

[lissa_quon]

you have a problem with Mokona?

[dejadrew]

He's probably reacting to the fact that the fluffy squashy animal sidekick thing is named after one of the artists who drew the manga.

[dejadrew]

Oh! Or the fact that the character shows up in Tsubasa: Reservoir chronicles and XXXholic. I keep forgetting those series exist, they were never really my thing.

[dejadrew]

Yep. Same name as the artist. They even look alike! (according to the "author talk" chibi comics.) It gets even weirder later in the story. I don't want to spoil anything, but suffice to say, the little marshmallowy sidekick is MORE THAN HE APPEARS.

[kagome654]

Aw, makes me wish I hadn't donated my Rayearth manga. I just wish the series hadn't seemed so rushed (wasn't the second half only three volumes too?).

Hmph, the senshi didn't need silly giant robots to be badass. They were cool enough with their corny speeches and truly bizarre attacks ('Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss!' 'Star Gentle Uterus!' 'Jupiter Coconut Cyclone!') to bother with such things

[dejadrew]

It never felt rushed to me, more like... tight? Efficient? It's nice, sometimes, to read a series that knows exactly where it's going and doesn't waste time getting there.

And hey, I love the senshi! Don't get me wrong! I was soooo close to doing a Sailor Moon post instead. I would love it if somebody else did one for favourite team day. (hint hint) ^_^

[kagome654]

I just felt like because it was such a short series a lot of the secondary characters felt kind of tacked on ('This is_______. These are ________'s major characteristics. Goodbye, ________. See you in the second series.') I haven't seen the anime (well, I saw that dark OVA that wasn't really connected to the tv series...), which I assume expanded upon them quite a bit, so that likely colors my thoughts on the matter a great deal. Umi, Fuu and Hikaru were all well done, I just wish there could have been more time spent with some of the other characters.

That said, Rayearth was the first manga series I ever completed, and I think it's really special. Thank you for posting scans and reminding me of it.

I would, but I don't have scans (and I don't want to break the spines on my books). Plus I tend to prefer the anime senshi to the manga...hopefully someone more constructive than myself decides to do a post

[leikomgwtfbbq]

The Magic Knights are so cool. :D

Although the Sailor Senshi are the first in my heart, personally. Largely because of nostalgia and the impact they had on my life. (Lame as that sounds--I started writing Sailor Moon fanfiction when I was about eleven and just sort of never stopped. I couldn't imagine life without writing, and it's all because of Sailor Moon. Yeah. XD)

[dejadrew]

You should do a Senshi post for favourite team day! I'd love to see it! I came so close to picking them instead... Sailor Moon was what introduced my sister and me to manga.

[leikomgwtfbbq]

I would, if only I still had my manga. and a scanner. :(

(I haven't had my Sailor Moon manga for about ten years at this point. A mean girl on the middle-school bus beat me up and stole them from me. And now I think it's out of print in the US. *SAD*)

[celestialchild]

My very first manga, and to this day one of the best manga I ever read. It reads nicely as one complete, solid story, with a lot of fun times, seriousness, a good ideas. And interestingly this is was when CLAMP's style was still tame...

[neuhallidae]

Oh, lawd, memories of being a high school freshman and the epic whammy that was the ending of volume 3. My mother had to come in and find out what was wrong, I was crying so hard.

[mistervader]

I love the Magic Knights with a passion of a million exploding suns. Especially Fuu.

[shadowpsykie]

Rayearth was the inspiration for alot of my art....

i really need to watch this show again.

how many OVA's are there? i only saw one, and it was much darker than the actual series. still LOVED this series :)

though sailor moon will always be my anime/manga first family.

followed VERY closely behind by Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu :)

[cygna_hime]

...I just realized I haven't imported my Hikaru icon from LJ yet. Whoops. Just when it would be so appropriate, too.

This series has to win some kind of prize for changing the way I think. IIRC, it was the first serious subverted-fantasy-trope-fest thing I read, certainly the first manga. I've never looked back. (Hey, hey guys, remember when CLAMP did short, stand-alone series that didn't require you to read three different things and didn't retcon all the happy out of their previous work?)