Book Review: Magic Knight Rayearth Omnibus 1 & 2

Magic Knight Rayearth 1 & 2
CLAMP
Shojo Manga
Published: 1993-1995
4/5

                Hikaru Shidou, Umi Ryuuzaki, Fuu Hououji are on a field trip to the Tokyo Tower with their respective schools. The girls are blinded by a flash of light and hear a voice calling for the Legendary Magic Knights to save Cephiro. They fall through the sky into another world, Cephiro. Once there, they meet Master Mage Clef. Clef explains, “In Cephiro, one’s will has the ability to change reality for better or worse. The dark fears in people’s hearts become monsters, while a well-intended wish can do miracles. One person, the Pillar, whose will is stronger than anyone else’s, is responsible for maintaining through her prayers the well-being of Cephiro.” In the first story arc, the current Pillar, Princess Emeraude, has been captured by her high priest, Zagato. The three girls are charged with the task of saving the Princess. Magic Knight Rayearth follows Hikaru, Fuu and Umi along with their friendly sidekick, Mokona, on their quest to save the mystical planet of Cephiro.

                Hikarua, Umi, and Fuu are all from different walks of life and all attend different middle schools, however one fateful day each of their respective schools and classes take a school trip to Tokyo Tower where they are suddenly blinded by a great flash of light and a voice calling for the Legendary Magic Knights to save Cephiro.
              Once the girls are transported to Cephiro they find themselves falling through the sky and somehow they land on a giant flying fish that takes them safely to land where they meet the Master Mage whose name is Clef.
                Clef explains to Hikarua, Umi, and Fuu how the world of Cephiro works, how one’s ‘will’ has the ability to change the reality and even the landscape of the world forever, and that it can be changed for the greater good, or it could be used selfishly for dark intentions.
                The Pillar whose will is stronger than anyone else’s and who is responsible for maintaining through her prayers the well-being of Cephiro, however she has been compromised and has been taken captive and it’s up to the Magic Knights to save her and restore peace to the planet Cephiro.
                This is a fantastical tale, it moves very quickly and your attention is definitely needed for every page and picture screen otherwise it would be easy to miss information and quickly become confused. I think this series had a lot of offer and I found it very disappointing that it didn’t have more details than what was given to the reader; there are a lot of unanswered questions and plot holes that could have been easily resolved with even one more omnibus I believe. There were also some fillers that I found were unneeded as the story progressed so quickly and it would have been considerably more enjoyable to have solid story line instead.
                The artwork contained in this series is beautiful and  your mouth will water in your  desire for more. You’ll not be disappointed with a single panel.  I really wish this series had continued on for longer so I could have continued to be immersed in the strange and lovely world of Cephiro.
                Magic Knight Rayearth is one of my favourite Manga’s that I’ve read so far, and it’s a story from my childhood that I’ll treasure for a long time.
                What’s your favourite manga series? Would you recommend it to me, if so, why?

Book Review: Sailor Moon Vol. 1

Sailor Moon (Pretty Guardian) Vol. 1
Naoko Takeuchi
Manga (Magic Girl? I don’t know tbh)
Published: 2003
5/5

            Usagi Tsukino is a normal girl until she meets up with Luna, a talking cat, who tells her that she is Sailor Moon. As Sailor Moon, Usagi must fight evils and enforce justice, in the name of the Moon and the mysterious Moon Princess. She meets other girls destined to be Sailor Senshi (Sailor Scouts), and together, they fight the forces of evil!

 

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            Okay, let me just tell you how excited the little girl inside of me is. When I was a kid and I mean like EARLY elementary school young I was super, super obsessed to the max with Sailor moon. It was on TV every day at 4 o’clock and I would get my VCR out and record each and every episode until the end of time (No not really I did lose interest when I got a little bit older when I thought that boys were more important… apparently) So when I saw that they re-issued the Sailor Moon Manga to be true to the Japanese Manga I was over the moon excited! (ha ha). I am happy to announce that this Manga was in ever essence of the word perfect to me.
            It’s interesting reading something that used to be half hour episodes on TV because the actual ‘acts’ are much shorter in comparison and the TV had more detail (What!? What is this!?) But it was fantastic anyways truthfully. The Drawings are beautiful and the storyline is still amazing and it made me so happy to spend an hour of time with a character that I grew up wishing I’d be. Seriously, I thought when I was 14 a cat would come into my life and tell me I was a Sailor Guardian, (There was a cat but alas it did not tell me a thing) I think I had a pretty active imagination as a child though because I also thought I would get an acceptance letter to Hogwarts and become a Pokémon master. I also spent a lot of time arguing over Sailor Scout dolls with friends because they always wanted to be the character I wanted to be pfft.
            Okay! Enough about me because that’s not what this post was about but why not tell you embarrassing things about me instead of telling you about this MANGA!?
            I thought that the story and reading style were interesting and very easy to follow, although it is kind of strange to be reading a book backwards. The Art was fantastic, it was beautiful truthfully I always thought Sailor Moon was the most beautiful cartoon ever (I also thought Sailor Mars was super pretty too but she was mean and scared me when I was little) and because she fights evil and has such an interesting LOVE story with Tuxedo Mask (Who was probably my first crush EVER) It was hard not to love her. As far as main characters go she’s extremely flawed, worries about her weight, eats a lot and is extremely unreliable… this girl is late for EVERYTHING…ALL THE TIME!!
            I think that this is a very good read, it’s not a long read it took me about 1 hour to get through it, including looking at the pictures. Also I think it’s one of the biggest Manga/Anime’s that have ever existed (But what do I know I only really know Sailor Moon ha ha) so I think that this would be a great place to start if you’re a girl because these are definitely directed towards woman. There is swoon worthy romance, bad ass fight scenes, interesting and flawed characters. I haven’t come across anything racy yet and I don’t believe there is but I could be wrong as I’ve only read the first volume.
            This is definitely a must read if you’re interested in exploring this genre or if you’re already invested in it and haven’t tried it yet!! I am for sure going to be checking out the second volume SOON; in other words the second I can get my hands on it ❤