Wojowniczki z krainy najntisów – review of the comic book “Magic Knight Rayearth” vol. 1

Magic Knight Rayearth is one of the manga published by Waneko as part of the company’s 20th anniversary celebration. As befits the jubilee, the publishing house decided on this occasion to offer readers comics slightly different from the standard offer, which so far had no chance of being present on the Polish market. Among them there are older items known and liked or by recognizable and respected artists, such as Card Captor Sakura orFruits Basket. Przygody trójki magicznych rycerek zdecydowanie spełniają te kryteria.

Have I seen it somewhere before?

Three students, who found themselves in Tokyo Tower at the same time, are brought to the fantastic land of Cephiro by magic. As it turns out, in order to be able to return to Earth, they are to become legendary warriors who will save not only Princess Emeraude, imprisoned by the evil Zagato, but also the whole of Cephiro. A colorful team of inhabitants of the magical world will help them in fulfilling this task. This is the short story of the story told in Magic Knight Rayearth.

The plot of the manga is certainly well known to older audiences from the animated version, but even to readers who have not dealt with this title before, it may seem familiar. No wonder – the comic of the CLAMP group draws handfuls from elements of the fantasy genre and uses archetypes present in the mass of jRPG games. It is also worth remembering that this is one of the first series of the isekai subspecies ,which at its debut in 1993 was fresh in many ways. Nowadays, however, it is difficult not to smile while observing the somewhat kitschy figures and plots. After all, we have a trio of completely different characters and appearance of the protagonists, each of which may have two personality traits. Their antagonist is an extremely powerful and sinister priest, and in order to defeat him, the heroines must gather a team and equipment and learn new skills. On the other hand, similarly to spaghetti westerns, an action movie from the 1980s or the aforementioned “djerpegs”, such a structure of the presented world and characters has its irresistible charm. All the more so as the authors are probably aware of this ambiguity to some extent and allow themselves to be self-mocking from time to time,

Aesthetic time travel

Chubby characters in the super deformed version are, by the way, a hallmark of CLAMP, and at the same time, I think, a sign of the times. I have the impression that nowadays manga creators do not use them to such a degree in comics that are not strictly comedies. Anyway, the entire graphic design of Magic Knight Rayearth is an amazing journey into the past. For some – nostalgic, for others – cognitive. Today, probably no one draws as the ladies from CLAMP did in the 90s. Although some readers may find their style unattractive, old-fashioned and too mannered, in my opinion it presents a unique artistry. Of course, there is a lot of exaggeration in it, and the anatomy at times borders on self-parody, but you can see that cartoonists control the drawings and nothing is accidental here. The rest is a matter of taste.

Not surprisingly, after more than a quarter of a century, the Magic Knight Rayearth no longer has the same strength and freshness as in the first years since its debut. The trends have changed, and the themes used in the manga have been reworked many times in countless titles and do not impress. Therefore, the work of the CLAMP group should be perceived differently today. Older readers may use them to return to the title from years ago and look at it from a different (more mature?) Perspective. For younger people, reading it is an opportunity to get to know the aesthetics and narrative of one of the first “isekaj” or even manga from the 90s. It is still a comic book that gives undisguised pleasure to read, although of a slightly different type than two and a half decades ago.