Umi will never look at waterparks the same way again.
Magic Knights Rayearth Vol. 2
Mixx Entertainment (1998)
originally published by Kodansha Ltd. (1994)
produced by CLAMP WRITER: Nanase Ohkawa ARTIST: Mokona Apapa ASSISTANT DESIGNER/PRODUCTION COORDINATOR: Satsuki Igarashi EDITOR/MINI-CHARACTERS: Mick Nekoi
This volume feels like it has multiple stories even though one leads straight into the other. Still I’m going to review this part in chunks rather than the book as a whole. This will mess up the format but it’s the best way to review this particular volume.
The story begins where the last one left off, with the mysterious man in the Forest Of Silence, where magic doesn’t work (except for the storage gauntlets for some reason). His name is Ferrio, and he too is seeking Escude (formerly translated as Escudo as the volume goes on so I couldn’t tell you which is correct) to become a Magic Knight and save the Princess…until he realizes our heroines are the saviors of Cephiro in the legends. Instead he helps escort them to the fountain and takes his leave. During the trip he and Fuu develop a crush on each other and this will come up again as the series goes on. Then Alcione is waiting for them on the other side and as the battle goes on Guru Clef, through Mokona, unlocks Umi and Fuu’s magic, water and wind based, so they can help Hikaru send the witch away again. It’s a good introduction and Ferrio is a good addition to the cast although we do get more padding of the girls bonding that, maybe it’s because I’m a guy, was just overdone.
The next part of our story find the Magic Knights having to go into the Legendary Fountain of Eterna…or as Umi calls it, the Weirdo Fountain, since the water is floating above the fountain as a thin line. Within the waters, the Magic Knights are tested by illusions of their loved ones. Hikaru is forced to fight a vision of her beloved dog, Hikari, Umi battles her parents, and Fuu battles herself (because she is so worried about her loved ones missing her–which unintentionally still makes her look selfish compared to the others…maybe it’s a cultural thing). Had the girls realized what they were really fighting this would have been a better battle. Instead Emeraude telepathically contacts the girls and convinces them these are illusions when Hikaru should have known that her dog couldn’t be in Cephiro and loves her too much to attack her, Umi should have realized her parents wouldn’t silently toss lighting at her while standing like they’re posing for a portrait, and Fuu at least has to figure out how to attack her doppelganger since every wound she gets so does her double and vice versa. Presea is waiting for them outside the fountain (the anime had them return to her home, which I think works better) and she uses her soul and a dance that was beautiful in the anime to form their evolving weapons as their armor also begins to grow. This leads into the final part of the story, but it gets cut short.
With their new evolving weapons, the key to unlocking the power of the Spirits (or Mashin, or Machines, depending on who is doing the translation apparently since between fansubs of the anime, official dubs of season 1, and this manga I have seen or heard all three), the Girls head to the first shrine, under the sea. Once arriving at the shrine the girls see a water dragon, the first spirit Celes. As Umi goes into a trance and approaches Celes, Hikaru and Fuu meet their next henchperson from Zagato, a boy named Ascot who so happily announces that he is here to kill them. It’s a good ending point. What will happen to Umi? What power does Ascot have? (I already know, but it’s still a good stopping point.) Overall this is still a good story, if the girls can keep from gushing over their friendship long enough. I mean My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic doesn’t spend this long gushing over how much they’re all friends (and I remind you they haven’t even known each other a full day). I don’t mind that it shows up, it just goes on too long every time it does. The crush between Ferio and Fuu will be fun to watch and next week we’ll see what happens with Celes the water dragon and Ascot.
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