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Review

Magic Knights Rayearth

VHS 1-2 Daybreak & Sunrise

Review:
Rayearth VHS 1-2
Again, this is a series that nearly everyone knows about, everyone loves, and everyone wants to know its fate. Well, in the roulette-wheel world of anime licensing and the even bigger roulette wheel of production quality, every anime in the world should be so lucky as this one.

The Mokona, they go off in search of Presea and the magic ore Escudo. The foes and potential friends they'll meet along the way will make the journey interesting...

The TV series is slightly above-par for its time, offering more detailed art and smoother animation than is typical for that era, which included shows like Bang Zoom! Entertainment, is also fantastic and at times can't even be told apart from the original (besides the fact that it is another language.) Surprisingly, even the opening and ending themes are dubbed, and those came out spectacular (except for near the end of the opening, where what sounds like an editing mistake left the vocals coming in a split second too early). The subtitled version is also well-done.

Really, the only thing about the American release that fans are likely to whine about is the fact that the relatively useless "Who will it be today" end-of-show eyecatches are not in this version. Even though this useless feature is really nothing but a few still pictures, and three lines of dialogue (two of which are the same every time), hardcore fans will probably notice and complain, but it's really not that big a deal... All of the voice actor credits are left for the very end of the tape, a hint that a bilingual DVD release may be just around the corner.

There are a lot of fansubs of this series floating around, and finally, fans have a good reason to replace them with commercial copies. At a fair price, well done, and with fantastic Spine-picture box art, there's really no good reason not to buy these tapes... Even if you happen to be a stick-in-the-mud for this type of material like I am.
Grade:
Overall (dub) : A
Overall (sub) : A

+ First-rate dub/sub production values. Fans of the series will eat it up!
Opening song a bit off-beat in the dub. "Who will it be today?" end-of-show eyecatches not included.

Violence, death of characters. Brief nudity in transformation scenes.

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Production Info:
Chief Director: Toshihiro Hirano
Director: Masami Ōbari
Series Composition: Keiko Maruo
Scenario:
Keiko Maruo
Osamu Nakamura
Nanase Ohkawa
Script:
Keiko Maruo
Osamu Nakamura
Nanase Ohkawa
Storyboard:
Kōichi Chigira
Toshihiro Hirano
Masakatsu Iijima
Hajime Kamegaki
Mari Koeda
Hitoyuki Matsui
Yasuhiro Matsumura
Yorimichi Nakano
Takehiro Nakayama
Yoshikata Nitta
Episode Director:
Kōichi Chigira
Tarou Hotani
Hajime Kamegaki
Hitoyuki Matsui
Keitarō Motonaga
Yorimichi Nakano
Yoshikata Nitta
Music: Hayato Matsuo
Original creator: CLAMP
Character Design: Atsuko Ishida
Art Director: Tsutomu Ishigaki
Animation Director:
Keiji Gotō
Madoka Hirayama
Atsuko Ishida
Takashi Kobayashi
Hiroshi Kubo
Hideyuki Motohashi
Hiroaki Nakajima
Takehiro Nakayama
Akira Takeuchi
Mecha design: Masahiro Yamane
Sound Director: Yasuo Urakami
Director of Photography: Takashi Nomura
Producer:
Mikihiro Iwata
Shigeki Nakamura
Michihiko Suwa
Masahito Yoshioka
Licensed by: Media Blasters

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Magic Knight Rayearth (TV)

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