OVA FEELS!!

[Milieva]

An official thread for your feelings!!


OMG!!!   DOWN!!   I SAW IT!!

The whole idea of Clef and Ferio repopulating Cephiro!  Now I can't get it out of my head.  I just....   What the hell?!!   Seriously?!!  Because who else is there in that world?   I didn't see any other people in the distruction.  How are they suppose to rebuild?  I..... 

*headeskheaddeskheaddesk*


I'm also still flailing in anger at my DVD freezing so I don't get to watch that scene with Umi and Clef outside that building.  You know the one.  The one always bent toward their OTP status.  I have checked the disk and NOTHING IS WRONG WITH IT!!!

[suzanami]

I haven't watched the OVA in years but I always loved the new take on Cephiro.  I wish it had been five episodes instead of three, just to expand on a few things, get some more decent character development and all.  But as it is, I do like stories like it, not giving me every detail and all.  Also it's beautiful and (whispers) I do ship Umi/Clef in this verse, whole-heartedly.

[Down]

THE PRETTY PRETTY CRACK OVA OF PRETTY AND CRACK = my OVA feels in a nutshell

also the CLEF AND UMI CLEF AND UMI CLEFANDUMI feels which go without saying

..........and the fact that I still cannot get over the fact that ASCOT HAS A GIANT LOBSTER ROBOT AND USES IT TO DROP HALF THE FUJI TV BUILDING ON CLEF. XDDDDDDDD THERE ARE SO MANY WAYS THAT BIT AMUSES ME. (.............sorry, Clef!)

and just - EVERYTHING (so coherent XD). I now own the italian dvd of it so that I can listen to the Japanese version! Given I couldn't buy an english version with them on. >.> but I LOVE IT.

And - my LOGICAL headcanon is that Clef practiced that time-warp-whatsit spell in Cephiro and there's a few hundred or so people hidden where Eagle couldn't get to them, but that doesn't stop me giggling at the end. XD

Also, Clef's hot. Whaaaaaaaaaaaat someone had to say it. And the score is also GORGEOUS.

More seriously, I really like the way they pulled the themes of Autozam's fate and Cephiro's fate together - it highlights the compare/contrast of the original canon neatly, imo.

[Sidherequiem]

...Everyone is dead on Cephiro! Seriously, unless they live in caves! omg. I cant think.

[suzanami]

REVIVING THIS THREAD BECAUSE I WATCHED THE OVA TODAY.


and my main takeaway from it is that THEY DID NOT FINISH THEIR WORLD-BUILDING.

there's a lot of good ideas, and it's a really good dark-n-gritty re-imagining of MKR.  but... 


okay so they explain what happened in Cephiro, Emeraude and Zagato hecked up again and everyone suffered.  BUT WHAT DOES ANY OF THAT HAVE TO DO WITH EARTH?  I know they yammer on about some old ancient legend-type ideas, and going through trials and destiny and blah blah.  but... just why.  what does Cephiro gain by taking over Earth?  is it the idea that their own world is so ruined they need to start over?  but they don't really say that, do they?  it's not even suggested, they just plop the castle over Tokyo Tower cause they can.  they just want to kill stuff, apparently. (Ferio certainly does, the sadist)

I mean yes, I can come to some possible conclusions about why they'd invade Earth, but it's so major that it baffles me that they don't talk about that part.


also I'm thinking of Alcyone and Ferio and Ascot and everyone else with Mashin.  in the OVA, a person makes a pact with a seijyu (like Innouva is) and the seijyu can merge with the human to become a Mashin.  okay, I love this.  but when did this pact happen?  do seijyu just go around looking for worthy humans to claim or did they acquire seijyu when all this stuff with Cephiro falling apart was happening?  is it part of the old legends?  it's just so interesting.  these aren't questions out of frustration like the above.  I think they told a sufficient amount of information here for a 2-hour OVA, I just like to wonder about this because it was one of my favorite parts of the OVA.

[Mokonalord]

Forever mourning Ascot's fate in the OVA.

[suzanami]

Ascot did not deserve that.  I mean, Lantis dies too, but Ascot suffered so much.  it's really interesting though, to think about Ascot's character.  like it's an interesting interpretation of him in this AU.  he never had Caldina love him, he never had someone like Umi shake him out of his ignorance.  he's apparently of weak character despite being so arrogant, Eagle was able to easily possess him.

I loved how it was touched on that Umi and Ascot were both arrogant and haughty.  how Umi confronted that with help from Selece, how it was Ascot's undoing.


actually I love how compassionate the girls are in the OVA.  they're absolutely devastated that their opponents died. (Fuu thought Ferio was dead for a while)  Umi was broken-hearted over Ascot's demise, Fuu was preoccupied with remorse about killing Ferio.  they certainly still considered these people threats, and Umi didn't seem to want to be friends with Ascot, she just wanted him to stop so he wouldn't die.  I don't think Hikaru had a similar thing with Alcyone, but she had a lot going on with Lantis and Lexus and tbh I don't think the director cared enough for Alcyone to bother?

speaking of director favorites, Ferio gets a surprising amount of character development.  his heel-face-turn is his eyes opening, now he sees what Lantis saw all this time.  I think he's still a shady guy, but with his motivations all turned inside-out we see he's not evil, just.. um, well a bit fucked-up.


there's a lot of little details in the OVA I love, but overall I just like the idea of it and what the AU could've been with more time and a bit more TLC put into the world-building.  and the end.  the climax was rushed af.

[milady]

It has been a long time since i watched the OVA. But I need to review to get a more critical opinion

But honestly, I remember finding it weird. It was not a prequel, neither sequel to the anime, i never understood what's the point? Is there any reason for the alternate story in canon/universe? Was it based on any material of the franchise? Or it was just the producers launching their vision with the characters of a series that was popular at that time?

[VKiera]

The OVA is kinda odd, but i love it. Its so pretty. I mean look at evil! Eagle he's gorgeous.

We should really do a rewatch chat for the OVA sometime.

[Milieva]

It has been a long time since i watched the OVA. But I need to review to get a more critical opinion

But honestly, I remember finding it weird. It was not a prequel, neither sequel to the anime, i never understood what's the point? Is there any reason for the alternate story in canon/universe? Was it based on any material of the franchise? Or it was just the producers launching their vision with the characters of a series that was popular at that time?

It is literally what it says on the tin: Original Video Animation 

Basically, it is one complete nonsense AU fic that someone got the money to turn into an actual thing. There are some cool OVAs of some series that can almost fit in with canon, and there are others that just sort of jump the shark.

I love the art and the nonsense of it.  I especially love showing it to new people with absolutely no information about the wild ride we are about to embark on.

[Down]

I feel like not enough of this thread is dedicated to the fact that Ferio and Clef are apparently sent back on a mission to repopulate Cephiro with each other.

POSSIBLY with Emeraude. I don't know where I stand on her existence as more than a haunting power watching over them at the end. But she's not human anyway? And maybe Eagle but I don't think either of them are going anywhere near him and also I suspect Emeraude has ban-hammered him into another dimension for attempting to end the universe.

Also I'm not convinced Clef is ~human~ in the OVA, never have been. I know he has a priest's robes which echo Zagato's and he calls upon ~the deities~ to help him cast the timewarp instead of jumping to the left which could be a non-corrupted version of the binding-with-a-creature-and-they-fuel-your-magic variant everyone else seems to mostly have going on (WITH THE EXCEPTION OF EAGLE who is ALSO NOT HUMAN) but his magic seems to operate entirely differently. So I am more than halfway convinced he's a fae like Emeraude. And Eagle. Maybe. I dunno. It's fun to ponder.

ANYWAY my theory on the actual plot of the OVA goes: someone who likes X:1999 and Rayearth decided to smush them up together~ (like, a distant X fusion, not a crossover, but the undertone is there)

Other theory: OKAY SO the entirety of Eagle's plan is to get a hold of the three deities, who created and are earth. Who are ridiculously powerful. In order to end the universe because the universe has hurt his sister and he will take vengeance for her/the world has proven so unfair and unjust that he wants to start the universe over again, maybe it won't be so terrible next time, either way it'll wipe out all the terrible of this world and all it has done to his sister and all that it has done to him (he is so, so broken) will be DONE.

Or somewhere he thinks that the three gods who are/created earth are a powerful enough force of creation they can restore Cephiro and Zagato. I don't actually think this is what he believes - he seems far too focused on ~burn it all to nothing~ - but I DO think this might be the tale he's poisoning other minds with, the Princess's wish; the way they can undo the wrong done, the way he lured most of the population of Cephiro to their doom. By this point the few he has left are so in his grasp he doesn't necessarily need this promise to control them anyway.

This is based on a theory that the three deities are the ones who created Cephiro, and possibly the entire rest of the universe, before moving on eventually to create and rest as earth. And that legends of them were left behind in Cephiro from when they were there - that to wake them, you need the ones who can SUMMON them, who will appear when their world is in peril to save it.

SO Eagle does the obvious thing: attacks Earth in order to find the three who will wake the gods, and make them do it. (I'm pretty certain he thinks all his minions are expendable and going to die in this effort. It's not like he cares. He's killed everything else already.) And then he will defeat them however he can, and steal their gods, and break all the worlds to nothing so his sister won't hurt anymore.

Not sure if he has a coherent plan of what happens to his sister at that point, possibly she should survive to create a new universe where she will be, in effect, the Pillar - she's more powerful than he is, it's pretty clear, given it's her song he's manipulating to keep people under control - or he's beyond that and just thinks she wants this to be over and to be with Zagato. EITHER WAY ties back neatly to the ending of the first series of Rayearth (for a... given value of neatly).

Clef is a nuisance, because he's taken away the people of Earth, and it would be so much easier to break the girls if Eagle could hurt the people they love. But I don't think he cares too much about that, really. And he can maybe help the girls with magic, but in truth Clef is only a nuisance. He's not a target, he doesn't matter. Same with Ferio when he defects - Lantis, too, in so many ways, because unless Lantis can actually pull together the strength to murder Eagle (because they both saw their siblings broken by Cephiro and there's such a WEIGHT to their interactions there - I sometimes feel Eagle would let Lantis kill him, because he feels Lantis is the only person with the right to do so - the only other person who is just like Eagle himself, stuck in this because the world destroyed their family - and Lantis can't bring himself to do it, because Eagle won't FIGHT him, and they are the same) then Lantis is not going to stop him from his goal. And that goal is wake the three, get them to fight, and then break them and take their power for his own, for whatever end. (And such an end it would be, a cleansing of everything.)

At the end, when the deities leave, he doesn't stop - he can't stop - because defeating these three has become his entire goal, defeating them and tearing the universe apart.

When Emeraude says they must start over, he can't accept it - that you can start from somewhere terrible and make something new and strong of it. But that's what the three girls have done - taken a terrible situation and the destruction of their home, and forged a determination and a strength to carry on from it.

AND SO THEN Clef and Ferio are tasked with starting anew in Cephiro and repopulating it!

................................................................maybe with the couple of hundred people I still think Clef had locked away somewhere. But it's less funny that way.