Favorite

[Itena]

This was a question on my mind for a while, until I finished reading the manga.

I have to say that the manga would be my favourite; the beautiful, stunning, awe-rendering, detailed, classic, epic, masterpiece-like art(I am an artist, and I plan to be a manga-artist, so I pay a lot of attention to the art) was one reason. The second reason would be because the plot was awesome in my opinion(there's only one thing I don't like about it, the first part took place all in one day! It just went by way too fast! How did they accomplish all that in one day?!! That's one looong day if you ask me).

Characters that I didn't like before(*cough*Fuu*cough*) suddenly were awesome! Heck, even Alcyone was awesome(for the little time she was there). And the characters really showed their true colours in the manga. I also agree that the ending was much better than the anime's; I never truly liked Debonair that much(though she has the best evil maniac laugh ever in all of anime history)...

In the end, you have to credit the original story. (CLAMP FTW!)

I'm not gonna just completely side step the anime or the OAV though. I'm just gonna start ranting about how I love them both now... be afraid!

The anime is what I watched first, it's the one that created this absolute love for the series. Now, some parts are cheesy, and the art styles by some of the animators makes me want to laugh in hysterics; but the anime has much more pros than cons. Like the fact that they fixed that speed problem with the manga, and elongated it to make it a few weeks while keeping it interesting and relatively in-character(thank god for that, or it'd turn into another Naruto Shippuuden). It's a high quality series.

The anime has such wonderful, wonderful music, the OST is something to behold(I have discovered my favourite singer through it, Tamura Naomi ♥). And with the second season, not only does the animation and art improve, but they used the soundtrack at the perfect moments, giving it an almost feature-length movie feel to it (that's an opinion that me and a friend of mine have, it was my friend who noticed that first). In conclusion, the anime is one of those series that grows on you. ♥


And now for the OAV.

I loved the OAV. The art and animation was the quality in which I would of expected the anime to be if I had read the manga first. Well, no duh the animation would be better, that's why it's an OAV. To tell the truth, When I was into the first few minutes, I was thinking,"Oh please let them remember Cephiro, Oh please please please!" and other variations of that same sentence. Mokona pops up, Hikaru is bewildered, and my hopes are shattered. It's the same thing with Tsubasa Chronicles, when I saw Syaoran take up Rayearth, I suddenly got extremely angry saying, "That's Hikaru's Mashin, not yours!" But of course this is just a personal issue I have with the characters I love, which is why I hate AUs. Maybe that's a reason why I didn't choose the OAV as my favourite. 

Anyways, I absolutely loved the Magic Knights' friendship in here, even if it wasn't as emphasized on as in the anime and manga. It's just that they had a better base for their friendship, and their love for each other had been able to grow over time. It was more "realistic", the OAV. Including the fighting scenes, which is another reason why I adore the OAV. The battles were much more...gory, and that's how I like it. Not enough to keep out the Magic of MKR(irony...), but enough to make my inner fangirl rage in a burning fire of love and excitement. Uh, I'm a bit weird, I know...

{SPOILERS}
The ending was absolutely stunning. I loved it to death. Usually, in that kind of a situation, the battle scars and destroyed buildings would automatically regenerate themselves, and the whole city wouldn't of even known that something extremely extraordinary had happened. But the OAV didn't do that; the whole area was in rubble even after Cephiro had returned to it's own dimension. I remember someone saying that was to give a sense of permanence, showing that the whole experience would never be forgotten; most likely changing the way they'll live from then on.

(I was actually crying when I saw the city in ruins, it really hit me for some reason; that just shows how much the OAV pulled me in :'))
{/SPOILERS}

.....


Wow, I had a lot to say right there. ^^;;; I guess I've never been really able to rant enough about why I love MKR so much before.

[Down]

heh, watch me ramble...

I love the manga. I actually own three copies of it - the oldest is the original tokyopop version, flipped and loosely translated, and it was the second manga series I ever bought.

It is, in fact, largely responsible for my intrest in manga, anime, japanese culture, and even the degree I took. XD It just swept me away - the art was so beautiful, and the story had so much to it - so many layers, and when it hit me with the truth of the role of the knights, I was lost forever to it. <3 So of course when the 10th anniversary re-edited/translated/unflipped version came out, I bought that too. XD and then I learnt japanese and went to japan and so of course I went and bought the japanese originals. XDDD (I still read them all, which is, uh, REALLY REALLY DORKY. XDDD I switch which one I pick depending on mood.)

I also managed to read the manga and get Clemi from it. *g* Well, through reading it and then beginning to write a fanfic which had Asmi in it, because it was the obvious choice, and realising that I couldn't make it work, at which point I re-read the manga and realised why it doesn't work for me. (Short version: imo Ascot has a crush on a vision of an Umi he doesn't know, and she has already made a connection to Clef. XD)

The anime I like, but it didn't shake me as much as the manga - the story is looser, the art isn't (in my opinion) as good because the manga set a bar so high nothing was going to come close on a series budget, but the voices and the music are brilliant. (I was terrified the first time I sat down to watch it that they'd get Clef's voice wrong and I'd not manage to watch the thing. ^^;;; I'm picky about voice with the characters I obsess over, but Nozomu Sasaki was amazing and I settled down to watch the whole thing in one weekend. XDD) Also, Clemi! Being more obvious!

I then got the OVA, and despite being unable to get a version with the japanese track on it, I still like it more than the anime. The art is better quality, the story is more compact, and Clef is SO PRETTY. XDDDD;;; Pretty enough to make up for the dialogue (I die everytime they talk about the dark side. I can't help it - StarWars was my first ever fandom. XDD) and the voices! Also, psycho!Eagle is the creepiest damn villain EVER. One day I will find it in japanese, and then my life's ambition will be fulfilled. XDDD

On a random note, I love the music from it all pretty much next to the manga - especially the OVA soundtracks, and several of the image songs. XD (Though Megumi Ogata as OVA Eagle scares the hell out of me even more when she's singing. XD;; Goran, taiyou da yo is one of my most played tracks ever, and I have over 50 gigs of music on my mp3 player. ^^;;;;

[Down]

The second reason would be because the plot was awesome in my opinion(there's only one thing I don't like about it, the first part took place all in one day! It just went by way too fast! How did they accomplish all that in one day?!! That's one looong day if you ask me).

Actually, the manga doesn't take place in one day - it just isn't obvious because Cephiro is out of sync with Earth in it. XD The extras have scenes in which Mokona provides an egg-shaped tent-thing for them to sleep in at nights, complete with nightclothes and massive bed. (Hikaru goes sleep-walking and Fuu sleep-tickling and Umi gets no sleep at all trying to herd them back inside. It's really cute. XD)

Characters that I didn't like before(*cough*Fuu*cough*) suddenly were awesome! Heck, even Alcyone was awesome(for the little time she was there). And the characters really showed their true colours in the manga. I also agree that the ending was much better than the anime's; I never truly liked Debonair that much(though she has the best evil maniac laugh ever in all of anime history)...

In the end, you have to credit the original story. (CLAMP FTW!)

*agrees totally , but read the manga first and was then bemused by the Hikaru-obsession of the anime version*