Magic Knight Rayearth Review and Possible Dicussion

Since I promised Kailu_Lantis I would post a review of the remastered version of this show I figured I'd finally get around to doing it.

First off, Magic Knight Rayearth is one of the earlier of the shows I started watching as a fan and has always been one of my personal favorites and one of the few shoujo shows I have actually enjoyed so much.

Audio:

Pretty solid Dolby Digital Stereo mix here. No dropouts, distortions or anything. It's a joy though to watch, especially the op/eds, with Prologic on because it brings out a nice surround feel.

Video:

The biggest improvement on this release obviously is the video. Having watched the US VHS and subsequent DVD releases, though the initial Japanese DVD release from what I was able to tell was about the same, I always thought that the show looked so old and dated due to the quality of the masters used. For this remaster though the video just looks so fresh and vibrant that it looks almost like a completely different show. The colors are extremely vibrant, the dingy, green haze from the older masters is gone, the detail level is much improved, and the copious amounts of dot crawl are thankfully gone as well. There is a tad bit of EE at times (though I've yet to see an anime release that doesn't have any) it's never distracting or anything bad. The show has just never looked better.

It's also nice to have the next ep previews that were removed from MB's release (at least from the first season I don't remember if they were removed from the second) and to have the proper OP/EDs on the second season.

Extras: The extras for the show includes what seems to be a preview commericial for the series, textless OP/EDs, and the Mokona song video. On the 4th disc for episode 19 & 20, I'm guessing on TV there was a showing of both episode back to back as a special and this is presented here. It's a bit jarring to watch as the live action scenes are unremastered and then it cuts the remastered footage for the episodes. I'm not really sure much about this but maybe someone knows more on how these two episode were broadcast on TV.

Finally here's a number of comparison shots from the first episode so one can see just how wonderful this new video looks.

Shot 1: R1 (http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/7346/shot01mkrr1sx3.png) R2 (http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/2889/shot01mkrr2uv5.png)
Shot 2: R1 (http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/8757/shot02mkrr1ef4.png) R2 (http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/5975/shot02mkrr2dr0.png)
Shot 3: R1 (http://img463.imageshack.us/img463/893/shot03mkrr1dg2.png) R2 (http://img463.imageshack.us/img463/530/shot03mkrr2zx6.png)
Shot 4: R1 (http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/334/shot04mkrr1hv6.png) R2 (http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/5933/shot04mkrr2qv5.png)
Shot 5: R1 (http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/2164/shot05mkrr1in1.png) R2 (http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/4452/shot05mkrr2wd6.png)
Shot 6: R1 (http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/5369/shot06mkrr1xg0.png) R2 (http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/3592/shot06mkrr2gd2.png)
Shot 7: R1 (http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/9641/shot07mkrr1jt9.png) R2 (http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/205/shot07mkrr2xo4.png)
Shot 8: R1 (http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/3787/shot08mkrr1zd0.png) R2 (http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/9992/shot08mkrr2gr8.png)
Shot 9: R1 (http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/596/shot09mkrr1us5.png) R2 (http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/9532/shot09mkrr2mt3.png)
Shot 10: R1 (http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/4684/shot10mkrr1ny8.png) R2 (http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/4946/shot10mkrr2dx3.png)
Shot 11: R1 (http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/8306/shot11mkrr1dq5.png) R2 (http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/1645/shot11mkrr2bw8.png)

That's pretty much it. Since I don't personally own the US discs but if you want more shots just ask, but it may take a bit because I had to ask a friend to make these matching sceenshots for me.

If anyone wants to make any discussion of the series feel free since I haven't really seen much discussion on thsi show as of late.

[tseniv]

Cool update. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

The screenshots remind me of the days when I used to compare my 1st gen Fuji SVHS SP tapes to my friends 4th gen Maxwell Bronze VHS SLP ones.

If I was a fan of Rayearth for reasons other than Umi I would be sorely tempted to hunt down the DVD Memorial Box.

[PhilipReuben]

My god that looks awesome o_o If only could feel justified in spending such huge amounts of money on a show I think is mediocre for the sake of ZOMG PRETTY alone...

[mcarocks2003]

Shot 1 in particular looks incredible.

Infact the difference is so huge it almost looks like two completly different anime.

[Riari]

Oh wow! That's just a huge difference between the new Japanese release and the R1 DVDs. Don't know if that would justify a purchase just yet but when I have extra money... hmm...

Thanks for posting the review! /images/graemlins/catgirl0.gif

[seca]

Like everyone else I'm amazed at the difference of the picture quality. They did a wonderful job cleaning it up for the R2 release.

I wish MB would get the cleaned up masters and do another MKR R1 release, since I would double dip for that kind of picture quality for this series.

[Kailu_Lantis]

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You, Thank You !!!

Indeed, I had been waiting for this post for a long time. Damn, am I happy those Japanese bonkers finally made justice to this show.

Judging from your comparison screenshots (great work) I don't think MK Rayearth has ever looked this good. Here are few things I want to point out:

<ul type="square"> The image is a little bit shifted. With the new release we gain information from the bottom and lose from the top. Refer to all screenshots.
The color layout is vastly improved. The greenish look from previous releases is now gone. Refer to screenshots #1, 5, 7.
Pictures with lots of detail are always hard to depict since they have tight line artwork (rainbows, blurriness). Refer to screenshot #2 to see the breathtaking difference. A 5/5 !
I can't believe so much detail was lost. Just look at #8. You can now clearly see the red line in Hikuaru's skirt, as well as the shadows in their clothes. [/list]

This remaster is pretty much in the same level as Evangelion's in terms of improvement (except for the DD 5.1 revamp, that is).

And it's one big box to hold all 11 discs. That would be my largest box yet, leaving Love Hina as the runner-up with its 9 disc box. Obi, can you get us a nice picture of the box?

I'm gonna lose a big wad of cash on this...

[Pyocola]

[ QUOTE ]
Kailu_Lantis said:
This remaster is pretty much in the same level as Evangelion's in terms of improvement (except for the DD 5.1 revamp, that is).

[/ QUOTE ]
I would disagree, I think this looks a lot better. While an improvement, after seeing some other remasters I think the Evangelion one is not actually all that good. This has really good colours, it's crisp and has sharp, clear lines. The Evangelion one often has muddy colours and bleeding (skintones suffer especially) and a lot of the lines have sort of an anti-bleed (colour just around the line is missing) which makes them look slightly out of focus. Heck, today I watched Area 88, which is 10 years older, and to me even that looked better than Eva.

[Nuriko]

Damn, I didn't even notice anything wrong with the video until I saw the comparisons. The difference is like night and day, I'll definitely double dip on season 1 if it comes over to R1. Hopefully, we'll get it in the next dvd format at the very least. I should rewatch it sometime just for Umi but MKR is one of those series that I can still remember 90% of the story with just 1 viewing, lol

[Kailu_Lantis]

[ QUOTE ]
Philip Reuben said:
My god that looks awesome o_o If only could feel justified in spending such huge amounts of money on a show I think is mediocre for the sake of ZOMG PRETTY alone...

[/ QUOTE ]


One of the reasons I believe Rayearth kept itself from appealing to a larger audience were the cutesy scenes in SD. Since the story was not episodic, and with a mildly serious plot, I never deemed it necessary to mix in that kind of humor. The way it hit me, it sometimes distracted me from believing the girls were strong or that their enemies were lethal. They could've inserted some humor from a realistic point of view to maintain everything on par.

This aspect was entirely dropped in the second season, and it turned out to be great in my opinion. It was substituted by a touch of romance; almost everyone was after someone else without knowing if they would be corresponded.

Season II had better character designs and animation as well, but the trade off came in the form of simple backgrounds and surroundings. The castle interiors were mostly empty halls with windows, while the landscape was mostly barren land with peaks.

The music was simply fantastic. The series never lacked in this regard, and the opening for season I is one of my all-time favorites.

[PhilipReuben]

[ QUOTE ]
Kailu_Lantis said:
One of the reasons I believe Rayearth kept itself from appealing to a larger audience were the cutesy scenes in SD. Since the story was not episodic, and with a mildly serious plot, I never deemed it necessary to mix in that kind of humor. The way it hit me, it sometimes distracted me from believing the girls were strong or that their enemies were lethal. They could've inserted some humor from a realistic point of view to maintain everything on par.

[/ QUOTE ]

I never found the SD scenes particularly funny, but I didn't find them too offensive either. My problem with the first season was that a fairly bland 3-volume manga with very little in the way of plot (go to point A, beat villain B...) except for the ending was translated very directly to the screen, and expanded by way of useless filler episodes that were generally even less interesting than the regular plot.

(Compare to Sailor Moon, where the first season stretched out the same amount of material twice as far but did a MUCH better job of it by giving the villains more personality and adding various new characters and subplots. But there was a ton of a useless filler as well of course, so YMMV.)

[ QUOTE ]
This aspect was entirely dropped in the second season, and it turned out to be great in my opinion.

[/ QUOTE ]

I haven't watched the second season yet; I really should, since from everything I've heard I'd enjoy it a lot more (if only because it's less faithful to the manga, which is one of my least favourite CLAMP series).

[ QUOTE ]
The music was simply fantastic. The series never lacked in this regard, and the opening for season I is one of my all-time favorites.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed.

[Skywise]

Less faithful to the manga? Understatement /images/graemlins/happy.gif. They're going in totally different directions. The result is pretty good IMO - the manga is the weaker of the two. Well, except for Mokona /images/graemlins/tongue.gif.

[Kailu_Lantis]

[ QUOTE ]
ObiKenobi said:

The biggest improvement on this release obviously is the video.

[/ QUOTE ]

Haha, I forgot to ask the $64K question: Are they progressive?

[ QUOTE ]
Kailu_Lantis said:
Haha, I forgot to ask the $64K question: Are they progressive?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep.

[ QUOTE ]
Kailu_Lantis said:
And it's one big box to hold all 11 discs. That would be my largest box yet, leaving Love Hina as the runner-up with its 9 disc box. Obi, can you get us a nice picture of the box?

[/ QUOTE ]

I only have the singles as I wasn't able to track down a copy of the box set.

[AUSTIN316]

The MKR box is actually only 5 discs big as like most JP box sets these days, the disc cases each hold 2 discs.

Edit: Actually it is 6 discs. 5 TV cases with 2 discs each and the music cd.