Beware the movie. It's beautiful, yes, but..... it condenses a manga that's at 12 volumes and counting (and is expected to hit 22, to go by the tarot theme) into, what, two hours? There are about 15-20 important characters in the manga (on an estimate), and each of them gets about 30 seconds of screen time a piece in the movie. (Not only that, but an excellent page I can't find the link to located several very specific differences between the anime and manga.) This series deserved at least a long OVA. But we do have our beloved Animerica Extra to provide us with the manga, which illustrates Kotori and Kamui's relationship far better than most of these images do.
I love these kids together. As teenagers, they're both sublimely pretty (Sorata: "We'll win by prettiness alone!"), but as kids, I like them far more. They're both adorable (and according to Rach, Kamui's attractive then, too... the girl worries me.) And so is their relationship. Once I get a scanner, you will be subjected to the scene of Kamui telling Kotori "When I grow up, I wanna be your bride!" as a puzzled Fuma thinks "That doesn't seem right..." I will make the disclaimer that I know very little about all of it as of yet; I've read far less of the manga than has your average web page maintainer.
I'm going to make a distinction here that actually applies to all my pages: When I say "art," "the art" or whatever, I mean the special, supplementary kind that goes in illustration books. When I refer to "manga art," as opposed to, say, CLAMP art, that doesn't mean CLAMP didn't draw the manga; I mean I'm referring to the black and white narrative art as opposed to the color illustration art. And there's really not much "anime art" in this one, so that's irrelevant, but if I do mention it, I mean, of course, things related to the animated version. Either a) screen caps, cels and the like, or b) illustration book stuff done in the anime's style rather than the manga's.
I'm sorry... like I said, I know little enough about the story that there's not much I can say. Research is being done, however.
Ifurita and Makoto |
Miz Mishtal and Fujisawa |
Magic Knight Rayearth
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