Space: adult with a job | they/them | nonbinary | native american
YOU CAN REBLOG ANY POST I MAKE. DON'T HESITATE. I PROMISE IT'S OKAY.
loves horror, video games, dnd, and animation currently: sobbing over magnus archives, rise tmnt, and old animanga no one cares about anymore from the 90s
Hello All, Space here to tell you why YOU !! Should read classic manga Magic Knight Rayearth.
“What’s that?” you ask? You’ve never heard of Magic Knight Rayearth? Well, I am here to tell you ALL about it.
WHAT IS MAGIC KNIGHT RAYEARTH?
Magic Knight Rayearth is a 6 volume manga about magical girls, giant robots, and isekai. Yes, you read that right. All three amazingly loved tropes together and it’s done seamlessly and beautifully. You’ll laugh, you’ll say ‘wtf’, you’ll sob big Ghibli tears.
Also like. If you have any intention to actually read this manga after this post, don’t google anything? Seriously don’t. It’s only 6 volumes but googling will spoil literally every twist and turn this series has and BOY DOES IT HAVE SOME. I’m not gonna spoil you for them. Don’t spoil yourself.
To put into perspective how much I love this series and how badly I've wanted people to read it for years: I was pinching pennies for p much my entire life until very recently. I read this series when I was 14 (~20+ years ago oh god) and fast forward to today I'm still a penny pincher but I went out of my way to collect 5 different full copies of this series in various printings and languages because I just. I gotta. I love it. I have a copy that is a dedicated loner copy so I always have one ready for someone to borrow and read. PLEASE understand how much I love this series and go along with me here.
All right, so the story goes like this: three middle school girls on a field trip to Tokyo Tower get summoned to an alternate world called Cephiro. Oh by the way, they go to different schools. Also they’ve never met before.
You’ve got rich, beautiful hothead, Umi Ryuzaki. Her magic element is water, fierce and unforgiving. Her two loving parents are still in their honeymoon phase 14 years later. They’re rich, she loves food, she is kinda selfish, but has such a great character arc because of it. She’s amazing and I would die for her.
After her, you’ve got polite but very very shrewd and thoughtful, Fuu Houoji. Her element is wind, kind, occasionally harsh, and healing. Fuu is the one with plans, who is very sweet and formal but also very conniving if you aren’t paying close attention. She cares deeply about those around her while also being realistic. Sometimes she can be a little aloof, but it’s ok she’s cute.
And finally last girl, BEST GIRL, Hikaru Shidou. Energetic, sympathetic, understanding, and eternally the best. Her element is fire, she IS the magic knight of Rayearth, the titular character, the beautiful perfect darling angel who has never done anything wrong in her life. She goes to an all girls’ school. She has three older brothers. Almost every girl in her school has a crush on her. She is oblivious as fuck. She grew up in a kendo dojo and beat her father in a match when she was in kindergarten and that’s why he’s not around. She has the biggest heart in the universe. I love her. I would beat gen urobuchi in a denny’s parking lot at 3am for her honor.
These three girls meet a magician, Guru Clef. This lil dude.
The rare “small boy who is actually a bajillion years old” trope before it was such an annoying trope to use on women characters, but he’s 700+ years old and the most powerful sorcerer in Cephiro. He gives the girls magic and armor, and tells them they were summoned by Princess Emeraude to save Cephiro.
How do they do that?
By talking to the chief Pharle (artisan, blacksmith, etc) of Cephiro named Presea to make them weapons. And oh yeah they have to use those weapons to revive the rune gods.
Y’know.
Big Giant Mechs.
Waking these bad boys up takes a lot for the girls and it’s really really good seeing how they go about it and what they're willing to do to accomplish it.
I’m not gonna spoil the story for you but I WILL go through some of the other characters.
You’ve got:
Princess Emeraude. The Pillar of Cephiro, imprisoned and kept from praying for Cephiro’s well being. She’s sweet, she’s heartbroken, she wants her world to be safe again.
Next to her you have the High Priest Zagato, her second, the antagonist who got the ball rolling on this whole thing. He’s gloomy, he’s serious, he’s methodical and looming.
I mentioned Presea, did I mention her already? She’s great. She’s feisty and loud and would be THE most amazing dom queen if she could ever find a sub willing to tolerate her.
She makes the weapons for the girls and also gives them a guide to find the rune gods.
Oh yeah their guide.
So like. Probably obvious by now but in case it’s not, this is an early 1990s CLAMP series. You know CLAMP. They did xxxholic and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles and Card Captor Sakura. Yeah, this series came before ALLLLLL of those.
You know that lil fuckin rabbit mascot they have?
That’s Mokona. He’s their guide. This is the series he originated from.
Mokona is an adorable caring little shit who knows exactly what he’s doing at all times. He helps them out but my god. The way he makes their blood pressure skyrocket on the journey there.
Then we’ve got Ferio. A traveling swordsman who enters tournaments. Unfortunately Fuu’s straight alignment. But he’s fine, he’s cute. He’s got like… a whole Thing about him that I won’t explain but know that he’s okay. He’s all right.
The latter three volumes expands their allies to some other people that I cannot spoil but please know: they’re gay. They are all gay. There’s no heterosexual explanation for any of them. You think "oh that's a straight couple". Wrong. They're all gay, even if they're straight. One of them is like. Holy shit I cannot express how obviously gay they are. This isn’t like. “Oh you’re reading too into it with your fandom eyes”, I mean this is like. Wow. You two had the worst ghosting breakup and should get back together because it was over something stupid.
There are a fair number of villains and only one of them is like. Pure Actual Evil and I won’t tell you which one it is but the rest are all VERY satisfying in their character stories and arcs and I love them all dearly. Got some hot magic ladies, got some nervous quiet men, and some awkward cute boys. The whole variety is there!
Aside from the great characters, the artwork is GORGEOUS.
I know in this day and age of 2023 digital art and speedy turnarounds of weekly manga releases, all the art is crisp and kinda minimal except for big scenes, and people like that.
But also consider: gorgeous detailed intricate illustrations.
And I still won’t spoil you for the story, but it will still surprise you I swear to you.
“Okay but isn’t there an anime? Can I just watch that instead?”
Look at me. I am holding your hands gently, and I am looking you in the eye as I pull you close and tell you: no.
You notice all the artwork I've shared is specifically manga art. The anime is. ……………………………………………… not great. It has its pros like padding out filler episodes so they can flesh out the girls’ friendship and some of the side characters. But in having to pad out a 6 volume manga to two 26 episode seasons, some Decisions Were Made that were not in the best interest of the series or its themes. And when I say that, I do mean the very core of some of who these characters are. Motivations and internal goals changed for no reason, added characters for padded run time, an entire character killed for no reason only for their (anime only) twin to dress up and pretend to be that character because the directors realized “oh shit that character is in the second half uhhhhh quick”. It’s not great and it’s just not a lot of fun.
All I’m saying is please please give this manga a read. It’s very quick, you can finish it in like. 3 days tops. It’s beautiful, it’s heartbreaking, it’s tragic and hopeful.
I’m gonna leave this with a link to read it online and some other characters I didn’t mention because I just think they’re neat.
YOUR ANNUAL REMINDER TO PLEASE READ MAGIC KNIGHT RAYEARTH
The new adaptation comes out next year (2026) and we just got a new teaser image which almost promises that it'll be the manga story and not a remake of the 1995 anime
In 2026, the chicest thing a gay actor can do is never explicitly come out as gay but also make it abundantly clear that he is. Coming out is too modern. Staying closeted is too old fashioned. But this method merges contemporary freedom with Old Hollywood glamour and allure, and it weeds out the dumbest people who truly don’t get it. I call it the Pascal Method.
You clearly don't go here or to queer history and signaling, or both, enough to have this conversation and I'm not going to explain it to you. You could have asked questions, you could have done even a modicum of research. You didn't and you made yourself look ignorant. Goodbye.
#I'm fucking crying#this is an instant classic#this is the next meme#i can't believe I'm here to see a baby copypasta nary two hours old#I can't#lol#i laughed way too hard#iconic
i hate it when you're heating something up in the microwave and it starts to go snap crackle pop so you take it out but it's still completely cold. shut up then??
I feel like I need to share this because idk if Europeans are familiar with the presence of Aldi in the US, but at least especially in my area they’ve been growing a lot recently. Like Aldi bought out some local failing grocery chains where I live (Louisiana) and have opened Aldis in all these somewhat rural communities and small towns, which for the record I’m fine with
But as a result of this they are advertising a lot more in my area and also in many cases, the people in these areas have never been confronted with Aldi or any European grocery store. So the ads that Aldi is pushing out to its new US customer base feature a cowboy shopping at Aldi who is explaining to new Aldi customers how Aldi works. Like this cowboy is explaining you gotta put a quarter in the shopping cart and why there are very little name brands. A cowboy is how they want to reach their American customer base. They gave us a cowboy
trans girls who reject and deny all compliments given to them: i understand, i really do. However. at a certain point you simply have to stop. you cannot hate yourself into a version of yourself that you love. and pushing away the love people try to give you only hurts you both. fake it till you make it, girl, the more you let people love you the more lovable you will begin to see yourself as.
some days you just have to lie really hard to yourself, lie straight through your teeth and say "i'm pretty" even if you don't believe it at all. and it's hard, but it's better then falling into a depression hole forever.
a cosplay photo so old it was taken on actual film (which explains the streaks from my scanner) and the con we were at doesn’t even exist anymore. it was around 13 years ago actually now that I think about it.
Thinking about one specific moment in this week's witch hat atelier episode has me feral. I'm gnawing on the bars of my cage I'm going to destroy my enclosure
#wha spoiler talks below the cut
The animation team has been absolutely using the medium to elevate the material where they can, especially with things like different POVs. They gave us 1/3 of this episode from Tartah's silverwash POV which I kind of expected.
What I did NOT expect was this shot right here:
mfers gave us a glimpse of Qifrey's bad vision POV. Are you kiDDING ME THEY DIDN'T EVEN HAVE TO. God. I'd always tried to envision what Qifrey's vision must be like given the manga doesn't show it, and my own vision is one of the very few things that works well. But seeing this, and then imagining the bright flash from the twin bottle spell. Trying to draw spells like this. Qifrey is not only dealing with so much but he's incredibly fucking skilled. jfc.
not interested in getting involved in the rest of this discussion, for the most part, but to me this is a GREAT piece of advice that many people these days don't seem to be getting or understanding.
not everyone you meet or interact with is your friend, the requirements and expectations for respectful behaviour between friends is not the same as between strangers.
my most toxic trait is i fucking love work gossip. i play neutral not to be the bigger person or take the high road but to hear slander and hearsay from every side. two coworkers complained about each other to me in the same afternoon and i nearly blacked out from the rush
If you ask me I don't want "good Christians" in government to counter the "bad Christians" I just want a separation of church and state like they promised us in third grade
i think we should be ridiculing them more for this. you don't get to try and go all "queer website" when your staff likes to go on nuking sprees targeting the trans fem users
