New Appreciation

Having known Magic Knight Rayearth for such a long time, I still never tire of rereading it even though I know it by heart by now. Imagine my surprise when I learned new things as I worked on this shrine, and found myself rethinking my opinion on some characters! I think this is something interesting enough to share, or at the least to record for myself.

First things first: I consider Ferio one of CLAMP’s most handsome male characters (eternally bitter that he doesn’t appear as often in later official art and does not seem as prominent in CLAMP’s bishie fandom). While browsing information for this shrine, I found out that his entire character design is based on something as simple as CLAMP owning a green Ferio at the time of MKR’s creation (in case you didn’t know, most MKR characters are named after cars), which also happened to have a scratch, thus the hair colour and scar. What.

More importantly, though I like all of MKR’s characters (with Clef having a special spot in my heart and Presea and Primera’s character designs being my favourite), two of them stand out to me more so than before since working on this shrine. The first one is Tatra. As her official profile says, there’s more to her than she usually lets on with her silly mannerism; when she isn’t teasing her sister or having tea, she’s very impressive: When Eagle forces his way through the paths of light created by Faleng and Chizetha’s representatives to make them retreat, she lasts longer than her sister; when Eagle questions the other invaders’ motives, she is the only one to question him in return, displaying once more how much she knows of the lands surrounding her own. Towards her sister, she is wise, supportive, insightful and benevolent, and it would appear that she figures out much sooner than other characters that Eagle’s determination stems from the fact that he is dying (in a manner of speaking), making her a very perceptive person.

The second character is Eagle. In all honesty, when I first read MKR, Eagle annoyed me. I didn’t like the persistent smile on his face, interpreting it as mockery, and didn’t like how he forced the other invaders, all of which are female, into submission. I thought him arrogant and infuriatingly secretive, when in fact, he’s an immensely gentle person driven by love and desperation. He may be determined, but he’s not actually impolite or inconsiderate: A very cute scene is when Aska tells him she wants to make Cephiro a land of sweets (what a silly idea!), to which he responds that it’s a very nice vision to have.

The strongest heart, the strongest will.

Similarly, I couldn’t get myself to like Lantis back then, and didn’t see the love between Lantis and Eagle (a relationship mostly conveyed in flashbacks and reactions, rather than confrontations in the present), or the strong connection between Eagle and Hikaru, and even rejected the feelings between Lantis and Hikaru – despite loving the fact that there’s a polyamorous relationship! (I think 90% of it was pettiness because CLAMP was in their stage of huge broad-shouldered men, which Lantis falls under and which is not my aesthetic. 8D) Now, Eagle is among my favourite characters in MKR, as is the tender relationship between Eagle and Lantis, and the trio as a whole. As I’m writing this, I want to reread the Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle arc where Eagle makes an appearance!

In fact, moments shared between Eagle and Lantis as well as Eagle and Hikaru are some of the most tender and most touching scenes in the series…

But I… I don’t want Lantis to die. The sky above Cephiro that I have always longed for, and the person whose eyes share the same colour… I don’t want that person to die. … So I ignore his wish. I will become Cephiro’s Pillar for my own wish. (Eagle)

￩ Notes Translation ￫