Rayearth

I'm sincerely surprised that the rating for this is above a 2 or a 3. It's horrendous. The art is terrible, they "sexed up" the teenage girls and stripped them nude in one scene, the plotline makes as little sense as I've ever witnessed in any film or series ever, and all the character interactions are unnecessarily different and confusing. Whereas the Utena movie, while a very weird and surreal retelling of the original series, actually added something to the experience by being at least coherent, and having an ending that in an interesting way enhanced and explained the original ending... This does the opposite. It'sa complete bastardization of the original, wonderfully done series, no doubt as a cash grab with zero attention to care for the characters or the world they inhabit. I want my couple hours and money back for having ever wasted my time on this.

There are some parts of this OVA that are serviceable, and other parts that are just really terrible. The art is nice (and more modern than the original series) and the sound is solid. The first of the three episodes is actually pretty good as a start. If you don't know much about the original series or are open to a new take, the premise (at least the beginning) is pretty interesting. The show is definitely more grim and dark, in my opinion the result of it being made in a post-Evangelion world. It has the hallmarks of a lotof late 90s/early 00s shows (which...admittedly was a lot of my early exposure to anime, so I may be biased) where everything is super edgy and some of the writing is still questionable. It does feel different from the decidedly 80s/early 90s original series, which is more sparsely written but earnest and bright. Still, if you're willing to look at a darker alternate take, in some ways this reminds me of the Escaflowne movie, which I actually really liked. However. It becomes pretty clear by mid-way through episode 2 that there's not a very clear direction. The storyline seems to completely unravel and all attempts to round it out at the end of episode 3 feel hasty and illogical. The show goes to great lengths to not explain anything until the very end, at which point a bunch of seemingly random plot points are just tossed at the wall to see what sticks. The original's writing isn't amazing (particularly season 2), but at least there's a consistent storyline and a few characters have arcs, whereas in RayEarth none of that really happens. Some of this is because the character development is pretty bad. Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu have similar personalities to the original, where the development also tends to be somewhat thin, but here their characters don't really get any progress, other than shouting some slogans toward the end. The Cephirans are somehow even less fleshed out than the original, and almost none of their actions really fit together in a logical way. Eagle, who was the best character of the previous show, is made into a generic (and badly developed) villain. Overall, no one seems to have strong motivations, and the show struggles to tie the main existing motivations (the main girls' desire to be/stay friends) with any of the fantasy elements or their views on their powers. If I had to pick a representation of how this show felt to me, it would be "wut". I spent the latter two episodes confused, and every story choice past episode one just felt more and more random. They try to establish a slight magic system, but it falls apart quickly and fails to explain a lot of other things that happen later. I'm not sure why the girls were naked in the suits either - this seemingly had to do with common tropes in mecha anime at the time? Either way, there were definitely a couple uncomfortable and confusing scenes with the girls in weirdly porn-like poses. The final ending doesn't even really round things out - stuff just happens suddenly with no explanation. -- That being said, I'm willing to not rate it as complete trash, as the visuals and audio weren't bad for the time period, and I did have fun watching it with my wife in that "bad movie night" sort of way to round out our MKR experience. Would not recommend watching it seriously unless you deeply and unironically love grimdark millenial anime. Watch Escaflowne the movie instead for a decent dark AU version of a mecha fantasy.

Oh gosh where to even begin with this thing. It is not bad as far as Super Robot Horror anime go, but this is not Rayearth. It is not even an Isekai like every other version of Rayearth is. This all takes place in the city that the characters grew up in. So, what is Rayearth OVA? Well let us start with what it is not. This is not a faithful adaption of the Rayearth manga in any regard, this is basically a fanfic-y alternate universe that involves some of the characters. The reason that this was made is because Hirano (he also was the directorof the Rayearth TV anime which was slightly more faithful until season 2 when it also goes into its own separate place from the manga), basically, this Hirano director guy, he got asked by Clamp to not spoil the manga, they gave him permission to do what he wanted. So basically this Rayearth OVA is more of an Body Horror and Super Robot horror thriller, it takes a lot of influence from an old 1984 anime Fight Iczer One, which is by the same director. Director Hirano has made jokes in interviews literally saying "If you watch Iczer One, you will see that (my original characters from Rayearth) are from Iczer One" (I paraphrased a bit there, cause I feel like it would be spoilers to tell you which original characters that Hirano San invented in his Rayearth anime-verse. Anyyyyyway. Lol, so yeah, Hirano san he is pretty open with the fact that his Rayearth season 2, and his Rayearth OVA, are just him having fun putting the Rayearth characters in a reboot of his old Fight Iczer One anime. Long story short... Rayearth really needed a manga accurate reboot, so thank goodness we are getting one. Hopefully that remake is good and doesn't use CGi for the mecha... Pls I pray. Anyway Rayearth OVA, it has great designs and animation (Thanks to the husband and wife duo who founded Studio Gimik, having also worked on this Rayearth OVA). But this is not really Rayearth this is just Hirano san's fanfiction. But honestly bless this man. Did I mention that Hirano literally animated the old 1982 Macross theme song animation? And he animated many of the best parts of Daicon IV, the first animation ever by Studio Gainax. So yeah Hirano san, you are cool dude, you can do whatever you want with Rayearth. though this wasn't great