Magic Knight Rayearth is my favorite Clamp manga, ever. It was also the first Clamp manga I ever read. I actually found out about it when in Tokyopop's Sailor Moon volumes, Mina lent a copy to Bunny. I had spotted it in my library and decided to check it out. I suddenly realized that this was by the same group that did Cardcaptors (keep in mind I first read the comic almost 11 years ago) and was immediately intrigued. After reading the series, even though quite short (it was only 6 volumes) it managed to create an amazing world with endearing characters and a wonderful story. I loved Hikaru so much, that she was the inspiration for the look (and some of the behavior) of Hana, the little Miko girl from Cardcaptor Torika. Years after reading the manga, I also owned and watched the 2 season anime that was adapted from it. Now that I've gotten the Omnibus from Dark Horse, I've decided to look back and talk about the differences between the anime and the manga, and the five changes I absolutely hated. If you've neither read the manga or seen the anime, bear in mind I'm going to totally spoil the series. You've been warned.

Follow up:

5. Presea's Death
In the anime, after getting the legendary element Escudo, the Magic Knights face off against Ascot while Presea is in a race against time to create the evolving weapons the Knights desperately need. The girls beat Ascot, but an injury and the strain of the ritual cause Presea's life to ebb away, and she dies in Hikaru's arms. What about the beautiful, touching scene could I possibly hate? The fact in the manga she doesn't actually die. She's exhausted after the ritual, but she's just fine, leaving the Knights to go find the Mashin and praying to Emeraude that they will succeed in their quest. What makes this especially stupid is that she shows up in Magic Knight Rayearth 2 in order to act as an additional guide. They make up for this in the anime by giving her an identical twin, which cheapens a death that never even shouldn't have happened to begin with.

4. Alycione's Survival
While Presea bites it when she shouldn't have, Alycione, the second most annoying character in the series, survives waaay longer in the anime than she does in the manga. In the manga, after her second defeat, Zagato destroys her as punishment, in the anime, she survives long past Zagato and becomes a minion of Debonair, not dying until she has a change of heart and finally decides to be a good guy. What annoys me the most about this is the fact that she's Zagato's least interesting minion. While his other workers have interesting and specific reasons for their alliance, Alycione's is the most generic. She's a disciple of Clef that abandons her master and takes the bad guy's side because she 'loves him'. Another generic female bad guy who sacrifices her world and her friends for her 'man'. It's a cliche, and one that wasn't well handled. So to have her survive in the anime so long, with very little development, it became a drag to see her onscreen. Especially, since they killed off a more interesting character instead.

3. Changing Umi's Romance
Umi is a fun character, on one hand she's a spoiled, sarcastic brat, but on the other she's a deeply caring and strong young woman. One of her best moments was her battle with the Monster Keeper Ascot. What started as a battle between two seemingly bratty and childish people became a battle of wills to protect one's set of dear friends. Umi reaching out to Ascot affected him so much that he fell in love with her, and became an adult just to be with her. When Umi returned to Cephiro, the clear changes in both of them lead to a sweet and tender romance, both unsure how to really react to their new selves. In the anime, this is completely cut out. While Ascot still loves Umi, she rejects him because they decide to pair her with...Clef. Don't get me wrong, Guru Clef is my favorite male character from the series, but their dynamic was much more of a slapstick comedy, like the common bad boy trope where the son constantly fights with the father, rather than a constantly-fighting-but-actually-deeply-care-about-each-other old-married-couple style romance. Umi constantly berated the tiny sorcerer, and he showed no sign of any feelings towards her besides concern as their mentor. In fact, in the very ending, Umi didn't even confess her feelings towards him, making theirs the only unresolved romance in the Anime.

2. Eagle's Death
Once again, the anime killed a character that survived throughout the manga, though the way they killed him sorta screwed over the plot. Eagle Vision was the prince of Autozam, a futuristic country who had come to Cephiro to become the new Pillar. He was also gravely ill. Instead of the sleeping sickness that would leave him comatose that he had in the manga, he was given a condition similar to tuberculosis, or some kind of lung cancer. This totally changed his reasons for becoming the Pillar, as well as changed the final battle. Instead of facing Hikaru for the title of Pillar, they come to a kind of compromise over the position and instead, Eagle is killed in battle. While his death itself isn't out of character, or even jarring like Presea's death, it diverts the important purpose of coming back to Cephiro to begin with (stabilizing the country so it can be reborn) and focuses on the battle with the big-bad, Debonair.

1. They changed the freaking ending!
It is very common for endings of series to change while the manga is still being produced, the ending used for Magic Knight Rayearth changes a brilliant story into a cliche. In the manga, during the final battle to become Pillar, Hikaru and Eagle face off and Hikaru confesses her desire to stop everyone's pain and wants Cephiro to become a happy land again, especially after she was the one who had to kill the previous Pillar. Her heart and her pain cause the powers of the Pillar to come to her, and as Pillar she changes the world, to give everyone the power to change their world so that the responsibility doesn't fall on the heart of one person. This way, Emeraude's sorrow would never be repeated. With this change Mokona reveals itself to be the creator of all worlds (AKA God) explains he created Cephiro as a way to avoid the horrors of freewill that occurred on Earth, but believes Hikaru's sacrifice won't allow the same things to happen in Cephiro. He takes the Mashin to another world, and the girls are left with the power to come to Cephiro whenever they want and be with their loved ones. In the anime, however, 99% of that is gone. Hikaru becomes the Pillar, and gives people freewill, but Mokona is never explained and once they leave Cephiro they never get to come back, leaving the people the love behind forever. This is a huge change, and it's a cliche for the girl to always come back to her world after saving another. Fushigi Yugi did this, Munto did this, the first season of Sailor Moon did this, Escaflowne did this. It's always depressing, and often very unnecessary.

This said there are a lot of things about the anime I did like. The first season (outside of the Presea thing) is very faithful to manga. Debonair and Nova are really interesting characters. But still, the manga is much, much better.