Magic Knight Rayearth

Episode 5

When I watched the 90s anime 50 years ago (I'm the best at math, I know, thank you), I don't remember feeling strongly about Fuu one way or the other. She was, you know, "The Smart One." "The Glasses One." "The Green One." I don't remember thinking of her as the comic relief. Maybe I was too young, and a lot of her quirkiness and charm went over my head? Maybe I was too distracted by how cool I thought Hikaru was (and still is)? Or maybe (probably) a little bit of column A and column B. Either way, I've gotten hints of this in previous episodes, but this is the one that affirmed it for me: I think I'm becoming a Fuu truther. She has a really dry sense of humor that stands out and works really well in a series as fantastical as this one; she seems to have a good head on her shoulders, and her most loved/cherished person is herself. Even Fuu knows that Fuu is the best character here. Queen.

Seriously, take a moment to appreciate how equal parts funny and cool it is that, when the girls were each fighting the illusory versions of their most loved people—or dogs, in Hikaru's case—for Fuu, it was herself. Self-love is, indeed, the greatest love of all. Shout out to Fuu for realizing that at such a young age. The little details make her pop even more to me this time around. She's fantastic.

And speaking of little details—or rather, just details because there's nothing little about this—in that scene. Can we just take a moment to acknowledge the Dorito-shaped elephant in the room? Because I had to pause the episode when this happened just to pop off, and you're stuck in here with me, not the other way around:

Umi's father's shoulders are so wide. Like, really, really wide. You could land a plane on those bad boys. They're just so unrealistically, unnecessarily, aggressively, and yet beautifully wide. His wife's entire torso makes up one shoulder. You could put two of her side-by-side for the width of this man who's on screen for maybe a non-consecutive minute and a half total. The Dorito skull on a Dorito body—the Double Dorito, if you will—is a quintessential CLAMP character design classic, and I love it so much. His hand taking up his wife's entire shoulder is just icing on the extremely wide cake. I'm just so glad this new anime didn't nerf his shoulders. We're so back. I could sob tears of joy; we're so very back.

The CLAMP-yness of it all was also present in the scene where we saw the girls finally explain their situation to Ferio, too. As of right now, he's got an air of mystery about him, and it's pretty obvious that there's more to him than what meets the eye, and that we'll be seeing him considerably more as the series continues. And there's already a lot of intrigue there—he knows Emeraude and is clearly a skilled swordsman. If he really does seek to win Fuu's heart, he'll make a worthy competitor for her attention and affection.

Things are moving along at a pretty quick pace, but in a way that I welcome for the time being. This is, after all, admittedly a series with a decent amount of setup, so this quicker pacing is actually helping it along. And that says something, because I don't exactly associate CLAMP with fast-paced introductions—they have a few series that hit the ground running, but generally speaking, they take their time easing the audience into the thick of their stories. Even so, the intro to MKR, even if it's not as exciting as what's to come, still has its charms. But now that the girls finally have their weapons, we should all be looking forward to seeing what happens next.

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Magic Knight Rayearth is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.