For a nearly decade-old manga that the overwhelming majority of visitors will never read. And if I'm being that considerate about Magic Knight Rayearth, I'm sure you'll extend the same courtesy until after I've seen Matrix Revolutions, yes?
First, a spoiler-free synopsis:
The story begins when three junior high school girls—Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu—are mysteriously summoned from Tokyo into another world called Cephiro. They find out that they were summoned to rescue a princess from the evil priest, and that they can't go back to Tokyo. So they set out to fulfill this mission. They learn magic. They get the cool weapons. They get the mecha. And they rescue the princess... although it's hardly a "rescue" in the normal sense. They return to Tokyo with much regret.
The book's by CLAMP (and I just noticed a week or so back that Viz is back to publishing X:1999 here in the states, and I'm several books behind. Well, there goes a couple days' salary. . .), and I trust them implicitly.
What that bizarre statement means in this context is, if they put out a book that seems to be following a standard, predictable clichéd storyline, I'm going to stay with it, because I know their work well enough to understand that they're just laying the groundwork.
Or rather, the carpet.
The one they're going to yank out from under the reader at some point.
This is also why I'm sticking with Angel for a while longer. I also trust Joss.
And I liked The Tick. The comic and the 'toon, at least. Never saw the live-action version, because I have the memory of a goldfish, and never remembered to watch it.
So what does all this have to do with Rayearth?
Again, spoilers ahead.
Notice how "rescue" is in quotes in that synopsis?
That's because the girls weren't transported to Cephiro to rescue the princess.
And I don't think a total role reversal would have worked as well -- girls saving a prince, that is. Too obvious, and yes, this is just giving you more space to avoid reading the next bit and ruining the twist ending.
As I was saying, the girls weren't transported to Cephiro to rescue the princess.
They were brought there to kill her.
Brought there by the princess herself for that reason.
The characters, and the reader, found this out at the very, very end. The end of what was up until that point a well-written, beautifully-illustrated but pretty standard fantasy tale. So this little twist. . . well, I think I either yelled "FUCK" at the top of my lungs, or just stared at the page and said, very quietly, ". . . fuck." Volume level notwithstanding, that was the reaction.
However, I tell a lie. This was the end of part one of the series. I still haven't read part 2; bought the Japanese versions at The Mall Formerly Known As Yaohan years back, but never printed out the translations so I could actually understand the thing(s).
So don't spoil those for me.
Want to know more? Browse links at the Magic Knight Rayearth page at the new-redesign-to-me-but-I-rarely-visit Anime Web Turnpike.
Seriously, even if I did just ruin the ending for you, it's a gorgeous book. All CLAMP's work is, really.
Update: links added here and there, including one that explains why I mentioned The Tick, if you bother clicking the thing.
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