Along the way they meet good and bad people, gain wondrous powers and learn more about their place in the legend that they are taking part in. In the first OVA, the three are friends that will soon be breaking up and leaving their school for various reasons. Under the limbs of a cherry blossom tree, the three promise to always be together no matter what. On the walk home, they are confronted with a world that suddenly disappears around them. The Priest Cleff is the cause and he seems to be connected to the small white creature named Mokona that Hikaru and the others see. They also appear to be the only ones that can see it. As the villainous Alcione and her cat-like familiar show up, Hikaru gains tremendous power through a gem that is implanted in her wrist by Mokona, summons up a huge fire spirit mech to fight Alcione with, and ends up trying to save everyone by herself. Confused yet? So was I. Being a fan of the RAYEARTH series when It was on TV, I was sort of torn on the changes in the OVAs I had seen in other reviews and articles. So, I intrepidly stepped forward and put Volume 1 in my VCR and awaited the magic to unfold that was sure to be inside. Boy I couldn't have been more wrong if I tried. Lets start with the basics shall we? The first thing that jumped out at me (literally) was the really bad CG title sequence screen that was obviously hastily put together by the people at Manga. We see Cleff standing upon the heights of Tokyo tower, and also notice that he seems to have grown from a mere three feet high in the TV series to a full SIX FEET! It wasn't because he's older...he's was 600 years old in the TV show, they just wanted...well, more Cleff I guess. Hikaru being a Gymnast I could deal with (she was a kendo student in the TV series) but her classmates corny dialogue I couldn't. Phrases including "You have , Like, the best style!" were so valley girl initiated, I was reaching for the bucket I use when I'm ill. Heap upon this the poor voice acting in the Dub and you have a recipe for disaster. I found myself longing for the original character designs, and the original voice actors even more. However,oddly enough, Mokonas incessant "Buu Buuuu!" sounds remained unchanged. Guess you don't need to Dub inarticulate sounds.The script must have been written in the hopes that three year olds would be buying this video with their hard earned allowance, because the writing wasn't made for the more intelligent crowd to be sure. In a sequence that's destined to live on in my nightmares, the three girls tell Cleff their names. Well, at least they TRY to pronounce Hikaru right. Which is more than I can say for the mangling of the other twos names.I cringed, physically. As well on this note was the mispronunciation of a host of other names, like Alcione's, which the voice actors must have thought had a silent E after it. She also had a funny doubled up echo with a male sound undertoning her conversations, but that was just odd to hear. The voice actors obviously tried to sync their words up with the lip movements of the characters, but due to some pauses that may have been OK with the original Japanese, it ends up coming out choppy and halting. And emotion was lacking on more than one anguished (or supposedly) scream. The decent music saved me on more than one occasion, but the cheesy dialogue forced me back into reality fast. Needless to say, Vol. 1 didnt have a great climax either. It ends most like you would think it does ("Don't worry, she's not REALLY dead!"). I sadly put in Vol. 2 expecting my favorite character Umi to help take away the pain, since she's on the cover of the tape and the first one focused on Hikaru who was on that cover, much like the Manga did. More of the same greeted me. Canned conversations, little emotion and bad animation quality for what I expected to be a big budget series was what I got. The gorgeous photorealistic backgrounds were great, but the cells moving on top sometimes clashed, they were that good. The audio supervisor needed to wake up (if they even had one) because this volumes dubbing was so low in some spots the music totally eclipsed it. This made hard to listen to voices even harder to listen to. I ironically found myself scanning the bottom of the screens "For screening purposes only" text that occasionally flashed up on in a gut response for something to read. I guess being used to subtitles will do that to you. And aside form a suprising demise for Alcione at the near end of the volume (my apologies if I ruin it for some) it was more of the same, like volume 1. Now I'm not sure if its me being so jaded, or just not getting into this particular anime, but I found myself not liking it at all. All things considered, perhaps its my late night cynicism, perhaps its the fact that I've been spoiled, But give me the TV series any day. The OVA for its pretty (if occasional) spots of good animation, just can't hold a candle to the drama and engaging plotline of CLAMPs original story from the Manga, and slightly later TV series. Oh, and in case you're wondering, I couldn't even bring myself to watch Volume 3 | 
