I loved the first season of Magic Knight Rayearth. I loved the goofy, entertaining fun that it provided. Magic Knight Rayearth 2, is a complete 180 of Magic Knight Rayearth. MKR2 is dark, scary, and not as lighthearted or as fun as the first season. MKR2 consists of season 2 and season 3. They were grouped together, basically because, the second part of the story could not all be fit into one season.

MKR2 is a political struggle between the countries of Cephiro and the other countries that exist in that world. SPOILER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now that Cephiro no longer has a pillar, other countries want to invade Cephiro for their own reasons. One wants land for their small country, while another wants to acquire the pillar system to fix the problems in their own country. END OF SPOILER!!! Among other invading countries rises a new evil called Lady Debonair, that was created from the fears of the citizens of Cephiro. Hikaru must also confront her other self, Nova, that was born because of the hate and doubt inside Hikaru.

The story, is much better than the first season. It’s more creative and has more conflicts. It’s highly original. Of course, the first season was needed to set the course for the second season. I did like the plot very much. However, a lot of the story tended to drag at parts, becoming too slow and redundant. As the whole story usually is the girls getting in their mechs, fighting off a country. Repeat. Granted, once the redundant battles are over, we do get some nice plot points. I liked finding out why each person was invading Cephiro, which gave the “bad guys” some nice depth. I also liked the Hikaru/Nova conflict. It was actually quite creative. Lady Debonair seemed very much tacked on to the show, just so they could have one main bad guy. She has no depth at all and is a very cheesy bad guy. The end, while completely predicatable, was still satisfying and after the show was over, I was so sad, because my first and favorite anime series, had come to an end. ::sigh::

As usual, character development is excellent. We gain further insight into the personalities of Umi, Hikaru and Fuu, as well as the characters from the invading countries, who have significant backround and depth to them. The only character who wasn’t developed was definitely Lady Debonair. One problem I did have with character interactions was that each character, I mean EVERY character in the show fell in love. I couldn’t help but feel that each character was created just to have another character be able to have a romantic relationship. For example, the love between Lafarga and Caldina seems to be very unjustified.

The music is well, ummmm crappy. Well, not all of it. The opening for the second season is one of the worst songs I have ever heard in my whole life. The third season opening song is excellent and very pretty. It’s not as good as the first opening but it’s close. Again the battle music is the same and can get a little redundant after a while do to overuse. I do like the theme music for each country. Chizeta, the arab influenced country, has a very cool, very unique Egyptian feel, for example.

The art remains the same as the first season, except that the beautiful backgrounds are dropped now, because Cephiro is now in complete chaos. The art is a little old, so it looks a bit drab compared to newer stuff. The animation can be a bit hokey at times. For example, characters look really dumb when they shake their heads. The darkness now covers the world of cephiro and every thing feels very dark. The Super deformed characters are barely used, now that MKR has taken a turn for the serious. The character designs are excellent and I love the suits that the Magic Knights wear. They’re creative!

Unfortunetly, the setting and beautiful world of Cephiro that attracted me to MKR in the first place is no longer in the second half of MKR, which is too bad. Also, a lot of the lighthearted silly fun is gone too, which is also a shame, because that is something I really liked from the first season. I felt like something was missing from the second half of MKR. It’s got a better story and some cool conflicts, and I did enjoy the second half of the show very much. It’s just not as fun as the first season, but ultimately, it’s an excellent conclusion to Magic Knight Rayearth.