Manga Review: Magic Knight Rayearth II Vol. 1

                                         Magic Knight Rayearth II Vol. 1Review

The second half of the Magic Knight Rayearth series starts off with Hikaru, Umi and Fuu having a hard time dealing with what they had to at the end of the first series so the three girls meet up at Tokyo Tower and are brought back to Cefiro. Once the girls return to Cefiro they are told by Presea, Clef and Ferio(who the learn is a prince) that the world is falling apart without a pillar the girls feel that they are responsible since they were forced to kill Princess Emeraude even though no one blames them for doing what they had to do. The girls soon learn that people from other worlds are coming to Cefiro in order to become the new pillar and take over the Cefiro the girls decide that they want to fight to defend Cefiro.

The girls fight in their mashins against Eagle of Autozam in his FTO which is a giant mecha much like the girls mashins it seemed like the girls would loose the fight until a man named Lantis comes into the middle of the fight and puts a stop to it. After the fight the girls meet up with Caldina, Rafaga, and Ascot who have all seen the errors of their ways with the help of Hikaru, Umi and Fuu from the battles they had with them in the first half of the series and are now friends. Also Ascot has aged himself quite a few years because he has a crush on Umi but she's completely oblivious to this despite the fact that he's pretty obvious about it. After this the girls are told that Lantis is Zagato's brother and that he had been away in Autozam for quite sometime prior to Princess Emeraude's death.

That night when Umi can't sleep she goes and talks to Clef about how she's sorry that when she first arrived that all she cared about was getting back home and that she didn't really grasp how serious the situation was. Clef assures Umi that her reaction was normal and that there's nothing for her to be sorry about but he feels like he should apologize for keeping the truth from her and  not helping her but Umi assures him that he did help them with giving them Mokana for guidance. Also that night Fuu also can't sleep and ends up talking to Ferio she apologizes for not trusting him when they first met but he tells her it was fine since she was just trying to stay alive. Ferio then gives Fuu back the ring that he gave her in the first half of the series after Fuu mentioned that she looked for it when she got back to her world, she was very embarrassed when she said this and also very cute, Ferio mentions that he wants Fuu to have it since his sister told him to give it to someone special. Their interactions are very sweet and I love these two just as much as I did in the first half of the series. Hikaru also wakes up that night and she ends up apologizing to Lantis about the part she played in his brothers death and even offers to let him hit her if he wouldn't hurt Umi and Fuu. But Lantis doesn't feel any need to punish any of the girls and tells Hikaru he doesn't blame them but Cefiro.

People from the worlds of Fahren and Cizeta are also coming to Cefiro in hopes of becoming Cefiro's new pillar. By the end of the volume the girls learn that the way Cefiro chooses it's pillar is by that person being able to find a certain path that will lead to a test they must take. I overall loved this volume and I still love the beautiful art work as well. Please tell me your thoughts on this volume.