How can you tell a first printing of Rayearth?

By the numbers: six ISBNs in Japan, and a reading direction in America.

Rayearth is a kind series to authenticate, because its original editions are few and exactly documented. In Japan there is one first edition to look for: Kodansha’s Nakayoshi tankōbon of 1994 to 1996, six volumes whose release dates and ISBNs are a matter of record, listed in full in the manga gallery. A Japanese set matching that table is the first edition; anything else is a reprint or a different edition, however similar the covers.

In English the tell is physical. Tokyopop’s first collected edition (1999–2001) is flipped: it reads left-to-right, and its second series is numbered as volumes 4 to 6. The 2003–04 re-release reads right-to-left and restores the numbering. Reading direction and the spine number identify an American Rayearth faster than any other mark on the book.

THE JAPANESE RECORD

Kodansha · 1994 to 1996

Part I

Volume 1: July 22, 1994 · 4-06-334642-0. Volume 2: November 22, 1994 · 4-06-334643-9. Volume 3: March 6, 1995 · 4-06-334644-7. Consecutive ISBNs, one imprint, ten months apart in the middle: the cleanest first-edition run CLAMP ever had.

Part II

Volume 1: July 26, 1995 · 4-06-334659-5. Volume 2: December 18, 1995 · 4-06-334660-9. Volume 3: April 23, 1996 · 4-06-334661-7. Note the numbering restarts: genuine Part II volumes call themselves 1 to 3.

The numbering trap

Any English Rayearth labeled volume 4, 5, or 6 is Tokyopop’s first edition, which ran the numbering through both series. No Japanese volume above 3 exists in either part. A “volume 6” is American, flipped, and dates from 2001.

THE ENGLISH RECORD

1999 to today

Flipped first edition

Tokyopop, 1999 to 2001, reading left-to-right. Volume 1’s first-edition ISBN is 978-1-892213-00-6; the unflipped re-release of the same book carries 1-59182-082-0 and a 2003 date. Two ISBNs, two orientations, one translation era: check all three marks.

Dark Horse omnibus

Two volumes, July 6, 2011 and April 12, 2012, each gathering a whole series. Nothing else in English looks like them; the omnibus is identified by format alone.

Kodansha editions

The twenty-fifth-anniversary hardcovers arrive in two box sets of three (2019–2020); the standard paperback begins December 12, 2023. Hardcover plus slipcase is always the anniversary edition.

THE GAME, BRIEFLY

A collecting footnote

Three discs

The North American Saturn game was printed with three different disc designs, one per Magic Knight. A loose single disc is one third of the full object; the variant set is the collected form.

How can you tell a first printing of Rayearth?

THE JAPANESE RECORD

THE ENGLISH RECORD

THE GAME, BRIEFLY

THE FIRST WORD