What is the Rayearth OVA?
A 1997 retelling that keeps the cast and replaces nearly everything else.
Two years after the television series ended, TMS released Rayearth in three parts, on July 25, September 26, and December 10, 1997. Each part runs about forty-five minutes, directed by Toshihiro Hirano, written by Manabu Nakamura, with music by Toshihiko Sahashi. Where the original is shelved as an adventure, the OVA is catalogued as what it is: a dark fantasy.
The premise inverts the original. Nobody falls into Cephiro. Cephiro comes to Tokyo: the three girls, here classmates about to graduate and separate, watch monsters and sorcerers begin appearing in their own city, and are called to defend their world instead of someone else’s.
A DIFFERENT STORY
Same names, new loyaltiesThe invasion of Earth
Cephiro is dying, and its sorcerers cross into the human world to fulfill Princess Emeraude’s wishes. The girls awaken their gods on home ground, facing trial counterparts drawn from the original cast: Alcyone, Ascot, and Ferio stand on the other side this time.
Eagle, the hidden hand
The OVA’s engine is Emeraude’s younger brother, Eagle, who has manipulated everything: he drove Zagato to sacrifice himself, holds Emeraude in a spell-bound fantasy that Zagato still lives, and engineered the invasion to end in mutual destruction. Lantis, Zagato’s brother, fights beside the Knights against him.
An ending about parting
Freed from the spell, Emeraude forgives Eagle and takes him home; Tokyo is restored. What remains is the frame the OVA opened with: the girls graduate and go their separate ways, and Mokona stays behind. The series about not being able to go home becomes a story about having to leave it.
THE RELEASE
1997 · Japan and North AmericaThe production
The OVA was made at TMS-Kyokuichi, with the television series’ director returning. Its theme song, “All You Need Is Love,” is again Naomi Tamura, the voice of the original’s most famous opening.
The English version
Manga Entertainment licensed the OVA in North America and dubbed it in New York with a different cast from the television series, through Skypilot Entertainment: an entirely separate English performance of the same characters.
The renamings
The OVA tidies its gods for a new continuity: Hikaru’s fire god, Rayearth in every other version, is renamed Lexus, and the combined form that CLAMP never named is here called Rayearth instead.