Who are the Magic Knights?
Three eighth-graders who met at Tokyo Tower and were handed a world.
Hikaru Shidou, Umi Ryuuzaki, and Fuu Hououji attend three different schools and meet once, on field trips to the Tokyo Tower, before the light takes them. In Cephiro each is given an element and a god: Hikaru fire, Umi water, Fuu wind. The manga’s character work runs on the mismatch between the girls they are and the office they have been summoned into: legendary knights, aged fourteen.
CLAMP drew their names, like most of the cast’s, from car names, judging them easier for young readers to remember than invented fantasy syllables. The habit extends across Cephiro and into the anime’s additions: the anime-only Nova is named for the Chevrolet Nova.
THE THREE
Fire · Water · WindHikaru Shidou · Fire
Tomboyish, headstrong, and small enough to be teased for it. Hikaru’s god is Rayearth, the fire wolf whose name titles the work. She is the story’s center of gravity: the one who loves Cephiro most, and the one the Pillar system finally offers its crown.
Umi Ryuuzaki · Water
Quick-tempered, no-nonsense, an only child unaccustomed to being asked to share a destiny. Her god is Selece, the great blue dragon of the sea. Umi is the skeptic of the three, which makes her the reader’s instrument for measuring how strange Cephiro really is.
Fuu Hououji · Wind
Intelligent, ladylike, and quietly the most stubborn of the three. Her god is Windam, the four-winged bird of the sky. Fuu’s courtesy is a weapon the series takes seriously: she is the diplomat of a party that has to talk to three invading nations.
THE OFFICE
What a Magic Knight isSummoned, not chosen at home
The Magic Knights are a Cephiran legend: when the Pillar falters, knights from another world are called, because the one thing they must be able to do is the one thing no one in Cephiro can. The legend is the trap. Its terms are the whole plot.
Three weapons, three tempers
In the manga and anime the Knights fight with color-matched swords grown from the mineral of their quest. The Saturn game deals them out differently (sword, foil, and bow) to make its tag-team combat read at a glance, the only version that arms them as a party rather than a trio of duelists.