Magic Knight Rayearth's remake adds four villains

CLAMP's magic knights are getting a longer runway than anyone expected. The remake's second main trailer, published on the production's own site on 20 September, confirms that the series runs for two consecutive cours - a full half-year - when it starts on 7 October at 23:45 JST in TV Asahi's IMAnimation W slot. The same trailer reveals both theme songs and introduces the enemies the three knights will be fighting for the rest of the year.

Four villains join the fight

Mamiko Noto voices the sorceress Alcyone, Ayumu Murase plays the summoner Ascot, Hitomi Ueda is Caldina and Hiroki Yasumoto takes Lafarga. All four serve Zagato, the priest who imprisoned Princess Emeraude and ordered the knights wiped out. The character pages published with the announcement give each of them a speciality: Alcyone works magic, Ascot calls up monsters he treats as friends, Caldina fights with illusion and a Kansai drawl, and Lafarga was Emeraude's own guard captain before Zagato's spell turned him.

The leads return unchanged: Ayane Sakura as Hikaru, Rumi Okubo as Umi and Rie Takahashi as Fuu, with Saori Hayami, Yuki Ono, Mika Kikuchi, Yuki Kaji, Emiri Kato and Yoshitsugu Matsuoka back around them. Yui Miura directs, Shigeru Murakoshi writes the series, Satomi Watabe designs the characters, and Yuki Kajiura, Takumi Ozawa and Shiho Terada share the score. E&H production animates, with TMS Entertainment, Kodansha and TV Asahi producing.

What a half-year order really means

Two cours instead of one is the headline, because it changes what the adaptation can attempt. The manga ran for three years in Nakayoshi and the last Rayearth animation finished in the 1990s, so this is the first new take on it in almost three decades - and it has been given a slot long enough to travel rather than sprint. Toaka writes and performs the opening song, Otome no Ken, with Kawaguchi Yurina on the ending, Hoshitou.

Japanese viewers get all of it first. The show airs weekly on TV Asahi's national network, lands on AT-X from 11 October and Animax from 7 November, and streaming begins in Japan on 8 October at 00:15 JST across the usual services, from d Anime Store and ABEMA through to U-NEXT, Prime Video and Hulu. Nothing has been announced for the UK, the US or Europe, so the 7 October date is a Japanese one.

Our opinion

Revivals are usually cautious, and a two-cour commitment from a national broadcaster is the opposite of cautious. It also tells you what the production committee thinks it has: a Kajiura, Ozawa and Terada score is not the cheap option, and the steady drip of cast announcements arriving with full voice-actor comments suggests a team selling the show on conviction rather than nostalgia alone. The gamble is that an audience which grew up with Hikaru, Umi and Fuu wants a proper journey and not a highlights reel. Two cours gives them the chance to find out honestly.