Episode 124 - Magic Knight Rayearth by CLAMP

Mat (0:11)

Hello everybody and welcome to Manga Tak, the weekly podcast where we read and reflect on the finest ways volumes of money can buy so you can find your next favourite manga. As always, I'm your host Mat, and this week I've prayed for a saviour from another podcast, and who should appear but Mr Tsutsudae.

Hello, legendary hero, how are you?

SPEAKER_2 (0:30)

I'm very well, thank you. It is always a pleasure to be here.

Mat (0:33)

It is absolutely my pleasure. I had thought about doing this book for a while, and even though you were just on to do the Maggie episode with me, I was like, I can think of no one better to chat some CLAMP, because I know that you too are a fan of the most perfect manga group in existence, question mark?

SPEAKER_2 (0:56)

I mean, I can't argue with that at its core, you know?

Mat (0:59)

Right, so I think we should probably get the less-guess-about CLAMP bit out of the way at the start. As long-term listeners of the podcast will know, as those who follow me on the socials will also know, I am a very big CLAMP fan. I was kind of conferted to CLAMPtholicism.

Two years or so ago, I went to Tokyo just on a surprise trip because work made me take vacation and I was like, well, I can get cheap flights at the moment, so I'm going to go to Tokyo. So I did. While I was there, I was looking at what was on. I saw that CLAMP had a manga exhibit. I was like, I like some CLAMP stuff. I could go to this. I had to say it was one of the most transformative things I've ever seen. And that is a bit of an understatement. It made me completely fall in love with CLAMP's work. I rate them amongst my highest mangaka. Some of their works are amongst my favorite manga. And naturally then, with Magic Knight Rayearth finally getting a new anime that, for all intensive purposes from those trailers, looks to be pretty good. I thought now is the time. We need to rip this bandaid off. Sue, how do you feel about CLAMP?

SPEAKER_2 (2:09)

Big fan, big fan. I'll be transparent off the top of it. There is some CLAMP that I've not read. There's some CLAMP that I've read, but I've not read all the way through.

But the CLAMP I do like, I really like. So, there's just something about CLAMP as a whole, in how they present everything, that just really resonates very well with me.

Mat (2:31)

I mean, right, we should also mention CLAMP is a four-lady manga collective. CLAMP is not just one author or one mangaka. You have Tsutsuki Igarashi, you have Nanase Okawa, you have Tsubaki Nikoi and Mo Kona, which are names. One of which will come up a lot in this podcast, which is very interesting. But they are essentially a four-woman manga collective. They have been active since the 80s. They got a start in doujinshi work, and some of that is absolutely gorgeous. Their first published work is a book called RG Veda. We've done a podcast on it, and I will plug right to the start before you even listen to this podcast. Go listen to CLAMP Cast In Wonderland's Rayearth episodes off the back of this. They do an incredible breakdown, not only of the manga, but also of the OVAs and the anime, the old one, not the new one yet. But yeah, wonderful podcast. Why I, of course, bring it up is that Lucy and Robin, the host of CLAMP Cast In Wonderland, were, of course, on that RG Veda episode with me, available wherever I post a cast. And so this is only the second CLAMP book I've done on the podcast. I really like CLAMP's work. I have been reading them chronologically, even though I have read some of the stuff I've yet to now read, because I'm kind of later into their career and more of the modern stuff. But I took the time to go back. So inspired was I by this Tokyo exhibit that I've literally painstakingly in some cases, because a lot of it is out of print, a lot of it is hard to come by.

But I almost have all of their work that is physically being printed in English and where the English copies do not exist, I've actually even gone through the trouble of tracking them down in Japanese. This is how much I like CLAMP.

SPEAKER_2 (4:11)

What a champion.

Mat (4:13)

They're potentially like three mangaka that I would do that for and they will remain nameless, but CLAMP is definitely up there. And so yeah, it brings me to Rayearth, which honestly is a book that I had not read despite you and I both having a mutual friend who had Rayearth as his gamertag on Xbox Live for many a year.