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The Fantasy of Revolutionary Sacrifice

I think what has ultimately pissed me off so much about Andor, especially season 2, is that Tony Gilroy got so caught up in the romantic image of the doomed revolutionary, that he completely missed the true message of Rogue One. Gilroy is on the record saying that when he was brought on to re-write the script, the theme he landed on was sacrifice. Sacrifice is important, for sure, and it's a theme that leads to the tragedy of Rogue One, but I don't think it was ever as central a theme as Gilroy made it out to be. I think hope and faith are far more important themes than sacrifice. The story is about finding hope in a seemingly hopeless world and spreading that hope beyond one's self.

The Rogue One crew can be divided into those with faith but no hope, and those with hope but no faith. And Chirrut, who still has hope and faith. Cassian, K-2SO, and Baze have faith - Kay even has the statistics to back it up - but no hope. Bodhi and Jyn have hope, but no faith. Bodhi has enough hope to get Galen's message to the Rebellion, but very little faith in himself. It's harder to see with Jyn, but while her lack of faith in others is palpable, I truly believe that she never gave up hope that someone would stick around. Throughout the film, everyone finds that missing part they need that ultimately gets the Death Star plans to the Rebellion.

Gilroy's vision of revolutionary sacrifice is a nihilistic one. Nemik's manifesto is inspiring, sure. Luthen's speech is galvanizing. But there's no future, not just for themselves, and not for the galaxy. Bix's baby feels so wrong so many reasons: the sexism, racism, re-traumatization by going back to Mina Rau, the heteronormativity of it all. It all feeds into this massive, damning weakness of Andor's narrative. The fetishization of revolutionary sacrifice without an idea for a future appeals to both leftists and conservatives. We love underdogs, we tend to see ourselves as ones, and who doesn't want to be the insurgent fighting against a greater foe. The problem is framing and aesthetics. I've been frustrated by people who I consider more radical, more left wing, than myself who seem blind to all the problems of Andor, who seem deaf to the praise its getting from right wing commentators. The most pushback I've seen it get from conservatives is the hackneyed critique of being "too political." For me, at least, sacrifice means nothing if there is nothing at the end of the road.

If Andor was so revolutionary, than how could it have been produced by the, at best, conservatively risk adverse Disney? Unless they were assured that the presented politics would not alienate conservative viewers. Many see themselves as the Rebels, as the forces of good fighting against a growing, existential evil, with the goal of restoring a lost way of life. Even if many would rather play the Empire (*cough Alex Jones cough*). I don't want to paint the Rebellion as reactionaries, but Star Wars has bad track record, especially in the main canon, of not presenting any new vision for the Galaxy. Because to do so may make those conservative viewers nervous and uncomfortable. I've even seen viewers (mostly on Reddit) asking why Andor didn't get a lot of push back, and I think it goes back to my main thesis: the show embraces romantic revolutionary sacrifice without presenting a future, thus allowing both leftists and conservatives - especially men - to insert themselves into the narrative. They can play out heroic fantasies of dying for a cause in a blaze of glory. That way, no one has to come up with a concrete idea of what the galaxy (or our world) will be like after Cassian sacrifices his life. Disney and their conservative viewers don't have to get uncomfortable with anti-fascist critique that would hold up the mirror to them. The mirror hurts, remember. Meanwhile, leftists who should know better get caught up in novelty and glamour of having characters spout revolutionary speeches in a mainstream show. Even if it's all smoke and mirrors.

It's all vanity.

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star wars is about coruscant

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i think one of the reasons fandom is so unwilling to criticise itself is because its internalised the simplified whitefem logic of how female gaze=progressive, fandom=female gaze, therefore fandom=progressive and uses it in a way as to never examine the social constructs that the gaze was built upon, like what factors attractiveness/desire arise from. 

you could say that fandom is the female gaze in its most tangible, autonomous form - it’s media for women by women, without bureaucracy and hurdles and censorship, something that never had the chance to develop because mainstream media for women is usually controlled by men. there are very few creative spaces that offer the anonymity and autonomy of internet fandom where we can all truly let our freak flags fly. 

but that doesn’t mean female gaze is absolved of the issues that permeates typical forces of oppression. the female gaze is aimed at different directions, and it ranges from sexual attraction to escapist fantasy, but the female gaze when it becomes an en-masse multi-community movement has the swaying power to focus on certain characters, ships and narratives. and when it does, it paints a very telling picture of who and what it values. 

female gaze regards desire/attraction first, and in white supremacist culture this means the hierarchy of white dudes, then white women, then men of colour, then women of colour. looking at overall patterns in who gets written about and who gets shunned, female gaze in fandom patterns seems to be pretty representative of the social hierarchy that ranks most-to-least valuable/humanised people. 

introduction to fandom studies tells us about the values of fandom as mostly-female created space, but it rarely goes beyond that. the female gaze can be racist. it can be imperialist, ableist, transphobic, misogynistic, despite it being a  concept that aims to subvert the male gaze because it did not develop in a vacuum; it developed in a society that’s oppressive and marginalising, therefore it bears the capacity of being equally oppressive and marginalising just like all other forms of media. 

fandom as a manifestation of the female gaze may be more progressive than male-controlled mainstream media, but doesn’t mean it’s automatically absolved of the social issues it was born in. 

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"I cannot imagine who she would have become, but I think she would have been extraordinary. I am grateful I knew her, no matter how short the time." - Mon Mothma on Jyn Erso Rogue One Novelization by Alexander Freed

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I love you jyn erso I love you lyra back from the dead I love you rings of kafrene I love you congratulations you are being rescued please do not resist I love you holy city of jedha I love you lies deceptions I love you bodhi rook cargo pilot local boy I love you trust goes both ways I love you k2so I love you rebellions are built on hope I love you the strongest stars have hearts of kyber I love you I'm beginning to think the force and I have different priorities I love you there is more than one sort of prison captain I sense you carry yours wherever you go I love you saw gerrera I love you I could make it right if I was brave enough I love you galen erso I love you save the rebellion save the dream I love you eadu I love you jyn erso I love you I’ve been in this fight since I was six years old I love you be careful not to choke on your aspirations I love you what chance do we have? the question is what choice? I love you the time to fight is now I love you they were never gonna believe you but I do I believe you I love you we’ve all done terrible things on behalf of the rebellion I love you I couldn’t face myself if I gave up now none of us could I love you jyn I’ll be there for you cassian said I had to I love you not used to people sticking around when things go bad I love you welcome home I love you may the force be with us I love you rogue? rogue one I love you I would trust her with my life I love you scarif I love you saw gerrera used to say one fighter with a sharp stick and nothing left to lose can take the day I love you we'll take the next chance and the next and on and on until we win or the chances are spent I love you make ten men feel like a hundred I love you baze malbus I love you good luck little sister I love you light it up I love you I need to speak to admiral raddus he's returned to his ship he's going to fight I love you we have been redirected to scarif I love you stardust I love you I know because it's me I love you climb climb I love you I love you orson krennic I love you chirrut imwe I love you the force is with me and I am one with the force I love you this is for you galen I love you hammerhead corvette maneuver I love you I'm jyn erso daughter of galen and lyra you’ve lost I love you do you think anybody's listening? I do someone's out there I love you elevator eye contact I love you you may fire when ready I love you your father would have been proud of you jyn I love you cassian andor I love you jyn erso & hope suite I love you rogue one: a star wars story

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suddenly the rebellion is real for you. i've been in this fight since i was 32 years old

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Love that I never bothered watching Andor especially after seeing Tony Gilroy was attached to it. Reading all the criticisms it literally sounds like they made a whole brand new Cassian AND it hates women especially WOC and queer women and Jyn Erso.

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there is truly very little i dislike more than fans using “this woman deserves better!! #feminism” as a cover and excuse to essentially pretend that a female character doesnt exist so they can dedicate approximately zero thoughts to them and their character. no, u are not being more #feminist by taking them out of the way of your toxic fanon yaoi and basically erasing them because female characters being put through negative experiences is misogynistic apparently. bad things happening to women is #unwoke! 90% of time it isnt about combatting and subverting tropes pls u r just not interested in them. y do u all act like u dont express ur love towards fictional characters more by thinking, writing, and discussing about them, and letting them take a substantial role in a text, like u constantly do with ur orangutan johnsons, but by protecting their mental health lmao. lovingly put women in saw traps too!

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The Great CLAMP Re-Read Part 12: Wish

Part 1 (RG Veda) | Part 2 (Man of Many Faces) | Part 3 (Tokyo Babylon) | Part 4 (Duklyon) | Part 5 (Clamp Detectives)| Part 6 (Shirahime)| Part 7 (X)| Part 8 (Chunhyang)|Part 9 (Miyuki-chan)|Part 10 (Rayearth)| Part 11 (The One I Love

Have you ever read something and thought that it definitely used to be fanfiction? The familiar character designs, the lack of character writing, the odd pacing and plotlessness.... CLAMP have never hidden their doujinshi roots, and continued to release doujinshi well into the 1990s, including a rather infamous one based off Jojo's Bizarre Adventures with the ship Jotaro/Kakyoin. Now, I certainly can't prove Wish was at some point Jotaro/Kakyoin doujin, but I know self-indulgent slice-of-life fluff fanfic when I see it.

But despite its infamous roots, Wish itself never reached lasting cultural memory (I suppose because Kakyoin Kohaku didn't lay an egg). It was serialized from 1995 to 1998 as 26 chapters, and compiled into 4 volumes (later re-released as an Omnibus) and a bonus artbook-exclusive chapter. A drama CD, as well as a 6 minute music video were also released. Wish was noteworthy as the first time Nekoi was the artist on a long running series from them, rather than Mokona. Yet, despite being a little known series of theirs, it not only has links to multiple future works, but it began to shift CLAMP away from their dark, psychological roots, into the more child-friendly work they are now best known for. Heavy spoilers ahead!

Synopsis: One day, while walking home, young doctor Shuichiro rescues the angel-in-training Kohaku from a crow. In return, Kohaku offers to grant Shuichiro a wish. But Shuichiro has no wish, so Kohaku decides to live with Shuichiro until he can think of one. What follows is a romantic comedy as the unlikely pair are soon joined by a runaway angel-devil couple, a naughty devil-in-training, and two catgirls. Will Kohaku learn what is a wish that cannot be granted alone? Will love prevail, or will Heaven get in the way?

The Story: Wish suffers from the storytelling and pacing issues you often see in fanfic. There is a plotless story of how Kohaku and Shuichiro fall in love because they're forced to live together, and then there is the supposedly high stakes of whether they (and Hisui and Kokuyo, an angel-demon pair) will be caught by Heaven. Except, CLAMP never manages to maintain any tension regarding this second plot. God's punishment is meaningless (despite characters saying a war might break out), nobody acts worried, and ultimately tension is created through deliberately withholding information in a way that is infuriating despite the oh-so-clever in-universe reason. We never get a sense that Hisui or Kohaku are in any danger.

The abrupt twist ending is poorly paced, such that it barely sunk in. This isn't helped by the fact that it isn't built up to that well, and I don't buy God's plan for Kohaku that quickly avoids any lasting pain. Ohkawa has said she felt like they had to write a semi-tragic ending, but I think the result of trying to mash these two genres doesn't work. This especially so because the conflict in the story feels juvenile. It can be hard to remember that Shuichiro is a grown adult man, not 14.

Despite that, the story was entertaining enough, largely of its supporting cast and well-timed charm and humour. There are some unique world-building elements where Heaven and Hell are interpreted through Yin and Yang, and a Buddhist lens of attachment leading to suffering and a fall from divinity, which bolstered the trite premise of angel/demon love. This may also be the most sex-positive CLAMP manga yet! In sum, the story is heavily cliched and slice of life has never been my thing, but I was never bored reading it.

The Themes: Wish's arc words are that "some wishes cannot be granted by yourself". This refers to true love, that love is about two people mutually coming together to make each other happy. However, how Wish actually handles this left a sour taste in my mouth. There is an unnecessarily Oediphal b-plot that Shuichiro's adoptive wisteria fairy mother decides to leave as her husband is about to die. Shuichiro, who is also in love with her (this is never taken in any thematically interesting direction and exists purely to cause relationship drama with Kohaku), begs her to stay. Instead, she tells him that one day he'll understand how you'll have one person you want to be alive for. I know CLAMP loves this trope of "the one", but to see a mother abandon her child this way isn't romantic and isn't explored meaningfully to how it might affect her son. This idea of "the one" is heavily emphasized with Kohaku and Shuichiro being destined lovers. CLAMP has played with this idea before (most prominently in Tokyo Babylon), but here it feels cheesy and forced.

That being said, I do really like Hisui's line that the hardest thing to do is to know yourself, and that may be the most important thing you do with your life. It’s such a humanising moment for both them and Kohaku, and is a genuinely good message of self-understanding leading to actualization and fulfillment - even if Kohaku's journey is like a 5 year old who can't understand what these butterflies are. This carries over to when Kohaku is reunited with reincarnated Shuichiro, and admits that they love uke!Shuichiro because of who he is - reincarnated love still takes work, even if the pacing and characterization of the manga means it's all show, not tell.

The Characters: I've said before that CLAMP has never created characters I hate (yet), and that is the strength of Wish against its cheesy, paper-thin plot. Admittedly, the characters are not their best, and I do think it's because of the fanfic origins. In fanfic, you don't need to work on developing characters, because your audience already knows what they're getting. The result is that Kohaku and Shuichiro are very flat to me, not helped by their ridiculous misunderstandings and will they-won't they. There was some attempt to characterize Shuichiro in suggesting he has childhood PTSD from his mum abandoning him, but it's never developed, like many threads in this manga that feel rushed and aborted.

Kokuyo and Hisui really carried this for me. Kokuyo might look like discount Fuuma, but there's something charming about him being a reformed slut deeply in love with Hisui and eating their cooking while wearing fetish outfits. Their romance feels real and passionate, with even their love at first sight actually having emotional weight. They feel like actual adults who have kinky, fun, loving sex. Koryuu similarly is such a loveable rogue, from his obvious pigtail-pulling crush on Kohaku to his threesomes with Hari and Ruri. Whenever I wanted to tear my hair out that Kohaku would seriously leave or feel betrayed over a stupid "Shuichiro likes someone else", they kept me coming back for more.

The Art: Wish was clearly drawn by someone still finding their style and understanding of visual storytelling. It begins with very basic panel layout, but you can see how Nekoi grows into a more dynamic panelling, especially by volume 4, where Kokuyo and Hisui's love is gorgeously expressed. Wish also has an extreme lack of backgrounds (apparently Ohkawa advised using minimal screentone to make the series feel very white and soft). The art is less impressive and visually dynamic than Mokona's work, with a lot of stiffness in action and unclear visual storytelling. Particularly in volume 1, I had trouble understanding some panel to panel transitions.

More positively, I do like the character design (Kokuyo is really hot), except Shuichiro, who is painfully unmemorable. Uke! Shuichiro is even uglier. I know the designs are ripped from Jojo, down to Shuichiro's grandfather being identical to Jotaro's grandfather, but the designs are at least memorable (probably because they're taken from eye-catching designs). I did find the angel masters hard to distinguish though, besides Hisui, but their cat creature is well done. The cover and overall book design is quite lovely, I liked the harsh white with a pop of colour. It is not CLAMP's best art, and I found the colour spreads especially unimpressive, but there is real and commendable growth and still panels to enjoy, particularly those with Kokuyo and Hisui, that feel breathless and tender.

Questionable Elements: The constant fat shaming jokes about Kohaku's weight while in chibi form are very off-putting, especially since they're stick-thin ordinarily. It's an aspect that has aged poorly. I also have mixed feelings on their execution of genderless Kohaku and a queer romance. As an angel, Kohaku is meant to be genderless. In practice, all the angels are female-coded and demons are explicitly male. Not only female-coded, but traditional gender role coded - Kohaku and Hisui function as housewives for their partners, who are big, strong, burly men in contrast to the waifish, petite, ultra-femme angels. I'm not going to get into how seme-uke is just rebranding heterosexuality, but suffice to say, if you can change all the angels into women without any story dissonance - which the original Tokyopop translation did - then maybe something is wrong.

The Jojo Elephant: I tried reading JJBA in order to see what CLAMP saw in it, and all I can say is that Kakyoin and Jotaro sure do stand next to each other and that's about it. I don't know why they inspired such devotion! Regardless, neither character, especially Kohaku-Kakyoin, really act like the original, and the two series are so detached from one another that you don't need the backstory.

Overall: Like silly coffeeshop AU fanfics of your OTP, Wish is entertaining popcorn. It has some actual charm, but it doesn't ever rise beyond its initial set-up nor will really remember its plot beyond a vague memory jolt when you see it amongst your bookmarks. It reflects a CLAMP that is beginning to tire of their dark writing, resulting in a series that doesn't quite cohere. Still, it makes a quick, breezy read with some actually good romance in it. I would recommend this perhaps to slice-of-life lovers, but I'm not certain if I'd try to find a copy of it for myself.

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Jojo part 2?

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (Manga/Anime, 1987/2012)

Explain your reasoning in the tags!

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The Great CLAMP Re-Read Part 11: The One I Love

Part 1 (RG Veda) | Part 2 (Man of Many Faces) | Part 3 (Tokyo Babylon) | Part 4 (Duklyon) | Part 5 (Clamp Detectives)| Part 6 (Shirahime)| Part 7 (X)| Part 8 (Chunhyang)|Part 9 (Miyuki-chan)|Part 10 (Rayearth)| Part 12 (Wish)

The 90s were a period where CLAMP's star was on an astronomic rise, and they were frequently scouted to publish works in a variety of magazines. This resulted in their most obscure work - and yes I mean it this time! - the semi-autobiographical manga The One I Love, serialized from 1993 to 1995 in the short-lived josei magazine Monthly Young Rose. It was compiled into a singular volume (released in English by Tokyopop), and its lack of adaptation or crossover potential is rather obvious - as a work of creative non-fiction vignettes, it simply doesn't work. Even CLAMP themselves forgot they made this!

The One I Love is formatted as individual vignettes of around 7 pages, all illustrated by Nekoi, her first time as the primary illustrator on a CLAMP work, and accompanied by an essay by Ohkawa, where she explains the real-world inspiration of the vignette and her thoughts on love. It's also the first real peek behind the curtain of Ohkawa as a person and her opinions on love and womanhood. What is there is....frankly a lot more unsatisfying than I really wanted to know. I'll be formatting my thoughts on this one differently as well, since this is such an outlier in CLAMP's oeuvre - and not one I really think anyone should be rushing to get ahold of.

I think there is a real danger in work that is autobiographical, or semi-autobiographical, in this case. The reality is not all of us have the deft hand or complex life experience that produces work like Maus or Persepolis, leading to shallow work that attempts to package rather bland incidents as revelatory Live-Laugh-Love moments. This is the great weakness of The One I Love: it is largely pedestrian in its stories, with trite little reflections such as "love happens unexpectedly", or "try on something different in order to express yourself without your insecurities". There's nothing groundbreaking or particularly meaningful here, and the collection feels geared more towards young girls than it does adult women because of how juvenile a lot of it comes across.

While some of the "lessons" have some merit, because they're approached so shallowly, I often find myself disagreeing. For example, the vignette that features, of all things, Sonic the Hedgehog, is about how girls shouldn't be judged for getting into their boyfriends' interests because it's good to share interests. Well, yes, it is true you'll be happier if you and your man have the same interests....it also shouldn't be an obligation especially if you don't have a genuine liking for a thing. And that's not even getting into the whole gendered aspect of this! But that's the whole issue - because these stories are so superficial and trite, you end up with these empty platitudes that don't offer any new insight into love.

Now, on the issue of gender, the other great issue of autobiographical fiction is the peek behind the curtain. I'm not saying that I lost all respect for CLAMP, but I was reminded that they're women born in the late 60s in Japan. There's a strong "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" theme underpinning a lot of the essays - women are inherently more paranoid and neurotic and insecure than men and have Strange and Mysterious Reasons for how we approach romance, and not the basic human desire for connection and reassurance. The amount of neuroses on display here are more than a little alarming (listen, if you are catastrophizing on this level that your boyfriend hates you, it's not because you're a #Girl). Men are largely framed as breadwinners and women as aspiring housewives, and women especially as "all wanting to feel and be pretty" (again, #Men also like reassurance about their looks, men aren't cave trolls and women beautiful fairies). It really makes a lot of the stories very difficult to read - but it does also validate a lot of the lingering unease I feel with how CLAMP approaches female characters and the regressive gender roles and writing they often fall into. I love CLAMP, I do, but I'd really like to know less about how they think Men and Women have Men Brains and Women Brains.

Also, because it must said: ALL the relationships in this are heterosexual.

That's not to say I didn't find some of the vignettes cute. I did like their vignettes on marriage - that it shouldn't fundamentally change you as a person, but life will be different (from the POV where it is uncommon to live with your partner before marriage) afterwards, and that is the adventure you undertake with someone. I also found the story "Suddenly", while largely silly in its topic, to be cute. But none of the stories necessarily moved me to want to pick this up again.

I also have mixed feelings on the overall art of the series. I do like the opening colour spread with all the different ladies. It has a nice, delicate sensibility that matches the romantic nature of the story (though it's a shame they all have the exact same face). But in the manga proper, there's a certain plainness and simplicity to the art style that I find lacks the lavishness of their earlier work. Even low stakes work like Man of Many Faces had a decadent nature to its designs that really remain in my memory despite my indifference to its plot. The One I Love, in contrast, feels less refined - and I know Nekoi was taking on a very big new task here, and I don't want to sound harsh, but I simply didn't find the work very visually impressive when judged against their entire oeuvre. Also, I really don't like how the noses here are drawn.

Overall, The One I Love is a quick and lightweight read with some big pitfalls in its approach to gender and a troubling look behind the curtain. It is not in any way an essential CLAMP work, and while cutely illustrated, I didn't particularly find it impressive or meaningful. I would recommend this only for diehard completionists.

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I do think a pretty noteworthy part of the Overwhelming Fandom Fixation on Gay Men - or, rather, their Heteronormative idea of what Gay Men are like - has less to do with Covert Homophobia (though that is a large element) and more to do with the Elimination of Women from discussion.

A lot of Fandom Depictions of Gay Men are debilitatingly Heterosexual - one man is put into the role of the "Real Man", being a masculine, older, stronger, taller, more capable 'Top', while the other is put into a "Pseudo-Woman" role of being more feminine, younger, weaker, smaller, and more helpless 'Bottom'. The depiction of the relationships of Gay Men in Fandom has a fixation on removing the Identity and Implication of Gay Men and what it means to be a Gay Man in reality, merely using Homosexuality - or, "Sodomy", as some so gracefully unironically call it - as a kind of "Taboo" Seasoning to otherwise entirely standard M/F Dynamics. M/F Dynamics + Relationships, in many Fandom Spaces, are looked down upon heavily, as are F/F Dynamics + Relationships. This is because Fandom has an incredibly strong track record of being Intensely, Unabashedly Misogynistic. Fandom Spaces tend to want to avoid even basic acknowledgment of Women as much as physically possible. Commodifying Gay Men is a useful way to ensure that you do not ever have to acknowledge that Women exist, all while for the most part avoiding accusations of Bigotry - because, hey, look! I'm not a Bigot! Look at all the times I've acknowledged Gay Men exist!

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We’re going through this phase of fandom right now where people willfully ignore the sexist implications of female characters being shafted into housewife/mother roles or disempowered by the end of their stories. If you dare to criticize such writing decisions, you will be accused of sexism and be hounded for not “respecting their choices” as though these characters are actual people and not tools of storytelling. As if the cliche of female characters “sacrificing” their powers or having them stripped away exists in a vacuum and isn’t influenced by any larger cultural factors.

They’ll say: “Not every character has to be a girlboss!!” Or “Let women be soft and traditional!!” As if that’s some revolutionary way of thinking and not the norm. It’s an extension of choice feminism, dismissing any dissent about the quality of the narrative to make it make sense and avoid the uncomfortable truth. Diminishing the agency of female characters and cramming them into traditional roles is a common occurrence in many stories, and we should be allowed to criticize them without being silenced.

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Hi! I've been really enjoying your CLAMP retrospectives. I wanted to say hello and see if we could get a conversation going. (If you're up for it, of course.)

hi! yes, i would love to! b-else-writes is a sideblog, so i can't send DMs through it unfortunately, but you can DM me through tumblr if that's cool (or are there other platforms you'd prefer?)!

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The Great CLAMP Re-Read Part 10: Magic Knight Rayearth

Part 1 (RG Veda) | Part 2 (Man of Many Faces) | Part 3 (Tokyo Babylon) | Part 4 (Duklyon) | Part 5 (Clamp Detectives)| Part 6 (Shirahime)| Part 7 (X)| Part 8 (Chunhyang)|Part 9 (Miyuki-chan)| Part 11 (The One I Love)

In 1991, Sailor Moon was launched in the magazine Nakayoshi, aimed at younger girls. It kicked off an era of fantasy and magical girl-oriented manga, and CLAMP were scouted to publish their own in Nakayoshi. Rayearth is very dear to me as my very first CLAMP story, as the anime aired in my country in my kindergarten years. Released in two parts, Part 1 ran from 1993 to 1995 in 3 volumes, followed by Part 2 from 1995 to 1996, again in 3 volumes. It spawned a two season anime, an OVA, multiple video games, a forthcoming new anime, and countless merch. I purchased the 25th anniversary release, a lovely hardcover version that allowed me to appreciate and reflect on a childhood love as an adult.

I've discussed how X ended CLAMP's 90s run, both in art style and thematic content, but I do think Magic Knight Rayearth was the beginning of that end. The mega-hit cemented their rising star, and proved that CLAMP's favourite themes could be meaningfully applied to a younger audience they'd never reached before. While Rayearth does not entirely stick the landing, it cannot be overstated its impact on the magical girl genre as it deconstructs and reconstructs ideas of girlish purity, innocence, and power systems in a thematically brilliant combination of philosophy, fantasy, and video game tropes. Some imagery from Rayearth has remained with me forever, a testament to its emotional impact. Heavy spoilers!

Synopsis: Three colour-coded Tokyo middle schoolers are summoned to the world of Cefiro, where the strength of your heart's will can shape yourself and the world. Princess Emeraude is Cefiro's Pillar, spending all her days praying for Cefiro's peace. But the priest Zagato has kidnapped Emeraude, and Cefiro is crumbling. The trio, revealed to be the Magic Knights of legend, must journey and level-up, video-game style, to unlock the mashin and save Cefiro. But all is not as it seems about Emeraude's kidnapping - and should the happiness of a world rely on the prayers of one single girl? Who will pray for that girl's happiness? Can such a world be truly beautiful?

The Story: Initially, Magic Knight Rayearth feels charming but a bit rote - especially in 2024, with a glut of bad isekai out there. Cefiro isn't a terribly fully-realised world and we never meet its ordinary citizens - though the pace means we don't really notice. Hikaru and Emeraude embody the classic pure-hearted shojo, who valiantly fight against the evil adult sexuality the likes of Alcyone and Zagato. Yet, the rote nature of the girls' fantasy video-game quest is precisely part of Part 1's entire deception: Princess Emeraude is not a child, but an adult woman trapped in the confines of the Pillar System that demands she remain a sexless little girl and pray for the happiness of others, instead of her own. The Magic Knights exist to kill the Pillar, following their pre-scripted roles to the one of the most haunting moments in manga where they have no choice but to kill Emeraude.

Its such a brilliant deconstruction of magical girl tropes that usually valorize girlish innocence, where everything can be overcome by the purity of one's heart, and fantasy RPGs, of a perfect princess and an evil dragon. The Magic Knights never consider Emeraude's humanity or free will, only her relation to her society, playing the video game only to realise the entire system is broken and at its heart, Omelas-style, lies a suffering child. Its bone-chilling as the girls celebrate that they've saved Cefiro by killing Zagato, unaware Emeraude is losing her mind. Its not to say Part 1 doesn't have some structural narrative issues: its pacing, while relentless (I could not stop reading Vol 3 in particular) can feel uneven (the Forest drags, while Ascot's turn is too fast and cheesy), the prat falls get tedious as an adult reader, and its meta-narrative of formula to critique formula is better understood on second readings. Still, I loved so much of what Part 1 ambitiously tries to do on a thematic and structural level and it is a gripping read.

Part 2, CLAMP admits, was written very quickly because it was not expected to happen - and personally, I think Part 1 is much stronger than Part 2. Part 2 tries to meaningfully address the trauma the girls have experienced ("the weapons I made became instruments for your suffering" from Presea was one I had to write down), but it does gloss over the culpability and tragedy of Part 1 - I hated that Emeraude was happy in death to placate the girls. A lot of stuff feels retconned in, and the lack of driving narrative means the story treads water in unnecessarily long bits with Fahren and Chizeta and the Magic Knights are mostly reactive. I also cannot take god Mokona seriously.

Still, I enjoyed Part 2 for the strong arcs of characters like Eagle, Hikaru, and Umi, and the conversations about whether a world built on the suffering of another can really be beautiful. Despite how silly god Mokona is, I do think the ending is a fantastic answer to Part 1: the only way to save Cefiro is to break the entire system and rebuild it again where everyone must, together, make society worth living in. Hikaru becomes the new Pillar not because of her purity - indeed that self-sacrificing Christ-like behaviour is what gets Emeraude in trouble in the first place - but because of her earthly refusal to accept anyone else sacrificing themselves for others AND her belief that we have to trust and try to make society better. It's a very mature look at empathy and compassion and individual vs. collective happiness, handled for children to understand, and its lush, badass, and emotional to watch Hikaru save Eagle in the process. Yes, its cheesy and sloppily paced (it is for 12 year olds and I do have to remind myself of that), but damn if it didn't move me. As I keep saying, CLAMP has never written a character I've loathed!

Despite its inconsistent quality, I do think it is good to read both Parts 1 and 2 for how they overall deconstruct and reconstruct magical girl manga in a way that moves away from rote roles of purity and self-sacrifice that bog down the genre, in a story that is overall fun and deeply emotional.

The Themes: I can absolutely see how Rayearth was written concurrently with X (Mokona tossing aside Earth for its corruption). But these same themes of what makes life, and the world, worth living, are taken in fascinating new ways. Here, CLAMP's favourite concept of "destiny vs. free will" explores destiny not as a divine system but a societal enforced structure. Emeraude believes she's fated to only pray and thus her loving Zagato destroys everything, but this is the result of her accepting that the system is infallible and unchangeable. She is the Christ-figure maiden trapped in the world tree to support it, but who needs redemption not from the divine Eagle, but the earthly Hikaru, who teaches self-love. Nobody in Cefiro (or beyond) can conceptualize a Pillar-less world. The people of Cefiro accept the game's logic and play it, but - as CLAMP loves to remind - we are individuals and our choices have meaning and power.

And this leads to a really interesting theme of whether peace bought too dearly is even worth it - is collective happiness more important than individual happiness? Happiness, CLAMP does remind us, is different for every person, but comes out on the side that individual suffering suffuses the whole system. Self-sacrifice - like in X! - does nothing but lead to suffering from the people who love you and holds no glory. And who can't love a story that tells little children that we have to find a way to live that allows us all to be happy?

There's also a really interesting gender dynamic that I rarely see discussed by fans that I find fascinating. Shojo is infused with pure-hearted innocent heroines who face off against "phallic mothers", that is, adult women who embody sexuality and power in contrast to acceptable female roles (there's a lot of very interesting discussion on whether shojo is actually feminist that I feel bypasses Western audiences). At first, Rayearth seems to follow these tropes - the girls and Emeraude are shojos, while characters like Alcyone (a sexually mature woman who is characterized as evil for loving Zagato when he doesn't love her) are phallic mothers.

Yet the finale twists this - Emeraude is another phallic mother whose "selfish" love for Zagato has transformed her into an adult woman that must be killed. And killed she is, as shojo tropes demand, but no happy ending comes. Emeraude was not selfish, but human, and failed by a system that demanded this of her. Part 2 never lives up to the potential set up by Part 1 - Hikaru remains a shojo who can't recognize Lantis is confessing to her - but it was something I really enjoyed chewing over in Part 1.

The Characters: While the girls might seem typical at the start, CLAMP has a real charm for making cliche work for them. Fuu is much quirkier than the shy meganekko trope, and Umi. Umi was the stand-out for me as the most dynamic of the bunch, with such a wonderful character arc across all 6 volumes from bratty rich girl to compassionate, brave warrior. It is she who recognizes the world isn't beautiful and her own naivete, she who finds inspiration from her friends to like herself more, she who grows up! The supporting cast is equally charming, and I loved the tragedy of Emeraude and Zagato.

While Lantis is a fine Yasha-style giant guy, I really adored Eagle by the end and his relation to Hikaru and Emeraude. Hikaru is s a highly static character, but her deep self-love and determination are impossible not to love. There's something just so compelling about his mirror of Emeraude and especially Hikaru, who frees them both by absolving them of their self-denying divinity. Their entire arc is a beautiful reaffirmation that we are humans who deserve to live and find meaning in that. I would say the character I cared for the least was probably Ferio, who never shows either comedic charm (Caldina, Ascot) or inner depth. But he appears so minimally that I can wave aside that he's a boring, paper-thin love interest.

The Art: I'm in two minds when it comes to Rayearth. There are some truly stunning moments in the artwork and visual motifs. The very idea of making an Art Nouveau magical girls in a fantasy RPG world led to so many incredible creative design choices (though Hikaru's skirt in her final armour bothers me. Metal and fabric don't fall like that). The silent two page spread where the girls murder Emeraude will likely haunt me for the rest of my life. Emeraude's hair pearls transforming into her crystallized tears is such a brilliant twist on the established visual motif. There's a lot of highly inventive panelwork that lushly moves between the real world and contemplative spaces.

On the other hand, because Cefiro is not the real world, CLAMP could not use their trick of scanned photo backgrounds. The result is a distinctive lack of backgrounds that were especially frustrating because I felt like I had no idea what these fantasy spaces look like - and RG Veda never had this problem! There's one particular hand-drawn Tokyo background that looks horrendous in how sketchy it is. Rayearth definitely reflects CLAMP's burnout period in that there are definitely more corners cut, like with the constant chibi scenes (very classically 90s, but not something I've ever enjoyed) and heavy use of screentone to mask lack of background. It's still visually stunning, but it's definitely not their drawing peak. Would I still frame some of these pages? Absolutely.

Questionable Elements: Presea makes an off-colour Native American joke. The designs of the Chizeta and Fahren characters lean heavily into cultural stereotyping of the "Orient" - they at least are real characters in the story, but they really irritated me for quite a long time in the story because of how glaring this is. Especially when Aska says white-ish, blue eyed blonde Emeraude is a "true princess". It makes the epilogue's (very good) moral of "we were all made different so we can learn from one another" fall a bit flat if CLAMP themselves made no effort to actually learn from people unlike them.

Overall: While Part 2 of Rayearth never quite lives up to the potential set by Part 1, the entire series overall is such a refreshing take on the magical girl genre, even 30 years on. Its meta-narrative and postmodern reflections on the genre and its blend of magical girl tropes, philosophy, fantasy and JRPGs, and unique and timeless visual influences has led to a series that has withstood the test of time - and many of its peers that similarly attempted to be the "next Sailor Moon". I think, unlike them, Magic Knight Rayearth has such a strong CLAMP fingerprint upon it - it is their humanist and occult-flavoured take upon the genre, and for that it affirms the value of individual human life, each one, and our choices, in being necessary to create a society that will last, not divine action.

It is a story about stories, making it fascinatingly ahead of the curve. And while its child audience means that it lacks subtlety and nuance in many ways (and frankly Nanase Ohkawa has the subtlety of a brick in her writing in general), I can't deny how much it has remained with me all these years and I find something new to love in it each time. It warrants being one of CLAMP's hits for these reasons, by taking apart the genre set up by Sailor Moon to say it is not pure-hearted divine princesses who will save the world, but our selfish human love that will fight off entropy, every time.

[b-else-writes]

The Great CLAMP Re-Read Part 9: Miyuki-chan in Wonderland

Part 1 (RG Veda) | Part 2 (Man of Many Faces) | Part 3 (Tokyo Babylon) | Part 4 (Duklyon) | Part 5 (Clamp Detectives)| Part 6 (Shirahime)| Part 7 (X)| Part 8 (Chunhyang)| Part 10 (Rayearth)| Part 11 (The One I Love)| Part 12 (Wish

Runs both my hands slowly down my face. Miyuki-chan in Wonderland ran intermittently from 1993 to 1995, when CLAMP was asked to fill a slot in Newtype, a magazine geared towards largely male otakus. CLAMP has made no pretenses about what Miyuki-chan was intended to be: a fanservice-filled, barely plotted excuse for Mokona to draw sexy women and cash that Newtype paycheck. Despite (or perhaps, because of that), Miyuki-chan proved popular enough to receive a tankoban release of its 7 chapters, with Tokyopop doing the now out-of-print English version. It also has an image CD and OVA adaptation, and technically exists in the same universe as X/Tokyo Babylon/CLAMP School, if you believe the CLAMP School Detectives anime to be canonical. And like ferrets.

I do like ferrets. I don't much like Miyuki-chan in Wonderland.

This is CLAMP's first (and only) gesture towards a wlw story, and their first foray into the ecchi genre. Neither element (as handled by CLAMP specifically, which I'll elaborate later) filled me with great confidence. This is one of the few CLAMP manga I hadn't read but did know existed; I knew instinctively I would dislike it and so actively avoided it. I read this entirely online, and wouldn't pick it up unless I felt like being a completionist. "Spoilers", I guess.

Synopsis: Miyuki-chan is an average, chronically late Japanese schoolgirl, who finds herself pulled into various worlds populated by buxom, scantily-clad women who find her hot. Miyuki-chan fends off their advances, but was it all just a dream?

The Story: Miyuki-chan is doing ordinary activity. She gets pulled into world filled with sexy ladies, usually parodying and fanservicing some aspect of otaku and wider Japanese pop/mass culture. They attempt to rip her clothes off and grope her. B-b-ut nobody will have me if I don't remain pure and virginal! Miyuki-chan, potential closeted lesbian, sobs. She attempts to fend them off. There's an abrupt conclusion out of nowhere, where she wakes up/escapes. Oh it was just a dream! The final panel then flashes "Neverending" or some variation. Rinse, repeat, for 7 chapters.

Miyuki-chan commits the greater cardinal sin than its male-gaze, which is that it is just boring. Much like Duklyon, CLAMP apparently thinks a comedy equates to telling the same joke over and over. The chapters blur together due to how repetitive they are, and I only got one genuine laugh, in Chapter 3 with the legs poking out of the TV screen. Despite its short length, I took months to read this, because every chapter felt like a waste of time. There's no punchline to the entire piece, or even within each chapter. It's the worst sort of edging, leaving you confused, and irritated. And frankly, despite being ostensibly a sex comedy, this manga is profoundly unsexy.

The Themes: lol

The Characters: Look. This is a manga to look at hot girl not to consider hot girl's interior life. I wish I could attribute some greater meaning to Miyuki-chan - that this is all a result of her deeply closeted lesbian desperately trying to fight her own sex fantasies. But I think that's wishful thinking (and generous interpretation from fandom, when CLAMP and Newtype magazine are not attempting anything remotely introspective here). Miyuki-chan textually is one-note. Her best chapter is Miyuki-chan in Mahjong Land where she shows a bit of mischief and confidence.

The Art: There's some pages I find very beautifully rendered with screentone (this is probably their heaviest screentone manga barring X), but its also bogged down with mostly mid-shots and close-ups, with little to no backgrounds. Panel-to-panel storytelling feel very disjointed, likely because the story itself is very disjointed, and action is often unclear. It's some of CLAMP's weakest visual storytelling. The character designs don't stand out much. I liked the vaguely "ethnic" (oh, CLAMP...) priestess from Miyuki-chan in Video Game Land, and that was largely because she had a slightly different face than the typical CLAMP face.

Also. I have to say. CLAMP people look FRIGHTENING naked. There's a fully nude lady in I think Chapter 6 (didn't write the chapter down in my notes) and I was horrifically entranced by her enormous, nipple-less breasts attached to her long, rib-cage less torso, strange pelvis, and spidery legs. In general, CLAMP anatomy does work against itself, in that I found a lot of it anatomically mystifying than I did sexy. This is of course, personal taste, but by and large, I think they are much more beautiful but stupid manga to purchase, if you want to look at pretty pictures.

Questionable Elements: CLAMP, to this point, has had a mixed track record with lesbians (all dead, unable to be together, some psycho lesbian tropes). They have also had, being frank, a mixed to poor track record with female characters. CLAMP are Japanese women born in the late 1960s. Miyuki-chan's fascination with her purity for marriage, the male-gazey depiction of sexuality and the predatory lesbians are dismal, to say the least, but frankly, not unexpected. It's not surprising given its target audience, but the result is a strong heterosexual and male eye to lesbian interactions. It's not actually as offensive as I make it sound, largely because the manga is actually quite sexless and mostly boring, but it's an added layer of irritation.

Overall: I was right to suspect that Miyuki-chan in Wonderland would not be for me. It's a sex comedy that is neither sexy nor funny. CLAMP, I have decided, are just not adept comedy writers. They're good for a pratfall in a wider story, but they can't seem to break the formula of repetition + zaniness = humour. I have criticized Duklyon and CLAMP School Detectives for the same, but they could at least rise beyond their weak writing on the strength of charming characters (and for Duklyon, some occasionally funny story commentary). Since Miyuki-chan has no plot and no real characters, it must succeed on either being hot, or being funny. It does neither, and the male gaze-ness doesn't help. I would not recommend this manga at all.