Rumi Okubo, who voices Umi Ryuuzaki in the new Magic Knight Rayearth TV anime, said her first reaction to the reboot was disappointment that the cast would change, in an interview with Oricon News published October 13, 2026.
Episode 1 aired on October 7 in TV Asahi's "IMAnimation W" block, which carries the series on Wednesdays at 11:45 p.m. JST, and episode 2 was scheduled for October 14, according to Oricon. The run is two consecutive cours. Oricon interviewed all three leads: Ayane Sakura (Hikaru Shidou), Okubo and Rie Takahashi (Fuu Hououji). The anime adapts CLAMP's fantasy manga, serialized in Kodansha's Nakayoshi from 1993 to 1996 and first animated as a TV series in 1994-95. Oricon reports that the new production marks roughly 30 years since that broadcast and is the first Rayearth anime in 29 years, following an OVA released in 1997.
Okubo first heard about the project at a CLAMP exhibition, where the production announcement came with a key visual and a video. At that point she had not auditioned or been told anything. Her blunt first thought, she said, was that the cast would change, and that it made her sad. She loves the Heisei-era anime and is the kind of fan who understands people who resist a recast: a reboot made now means a new cast, new staff and a different art style, and whether to accept that and watch is each viewer's own choice.
Once she was cast as Umi, she said, she knew she would be the one absorbing the very feelings she had had herself, and that her resolve came quickly for that reason. She had gone to the exhibition with a close friend who also loves CLAMP's work, and the two had wondered whether the cast would change. Even if someone told her to her face that the new Rayearth was not enjoyable, she said, she could probably keep smiling and accept that some people feel that way. The person she worried about most was herself, she added, because loving the work left her unable to judge her own performance objectively, and until recording began she was afraid of the day someone would tell her the casting had been a mistake. Before the announcement, her manager had her box up her Rayearth merchandise so it would not hint at the news.
Direction on playing Umi
Umi is the tallest of the three and holds a caring "mother" or "older sister" position in the group, and Okubo said she initially let that appearance pull her toward an adult-sounding voice. At the audition she was told she sounded "mother-like," with a reminder that the three are all 14-year-old girls. Being a little mature in outlook was fine, she was told, but not maternal.
The audition direction also asked her not to make Umi too unpleasant. For episode 1 she was asked to set that aside and play the character sharply, since Umi's distrust is at its strongest when people she has just met suggest that everyone introduce themselves. Her line to Fuu, asking why she is even giving her blood type, was in the audition material, where she had been told not to deliver it so harshly. She was also asked not to overdo the show's frequent deformed, chibi-style scenes, a balance she called difficult because playing them too realistically would not match the art. She said she was still feeling the role out in episode 1 and settled in around episodes 2 and 3.
Okubo owns three different editions of the manga and has reread it enough that she can picture the expressions without opening the book, which she said sometimes pulled her toward playing the harsher scenes too strongly. She does not intend to overwrite the earlier anime. There is no need to give up loving the Heisei-era version, she said, and she approached the role as building something entirely new for the present day.