What are they? Options

[Shiidou Hikaru]

In the original Japanese, Rayearth, Selece (Ceres?) and Windom are called "mashins". If you were to find the most common translation for that word, you'll come up with "devil" or "machine", neither of which really fits. While they all have a very mechanical appearance and perform a lot of the same functions as a typical mecha, they're not robots. They are living creatures with their own independant spirits. In the folklore of Cephiro, it's very likely that the three of them are portrayed as devils or demons, however, what is shown to us, the audience, definitely aren't demons. At all times, they either follow the will of their Magic Knight masters or remain dormant. So a term with an evil connotation like "devil" doesn't fit well either. Then in the English version of the TV series they called them "Rune Gods" a term that I'd never heard of until I saw MKR. What a Rune God is, I really don't know, or how they came up with that. When Umi first found Selece, he was just a bas-relief cut into a stone wall, sort of like ancient runes? Pretty flakey reasoning at best. In the OAV's they were called "spririt beasts" a term I find more fitting than "Rune God" for sure. The translation of the OAV's was done by a different company than the TV series, so a few things like that were interpreted differently. While "spirit beast" doesn't really fit better than any of the other descriptions for them, it has the most provocative and interesting connotations. So I tend to like that one the best, it's my own opinion. But is it accurate?

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