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RIGHT TURN ONLY!! - Black and Blue

Magic Knight Rayearth is one of the few CLAMP titles I thought was better as an anime. Now, the anime certainly has its problems, but I felt that it handled the character development much better than the manga, which was too short to ever really get emotionally attached to anyone.

All right! Some Magic Knight Rayearth appreciation! That series, both the anime and manga, is seriously underrated. Before you saw Mokona in Tsubabsa, he was in Magic Knight Rayearth.

The omnibus is definitely worth buying, even if you have the original 6 volume Tokyopop releases. The Dark Horse omnibus has a nice dust jacket cover, with a beautiful inllustration, and the spine and cover stay intact. Paper quality is slightly better too, and the dialogue has been cleaned up a bit. Not to mention, there are bonus side-stories and color images. Definitely worth buying and for those who already have the Tokyopop ones, it's worth a double-dip.

I'd say the opposite. The manga was great, the anime turned the whole series into something very childish. And while the manga was short (since it was good, I certainly wouldn't have minded if it was a bit longer), the anime was too long. I don't remember in detail, but I think it had quite a few fillers and in general changed so much of the story, it's almost like two different series v.v

And you thought the curry cooking competition was an unusual departure? Well, here's Ciel and Sebastian Join the Circus!

Sebastian gets friendly with a tiger and freaks out the animal tamer;

Ciel gets a serious dose of fish-out-of-water awkwardness as he realizes that the nomadic circus life is nothing like his pampered upbringing.

one of Sebastian's supernatural rivals has also joined the circus for shady reasons,

Maybe this is just a stupid, obvious question, but where is the actual plot?

What started out as a potential detective thriller gradually turns into a farce as the storyline falls deeper and deeper into Ciel and Sebastian's circus antics.

It's understandable that one might need a few scenes to show how our heroes insinuate their way into the troupe, but for that to be the primary focus of this volume—with the actual investigation only beginning late into the final chapter—shows a misplaced sense of priorities. There isn't even any kind of forward progress where Ciel develops his performing skills or gets acclimated to his surroundings; it's just "here's an aristocrat in an unlikely situation, so let's all laugh at him!"

You caught the ref to missing children. Every town a child went missing in, this Circus visited. The motiff is old. Something Wicked This Way Comes. Forget that, the old "Run away & join the circus" thing. Circuses are fun & happy places, but some seem to have dark underbellies.
Not to mention, why does Ciel find a note with his name inside of it? Could this be connected to his kidnapping?