Magic Knight Rayearth, also referred to as MKR. A borderline
magical girl series with a strange yet appealing
combination of adventure, drama, and silliness; created by the
quartet of awesome ladies of CLAMP. It is both a manga series
and an anime series. The manga is made up of two parts, each
with three books, and the anime has two seasons, the first with 20
episodes and the second with 29 episodes.
The story starts of at that most venerable of anime landmarks, the
Tokyo Tower, where three different 8th grade classes are having
their field trips. From these three classes come the three
heroines of the story: Hikaru Shidou, short, genki,
enthusiastic, extremely nice, honest, and pure, plus slightly
clueless; Fuu Hououji, calm, collected, extremely polite, and
the brains of the trio; and Umi Ryuuzaki, who is is easily irked
and exasperated, speaks her mind clearly and never beats around
the bush.
At the tower, there's a flash of light, and these three are
magically summoned to the world Cephiro, where everything is
controlled by one's will. Guru Clef, the head wizard of Cephiro
(who looks like a 10 year old boy, but is actually 745 years old).
He tells them that they were summoned by Princess Emeraude, the
Pillar of Cephiro, as her last desperate act after being
kidnapped. The Pillar supports the peace, happiness, and the very
reality of Cephiro with her prayers, and since she's been
kidnapped monsters have started appearing and war has ravaged the
land. They can't return to Earth until they have granted
Emeraude's wish and saved Cephiro.
Since none of them can use magic, Clef grants each of them a
magical specialty, and then sends them off to save Cephiro. They
soon meet up with the required cute
anime critter Mokona, and the fun begins. ;-)
While this might seem like typical anime, the first story arc ends
with a very surprising twist (which I can't describe without
giving it away). In the second story arc the trio are once again
summoned to Cephiro, and have to deal with the consequences of
that twist. I haven't seen the anime version, but the manga
version is very nice, and worth a read.