Angel Sanctuary 17

Well, okay.  Now we’ve gotten to the part where everyone just stands around and talks about their feelngs.  This has been going on all along, but this volume is particularly bad.  Aside from an attack on Sara, all that happens is that Raphael talks about his feelings for Sara, Kato talks about what his problem with the current Kira is, Sandalphon and Metatron have a big old girly weep after being a rather threatening monster, Sara starts to make herself feel bad as people accuse her of ambiguous emotional crimes and she has her nightmares eaten, and Setsuna just goes on.  And on.  And on.  It does seem like his power awakens at least a little bit here, though.

Metalphon’s story is probably the most interesting thing that happens in this volume.  I still can’t figure out Rosiel’s deal, because he seems to be stopping people from doing what they’d normally do, even though his goals seem to run parallel to theirs.  He tortures Sandalphon though, and sort of riles him up to get him good and mad before he tries to attack Sara.  He winds up fighting with Setsuna and being driven away after… I don’t know, I don’t think he actually got what he wanted, but he did claim Sara, I suppose.  Then he almost gets killed, and then Rosiel just taunts him more.  It’s not too clear what Rosiel actually wants from him, other than to make him mad.  Is Metalphon the key to unlock the door to God?  I don’t think he is.  I’m pretty sure all you need are the four elemental angels as well as the organic and inorganic angels.

There’s a lot of Raphael in this volume, and he picks a fight with Sara, then leaves her, then picks a fight with Setsuna, then Michael picks a fight with him.  I couldn’t figure out why he’d turned into such a disagreeable character, but apparently this is how love changes you.  And I thought he loved Barbiel.  He may be back to normal as of the end of this volume.  I really like the relationship between him and Michael.

Anything else important happen?  I think things are sort of tapering off towards this point where Rosiel tricks everyone into helping him open the gate to the highest level of heaven.  God and Adam Kadamon are supposedly hidden off there.  I’m not sure what part Metatron and Sandalphon will play in this, but Sandalphon is a really horrible creature, so I assume he’ll be sent out to mess with people again, or at the very least Sara.