Angel Sanctuary 10

Wow, things really won’t just stay dead in this series.

Uriel came back, which made me happy because he’s my favorite of the four elemental angels.  Which says a lot because I really like Michael and Raphael.  He pulls a trump card and tricks all four of them into the same space.  When Kai comes back and goes against Kira’s wishes (I liked Kira’s reaction, I’m glad I’m not the only one that thinks this stuff is insane), at first I was cursing Belial.  She mentioned her trump card again even after it was revealed, so I thought she had something else up her sleeve.  But I couldn’t make the connection to what Kai said about his body being made out of plants.  I realized what had happened about a split second before it was revealed.  Very nice twist there.

Also, it WAS Mad Hatter that healed Kira last volume.  Kira goes to hell to find out what the deal is with him being able to sense stuff while Setsuna’s there, and while he really doesn’t have much of a role in this volume… the last panel tells me I’m in for a treat next time.

When Mad Hatter and Setsuna meet up, I like the game Hatter plays when she mentions both she and Setsuna should split up and look for Kurai in the realms of the other seven satans.  Hatter gets to Astoreth too late, but I loved that Setsuna and and Asmodeus teamed up.  Asmodeus was a pretty awesome character, and a better womanizer than Raphael if only because he was very, very evil.

Aww, Arachne.  I still don’t like her very much.  Her backstory is revealed in this volume, and I liked what her (or really, his, since he doesn’t actually want to be a woman) actual relationship to Kurai is, and I liked that Kurai’s dad was so clever as to fool, like, EVERYBODY.  But Arachne’s allegiances are so scrambled and messy that I have no idea what his motivation was.  I mean, I know what he wanted, but he knew it wasn’t going to work, so why bother trying?  For revenge, I guess.

I also liked that the wedding ceremony was just a cover for the fact they were trying to keep Lucifer’s power under wraps, and that despite this, it was still a formal affair in hell with all seven satans showing up along with a bunch of demons.  I did crack up when Asmodeus insulted Mammon’s (the sin of greed) gold chest as tacky.

I also liked that Kaori Yuki explained that she swapped out the real demon of sloth for Astoreth because Belphegor was said to always be sitting on a toilet, and it just wasn’t something she could see herself including in a shoujo manga.  She talks about bands a lot occasionally, but her author notes are better than most shoujo author notes.

But yes.  That last panel?  I’m dying to know what the real deal with Kira is now.

Angel Sanctuary 9

Oh, Arachne.  I didn’t think you had it in you.  How sad that it had to come down to that.  I like Arachne significantly less now.

I was kind of right about Kurai, but I don’t think things will work out as well as I had imagined.  Apparently Belial lied (of course he did, I believe he is the lord of lies), and Kurai didn’t get what she wanted, and Lucifer winning a battle doesn’t seem like it will help anybody out, if what the seven satans say is true.  Every being in hell thinks only of itself, so if hell won against the angels, that doesn’t mean that everyone would be free.  That doesn’t even mean that remotely.

Apparently I got my wish about Boyz, too.  I… wouldn’t have wished that on him, but… yeah.  Noyz is still around, and apparently things will move from Gehenna to the lower levels of Hell now.  I don’t mind Noyz so much as long as she’s no longer possessed by a demon.

Kira was on his way out, and then was saved.  At first, I thought Rosiel did it, and even though I couldn’t figure out why, it would make sense that Rosiel could since it’s his blood keeping Kira around.  But… if the panels follow in sequence (which isn’t necessarily true, things jump around a lot abruptly), it was… Belial?  Which doesn’t make sense to me at all.  And for a second, I had this wild idea that Belial was the one who appears to Metatron.  I don’t think that’s the case, either, because there is absolutely nothing sane-looking about Belial, and the one who appears to Metatron looks at least a little serene.

Up in heaven, Sara’s wandering around, and now she’s with Raphael.  I’m not sure what Raphael wants with her, other than to annoy Sevothtarte.  He says he doesn’t do anything that doesn’t benefit him, so even keeping Sara away from Sevothtarte for her safety isn’t something he would do.  He propositions her later, of course, because that’s what he does, but I don’t think that’s why he kept her either.  Maybe he just wants to see what happens to her body?  It explained things better in that regard, too, because now I understand what they mean when they said Sara made up for the lack of Archangel.  I guess that’s the same situation as Setsuna?  Except I’m under the impression Setsuna and Alexiel are separate souls.  Maybe that’s not necessarily the case.  Yeah, because I don’t think Setsuna and Alexiel’s consciousnesses can exist apart.

Sara also has a run-in with Michael, which is very funny.  I like Michael a lot.  I like everything about him.  The fact that he randomly shows up and makes up with Raphael and brings him a whole bunch of random weird crap was good enough, but then he gets reamed by Sara, who he doesn’t recognize.  Excellent.  I’m under the impression that next volume, things won’t go so well between Sara and Michael, though.

Now that Sara’s back in things, it’s just killing me that her and Setsuna are being kept apart.  I know that’s the whole point of the story, but now that she’s back, it’s like they’re so close and yet so far.  Sara’s campaigning in Heaven to bring Setsuna back so she can see him, but now Setsuna’s off on this side quest in Hell to save Kurai.  Oh Kurai, if only your love weren’t so cute and pure.

Angel Sanctuary 8

Sevothtarte’s intentions finally become clear here, in that he states what he wants to do explicitly.  I’m not that surprised by it even though I probably should be.  If nothing else, the series is full of very selfish characters, so what’s one more person with a grand plan?  I’m still not sure if he was planning on having all the angels in heaven help him out with his goal, or if he was going to go about it secretly.

Aside from his very evil master plan, he does a bunch of other things that let us know he’s just not the kind soul you’d expect one of the most powerful angels in heaven to be.  They bring up the fact he keeps his face hidden a few times, and after someone catches him in part of his plan, he… sticks them with a pin so that if they ever talk again, their head will explode.  That’s kind of an awesome power.  His face will probably wind up being a huge plot point later, but something tells me that if we saw it now, we would either have no knowledge of who he was supposed to be, or it just wouldn’t be that surprising.  I can appreciate a wait for this bit of knowledge, because I think it will be a really great twist when it comes.  Or he’ll wind up being someone stupid, obvious, and impossible like Lucifer, which isn’t totally out of the question at this point since Lucifer still hasn’t been introduced and his silhouette has long hair.  They go through the connection between him and Jibreel, which is something I’d already sort of guessed.

Michael meets up with Setsuna, and because Michael just loves picking fights, they fight on Earth while time stands still.  Michael doesn’t actually play fair or listen to reason, and he sends Setsuna into a berserker rampage.  Michael also doesn’t figure out who Setsuna actually is for quite some time, which is sort of hilarious and made even more so when Setsuna calls him out on not recognizing him.  Setsuna also meets Raphael briefly, but since he’s overcome with rage (Michael messes with Boyz a little) he can’t ask what he needs and winds up still having to go to heaven.

I keep forgetting to mention Boyz and Noyz.  Yuki says that they were originally side characters that wouldn’t appear ever again (she gives their names for the first time in the side bar, presumably because she didn’t plan on using them in the story).  I like their designs a lot, but they have the unfortunate distinction of having the two stupidest names in the series.  I’m especially sorry that Boyz is the dominant of the pair.  I’d seen the names translated elsewhere as Voice and Noise, which are significantly better names, but I’ll give Viz the benefit of the doubt and say that they used the names that Yuki picked out.

After being driven out of Gehenna by the evils last volume and having everyone but Boyz and Kurai lose faith in him, Setsuna gets welcomed back only when he begs them to save Boyz, and only then because the Dragon Gods interfere on his behalf.  A demon sent by Lucifer is responsible for turning everyone on him, and apparently the demon will stick around until he can get his old body back… which requires a trip to heaven.

Possibly.  Kurai is still struggling with her decision.  For a second, I thought her mind was made up not to do it, which would be kind of silly on her part.  But Mad Hatter shows up again and entices her further, and then further still.  The volume ends with a great scene where Kurai is trying to see definitively if there is a way for her to steal Setsuna’s heart away from Sara.  Her story is sort of a sad one since Setsuna and Sara are fated lovers and all that, so I’m guessing she’ll be making the decision in favor of setting Setsuna free at the cost of… well, her freedom, I guess.  We’ll see how that goes.

Sara finally comes back, which is good because she’s been sort of useless since, like, the third volume.  Metatron helps her, and Metatron only helps her because a mysterious character basically tells him to help her.  I thought this mysterious character was Setsuna, much like I thought Setsuna was on the cover of this volume, but I think the person on the cover and this person are the same, which means very little… other than they are a fallen angel that can appear to Metatron in dreams.  Sevothtarte definitely disapproves, and he looks like he wants to will people to explode or something after all is said and done.  They… sort of reveal why Alexiel’s newest incarnation didn’t have an Archangel watching over him, except it didn’t make much sense to me… it’s somehow because of Sara, but is it because Sara is actually a very powerful angel, or did her soul just wind up in that body?

I finished this and was really looking forward to the next volume, which is the first time that’s happened so far.  The story’s really starting to pick up, and with more and more of the pieces falling into place, the story is becoming easier to understand and easier to appreciate.  Kaori Yuki has definitely set things up to operate on a grand scale, and now that I’m this far in, I can see that the ambitious plot is finally starting to get going and pay off.

Angel Sanctuary 7

I’m not sure how many posts I have in me tonight, but I promise I’ll make up for it tomorrow.  I’ve been on some type of road trip every day since my vacation started, most involving Pittsburgh for some reason.  Tomorrow I’m not leaving the house.  The next day I’ll probably be in Akron.  Again.

Setsuna comes back, and this time he’s… different!  I was definitely expecting this, but it happened much sooner than I thought.  It’s pointed out to him that the people around him only see Alexiel and not Setsuna Mudo, and for some reason, it was like a big revelation for him.  I mean, has anyone actually been calling him Setsuna all this time?  He’s surrounded by people who gathered BECAUSE he’s the reincarnation of Alexiel, for pete’s sake.

He’s handed some sort of subquest.  I have little faith in this diversion after what happened to Tialiel last time, but maybe something will come of it later.

The most important among the things that happen, other than Setsuna’s transformation, is that Mad Hatter introduces himself to Setsuna and gives him secrets and… some sort of alliance?  He actually propositions Kurai too, and I’m not sure what Kurai has to think about.  I mean, she can’t turn down what it is that Hatter offers.  It comes from higher up.  Or lower down, as the case may be.  I like Hatter a lot since she is sufficiently insane and very, very evil.  Kaori Yuki did it again though… dammit, stop fooling me with the genders.  Hatter points out that none of that matters though, and she’s got a point.

Michael and Raphael are finally introduced.  They’re about what I expected given the descriptions of them we were given.  I liked Michael a lot.  It’s interesting to see where their allegiances lie in the heaven power struggle though.  That situation is still kind of messy in my mind, though, and I think it’s necessary to see what Sevothtarte has in mind before everything comes clear.

Adam Kadamon saved the day though, and spelled out the seven layers of heaven and seven layers of hell clear as day, though, and what he didn’t cover Kurai went over later.  It doesn’t explain everything, but it helps.

This volume was the end of the Hell chapter and the beginning of the… lower floors of heaven chapter.  The elemental angels will probably start to come into play more and more, and I’m looking forward to seeing Setsuna in his new form, which I suspect he’ll keep for awhile unless Kaori Yuki really hates drawing it as much as she says she does.

Angel Sanctuary 6

Wow.  Okay.  One more post before bed.  I’m officially behind schedule on reading this, but this post will at least keep me on schedule for the site.

There’s some interesting things going on in both heaven and hell.  Remember Tiara/Tialiel?  Yeah.  She fills her role.  I’m a bit angry that so much time was spent fleshing her out.  Oh well.  Rosiel is one evil bastard, and he does a fantastic job foiling a plot against him in grand style.  There is resurrection.  Naked resurrection.  Speaking of evil bastards, Sevotarthe is officially a bad guy, at least in my book.  He is extremely terrifying.

So on to hell.  I forgot about Lucifer’s role in hell last time, but luckily Lucifer didn’t forget about me.  He sends his agent in the form of Mad Hatter, a character at least one of my friends was obsessed with.  Mad Hatter is extremely awesome, as he is both insane and evil as well as a clown.  So, we have Enma-O, who holds souls for judgement.  He sends those souls going to hell to Uriel, who casts them into the flames or into the non-existent Gehenna, where they are tortured by our freinds Kurai and the evils.  Gehenna is a top layer of hell, and there are layers below it.  At the bottom lies Lucifer, but other stuff comes in between.  I can accept this.

Setsuna and a friend face off against Enma-o so he can get back to his body, since there is apparently no way out of hell, only ways in.  He rumbles with Enma-o a bit and things go crazy, he may not have a body to go back to, blah blah blah.  He’s coming back anyway, and that’s the end of the hell chapter.  At least I think it is, anyway.  I have a feeling most of the story will take place in hell, or at least that’s where Setsuna will stay for awhile.

Alexiel and Rosiel have now been cast in Cain and Abel roles.  Cain loves God, but God apparently only loves Abel, and Abel is the most beloved.  In with that comes the knowledge that the most forbidden taboo of all for angels is to love God.  What.

Lots of stuff happens here, which is good because I think this is the end of this section of story.  I’m still waiting for more movement from the very powerful angels and more very powerful demons to be introduced.  Plus, there’s a fairly decent complication concerning Setsuna now, and I’m looking forward to how that will be resolved.

Angel Sanctuary 5

Yeah, yeah.  Once again, general spoilers, no major story revelations or anything.

As I hoped, the tiers of hell sort of became more clear.  Setsuna finds himself in the… judgement area, with Enma-O and Uriel, the angel of death.   I think.  At least, I know he’s dealing with both at the moment.  Uriel passes judgement on human souls and either passes them off to heaven or tosses them into the fires or into the now-non-existent Gehenna.  He may not actually pass them off into heaven, they may be beyond that before they reach him.  I can’t tell.  Any sense I may make of this is immediately nullified by the fact that Uriel lives in Yggdrasill and rides a dragon called Nidhogg.  Not only is Kaori Yuki crossing her mythologies here, she also freely admits to inventing a lot of stuff, which is fine, it’s a story. Nothing is going to make much sense here anyway unless she explains it, and I can’t begrudge her making up stuff for a story.

We learn that not only are there seven great angels, there are also four powerful angels that are in charge of each of the elements.  We hear about all four of them through the course of this volume.  It seems to me like they would wield the most power, or at the very least Uriel is the most powerful character we’ve yet seen.  Yet Metatron and Sevothtarte are the rulers in heaven, and Metatron is just a kid.  I don’t know, I suppose that’s why there’s a lot of infighting.  Uriel doesn’t want any part of that, at least.  After hearing so much about Uriel and his powers, he is now my favorite character.  I just wish he weren’t so emo.

Rosiel’s pet is escaping, and he doesn’t seem to like it much.  I’m sad that this has to end so soon, since I sort of liked the fact that this extremely powerful being in charge of heaven fed his enemies to a monster and left body parts Godfather-style in people’s beds.  I’m not entirely sure I approve of Tiara, but from what I’ve seen, I kind of like him/her.  Though God knows that the last thing this story needs is another minor character tangling with a minor character.  Hopefully Tiara gets a bigger part soon so I can see more of him/her.

The friend I mentioned last volume leading Setsuna around hell finally implodes, and a lot of the volume is spent either in a flashback of his life, with Setsuna pleading with him to find reason in living, or with Setsuna saving him.  As it stands, he may become some sort of slave to Setsuna in the same way Katan is a slave to Rosiel.  Fine.  He’s grown on me since he’s reappeared.

Exposition exposition.  Lots of new characters.  I like the explantions of what’s going on.  There’s an extremely rich mythology being created for us.  I just kind of wish I’d get to the part where something happens in this mythology.  Of course, a lot of it is still murky, and there’s still about 420 of the 500 characters in the series left to go, so I think there’s a whole lot more exposition to come, unfortunately.

Angel Sanctuary 4

Once again, I kind of spoil minor story details in these reviews because it’s hard for me to talk about this series without discussing the characters and their relationships.  Plus it helps me keep them straight.

So… Setsuna is offered a choice after going berserk last volume.  I guess there was a reason that this section of story was named after what the heavenly beings call Earth.  The next part takes place in… hell?  The land of the dead?  The underworld?  Some vaguely non-earthly, non-heavenly realm.  There seems to be several levels to this dark realm, one of which was destroyed, Gehenna, where the Evils lived, which is why Kurai and Arachne are now wandering around.  I assume more of this will be explained in future volumes.

A character comes back, which is good.  I thought he got a weird amount of focus for who he was in the earlier parts of the story, and I like him better in his new role.  I can’t figure out what he’s going to do, though.

Yuki has drawn a parallel to Orpheus and Eurydice with this section, which is fine by me.  It’s still not entirely clear how Setsuna will go about reaching his goal, so… I guess we just wait and see.

The stuff happening in heaven now is significantly more interesting.  So… God is the most powerful in heaven, but otherwise it seems like the angels can be pretty evil, petty, and just… un-angelic, aside from having their own power struggles.  I can’t figure out what constitutes good and evil for them.  Apparently Rosiel isn’t immediately kicked out of heaven, and can dethrone the most powerful angel currently seated by just showing up.  I thought Rosiel was evil.  I… don’t know anymore.  I like that the lead angels don’t show up to help Metatron or Seve-whatever so they can see who wins the power struggle.  I also still don’t understand why Alexiel and Rosiel alone don’t belong to any group of angels, and… what Adam Kadamon is, why the creations of God would want to destroy it, why it is currently sealed away, and even whether it is an angel.  It is very powerful, though.

Exposition, exposition.  So far I’m not so fond of the Hell bits, but the Heaven bits are getting better and better.  Here’s hoping things start clearing up for me soon.

Angel Sanctuary 3

Just as a warning… I am going to try and keep all major plot revelations under wraps, but I’m going to summarize the more general parts of the story, mostly for my own benefit so I can keep track of what’s going on.  Normally I try hard to avoid spoilers, but I’m not going to be able to keep things straight here unless I write about them.

‘Okay, yes, this volume was awesome.  I can compare this series to X, because they’re complex and impenetrable in the same ways, but there’s an almost direct connection between Sara Mudo and Kotori Monou now.  Except Kotori didn’t have the same effect on Kamui that Sara has on Setsuna.  No… Kotori had more of a Sara effect on Fuuma.  And end-of-the-world thing has sort of come into play as of this volume, which is yet another parallel to X.  There doesn’t seem to be two sides to the battle in this story though, and I don’t think that Alexiel can choose a side.  But yes, anything running this close to X has my attention.

Much of the first part of the volume is spent developing the relationship between Sara and Setsuna.  After the first couple chapters, I heartily approve of the pair.  The first chapter in this volume takes place in an airport.  Sara was going to go off with her mother and marry another man in London, never to see Setsuna again, but Setsuna shows up with the police hot on his tail (he’s a murder suspect) and does the whole public confession thing at the airport.  It’s a bit hokey, but in the right context, it can be awesome.  This was about right.

Also covered are Kira’s background and what he’s doing hanging out with Alexiel.  Apparently he’s been following Alexiel from life to life, always making a pact with a human to be next to her.  That’s also sort of romantic.  I’m not sure if Kira’s true form is male or female, but I could see some sort of Setsuna/Kira or Alexiel/Kira pair working out well, too.  There’s a chance that they were a pair in the past… Arachne mentions that there was only Alexiel and Rosiel present at their last confrontation, yet that’s supposedly where Kira got his power to live forever.

Also covered are the relationships of Katan and Kirie to Rosiel.  Katan has a great backstory, whereas Kirie is sort of a fool.  I don’t mind so much.  It didn’t make me like Katan any more or less, and I still am not quite sure where he stands, or whether or not the Angels are actually the “good” guys in whatever is about to happen.  Actually, with the way they’ve been portrayed, they almost certainly are not.

Speaking of angels, we meet two more.  Metatron, who is one of the most powerful angels both traditionally and in this story, is a child for some reason, and his keeper is Sevothtarte, another powerful angel.  Apparently both are among the seven most powerful angels in heaven, and I can’t tell if Alexiel and Rosiel rank among those seven… but I think Zaphikel is among the seven, the blind angel we met last time.

But lots and lots of romantic stuff happens between Sara and Setsuna, and it is all quite touching.  I liked the volume for that, plus it opens and closes with two very raw and romantic scenes.  If the series can keep topping those scenes, I think I’m going to enjoy this very much.

Angel Sanctuary 2

Just as a warning… I am going to try and keep all major plot revelations under wraps, but I’m going to summarize the more general parts of the story, mostly for my own benefit so I can keep track of what’s going on.  Normally I try hard to avoid spoilers, but I’m not going to be able to keep things straight here unless I write about them.

This volume was almost all about Sara and Setsuna.  I said before I don’t like incest, and I’ll say it again, I hate incest, but it’s handled so well here that I find myself feeling pretty sympathetic for the couple.  The spotlight is more on the taboo and the repurcussions than how true their love is, which also helps, I think.

Sara’s mom catches her and Setsuna in a close moment, and after being taken down a couple notches by her, Setsuna says the most terrible things he can think of to drive her away and make her fall out of love.  Fate is not so kind, though, and Setsuna’s love is used against him by Rosiel for blackmail.  After rumors go around the school about Setsuna and his sister, only his friend Kira’s words keep him from flying off the handle.  Kira basically says that they’ve never been in his shoes and can’t know what it’s like to fight yourself over the forbidden love he has.  Setsuna just needed to hear that he wasn’t the most evil person on earth for his feelings, so this made him feel much better.

Then, it made him feel much worse later during another scene with Kira.  Towards the end of the volume he loses the will to live, and I really thought the main character was going to die in volume two since this would unleash Alexiel (Alexiel can’t live unless Setsuna dies, but I suspect there will be a way around this later).  Instead, two new characters are introduced, one of whom is apparently one of the most powerful angels in heaven.  He’s looking for Adam Kadamon.  There’s another new character too, an Archangel-in-Training that replaces Rosiel’s Cherubim-rank angel.

Just a plot summary, sorry.  I still have no opinion on this story other than it’s very busy so far and I like the doomed romance.  Here’s hoping something awesome happens next volume.

Angel Sanctuary 1

So here’s the story with this series: I had a few friends who raved about Kaori Yuki, so I was pretty pumped when this series got licensed.  It sounds like it’s got a great plot, and it definitely has nice art.  I went out and bought the first volume, read it… and was kind of disappointed.  Between then and now, I bought every volume of the series as it came out (because I just do that), but I didn’t read any more.  Angel Sanctuary’s time has come.  Let’s see if reading all the volumes together helps it out any.

My main problem with this volume is that it introduces the main character, his sister, her friend, his friend, the two “Evils,” a Cherubim-rank angel, Adam Kadamon, and two other characters who may or may not be the most powerful angels in heaven, who are definitely somehow against heaven, but also seem to be against each other for some reason.  When I put it like that, it doesn’t really sound like that many, but mix in the beginnings of, at this point, a very poorly-explained heavenly conflict involving all these characters possibly on different sides and… you have a mess.  Also, those two evils, their genders turn out to be not what you think, and because I didn’t trust things after this, I had a hard time believing in the genders for Alexiel and Rosiel.  It would have been easier if the angels were genderless like usual, but nooooo.  I don’t really mind that much, but Kaori Yuki should stop trying to fool me.

Normally I would sort of forgive this and assume everything would work itself out in future volumes, but from what I’ve heard things only get more complicated and we’ve only seen the first several of about 500 characters.  Bah.  But this is why I decided it might be better to read the whole thing at once, so it was easier to keep track of the story, characters, and places (we’ve also already had 3 or 4 intangible places mentioned by name in this volume).

I like the basic story.  Normally I don’t go for incest, no matter what, but here it’s set up to be most heartbreaking, and depending on how it’s handled, it could turn out quite well.  So far Setsuna looks like he’d make for a pretty good character (he’s kind of a punk, but an honest punk, and he picks his battles), and I also don’t mind Sara.  Here’s hoping the random comic violence between the two will be phased out as the series continues.