Thursday, June 30, 2005

   Angel Sancturary
So this past Sunday Mom dropped me off at the mall so I could pick up some stuff at suncoast. Sunday was the last for triple points and I spent 71 bucks there. Haha. Well one of the things I got was another volume in one of my favorite manga series, Angel Sanctuary and I just can’t help talking about it. ^^

Angel Sanctuary for the uneducated… is AWESOME manga [sadly, they butchered the OVA version of it] It deals with some controversial subject matter such as incest, is heaven/hell wholly good/evil? Please note though, it’s NOT a commentary or a satire on the religious conceptions of Angels/Devils…

A summary thus far of the series as taken from the foreword:

High school student Setsuna Mudo has just destroyed the world. He’s always been a troublemaker but his worst sin was falling incestuously in love with his beautiful sister, Sara. However, his troubles aren’t entirely his fault. He is the reincarnation of the Lady Alexiel, an angel who led a the demons of Hell, the Evils, in a revolt against Heaven. Her punishment was to be reborn into tragic life after tragic life. This time it’s Setsuna.

But these days, God does not rule in heaven, instead the leadership of the highest-ranking angels - the child-like Metaron and the strict dictator Sevathrone - is shaky. The made angel, Rosiel, sends his servants Katan and Kirie, a young selfish female angel, to Earth to reawaken a dormant Alexiel inside of Setsuna.

When Kirie kills Sara, it finally awakens Alexiel, but in the violence of her divine resurrection, the city of Tokyo is destroyed. On the brink of death, the ancient angel, Seraphita, saves Setsuna. The angel has frozen time but explains he couldn’t do before Sara died because it was necessary for her to die for Alexiel to awaken. But the angel offers Setsuna hope: he has seven days to journey to hell and save his sister. At the end of seven days, He’ll die forever. In Hell, his old schoolmate and nemesis, Kato, guide Setsuna.

Meanwhile in heaven, the Supreme Council is in chaos. In the confusion, mad Rosiel claims power. The angel Sevonthtarte instructs another angel, Dobiel to spy on Rosiel, but his henchmen are devoured by Katan- Rosiel’s servant who died in the Tokyo blast and has been turned to a flesh eating ghoul. In Hades, Setsuna thinks he found Sara, but it’s just a demon in disguise, so his search continues.


Fair warning, if you’re reading Angel Sanctuary and if you have not reached the 5th volume… and you don’t like spoilers… please don’t read any further… >>’ you won’t be happy…

So much awesome stuff happened.

Zomg. Kato Yue. I love him. For the most part, we didn’t even know Kato’s first name. Up until now, all we knew about Kato was that he was some delinquent punk that hung out with Kira. Poor Kato… he needs huggles. He was born a bastard son, the product of an affair his mother had. His [non-bio] father named him ‘Yue’ hoping the name would give him bad luck. The husband also accused the mother of still seeing Kato’s bio-father… Sadly, one of Kato’s first memories his father beating his mother… then turning to him… knocking Kato out. Things were forever bitter between the father and Kato [I believe poor Kat-kun was beaten a lot more over the course of his life.]… The father was in the hospital dying… Kato was away getting high.

Kato also had an older sister, Sae. He hated her, because she called him by his first name and she was so vacant that she pretend that they were all one big happy family. There was on incident, Kato’s father came back from a business trip and brought his daughter back a lovely antique French music box. Innocently, [though Kato thought she meant it spitefully asked him if he brought anything for Kato, and he merely replies ‘Oh, I forgot about him’. Kato got upset and tried to attack his father, but he was only 8 - 10 so he was easily beaten. Later that night, he stole the music box and buried it in the yard.

Years went by, his sister was going to be married… At this point Kato had distanced himself greatly from all his family, and he learned he was a bastard. He dug up that old music box and snuck into his sister’s room to give it back to her. She was shocked and startled at him being in his room and she begged him to leave before their father showed up, Kato kept insisting that she needed to open the box. Kato’s monster of father barges in yelling… and we can see where this goes…

We see a scene later.. His sister is married now… she sits in a rocking chair… on the mantle is the broken music box, she patched it together, inside were ripped family photos… all taped together again…

Another character in the manga I fell in love with… Uriel [URI-URI!]

Uriel, the black-winged guardian of the Hell gate. An angel that controls all of the elements of Earth. Uriel is much kinder angel than you would think of one that rules of the hell-gate… er….. sorta… haha. Uriel hid himself in the Hell Gate… and made himself a mask to rule over his personality, a mask that forced him to act harsh, and violently, perfect for the damned souls. In his battle with Setsuna.. Setsuna broke it, freeing Uriel from the mask…somewhat, Uriel is FAR from mentally stable. He went kooky after Alexiel refused his love for her. In fact, Uriel has [or rather had] this power with his words alone, he could place a horrible curse on someone that would follow them… In fact… he was the one that condemned Alexiel to a tragic life one after another… because she didn’t love him in return. Guilty, Uriel slashed his own vocal cords, created his ‘executioner’s mask’ and hid himself at Hell Gate. Because he wore the mask for so long.. Uri-Uri has a bit of a ‘dual’ persona….

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