I find it funny that she voiced Crystal Beast Amethyst Cat in Yugioh GX. And in the Sun & Moon anime Ash got Litten (Also. Speaking of the Pokemon anime. If they let him catch a Fuecoco for the Scarlet & Violet anime. I REALLY hope they don't give it some sort of sad backstory. They've done it for all the Fire Starters he's had. With the exception of Cyndaquil)
A better explanation to why hell was devastated is that one guy got in and he was so pissed that he killed everybody, it works for DOOM so i guess it should work here
I have the entire manga sitting on my shelf. the anime is seriously sane and timid in comparison where the story eventually goes. one is for sure, most, if not almost all of the stuff from the anime does not matter to the "actual" plotline. pretty sure most of the characters barely make it to act 2 ;D
my first exposure to her was fairy cube. It's really tame overall but the art in it was beautiful. I will admit though it was still bizarre. That author just does weird really well
cleary Miss Yuki is a time traveler for ripping off Black Butler... ;) I wonder how I missed this back when I was more "actively" reading manga, maybe it was simply not available over here back in the day. I am excited now :D
Yeah it's nice, but there are a few issues, some jackass energy business is ruining the local environment to get at the natural resources, some assholes called UFC or UHF or some shit.
One must admit there's a lot more lead wherever he goes in Hell, and bullet cases litter the ground. So wasteful! You know, along with all the twisted, mangled and pulped remains he leaves everywhere. Just brings the value of the property way down.
The beginning of this reminds me of our Japanese foreign exchange student, Natsumi. She knew how Americans are about it so she tried to be careful, but then she found out we're not religious, so she finally told us "In Japan, we see it more like interesting fairy tale"
The Bible is the worlds best selling piece of fiction, has been for at least four hundred years. Makes sense that most people would see it as a novelty.
This anime did test my patience with so much being left unsaid and unanswered; so I read the manga. The story is FULL of curses, wars, blasphemy, elements, angels, demons, repeated reincarnations, and so on. There was no way an OAV could have covered even the beginning of this story correctly.
Eh, there are many ways to become desensitized to that stuff real quick. 1: Watch too much animemes. 2: Read too much bible while not a christian 3: Live in the lands of the Appalachian area. 4: Be extremely liberalist in mindset, done by reading a lot of Locke.
BLACKIESBOY well it’s gross when you think of fucking someone so closely related to you it’s like fucking your mother or father only technically twice as bad (also incest leads to horrible genetic problems with any offspring produced
You’re a pice of shit. It’s repulsive! You call it “love” just because they say so, it’s NOT! You really need help bc you think it’s real. Science showing proof that babies of an inscestious relationship can be fucked up proves that god (if there is one) hates this. Not everything humans do god approves of, bastard.
Those are magical beings and you seriously ask about aerodynamic? Not that you can't as MLP pegazi use magic to fly, but you shouldn't expect that on the first place.
I'm among the Christian faithful and you know what? I don't care. If Japan wants to use Christian symbols for their media, fine, whatever. They're not hurting anyone and any insult that could be gleaned from it is petty at best and diminutive of one's own faith at worst. Christianity is about being peaceful, loving and accepting and if a Christian person is going to rapid fire their offended feelings at an anime for using those symbols, I'm willing to bet they don't have the best handle on the faith.
+Jennifer Ellison Agree, from Japanese perspective it is basically like how Buddhist monks are portrayed on west.. hilarious. If someone is seriously offended it typically mean that he is unsure his own fate on the first place (not mentioning ignorant).
Guys, don't turn this into a religious debate. I don't want to have to delete my comment because I'll get flooded with emails from people arguing with each other
To be fair, the manga this anime is based on is much better, but it's still insane. Except it's the good kind of insanity that keeps you wanting to read more.
Exactly! It's because it's epic and twisted out that it's not possible to adapt in anime form. The insanity isn't edginess, in the sense a demon from hell or a clueless teen inhabited by a supreme angel abused by god himself can only be insane as damn. It's all part of a realistic construct.
Finally, someone, who doesn't shred that apart. Sry, but I can't really take anime reviews serious, especially in this case. The anime was just a short summary of the first two or three books (out of twenty) to promote the Manga and shouldn't be seen as a representation of the whole work. Most of the stuff makes sense later on, but for those, who only watched the anime, they will never get it.
Setsuna and Sara's whole love is actually out of their hands. It is part of the punishment handed out to the angel Alexial's soul. She is doomed to be infinitely reincarnated into a ridiculously hard and tragic life only to die young. According to God.
Missing a few pages there. Sara is the reincarnation of an angel meant to oversee Alexial as she is reincarnated and made to suffer over and over. The incarnation of the seven-pronged sword (which is Buddhist symbolism, not Christian symbolism, by the way), killed Alexial early in an act of mercy in a previous life and screwed up the reincarnation cycle by doing so (she was an abused concubine who was set to be murdered by an angry mob as the cruel finale for THAT life, which is why the act of mercy screwed things over). Sara , as an angel, was not supposed to end up THAT close to Setsuna/Alexial. Not that Sara is complaining. She didn't agree with the severity of Alexial's punishment from the start. Her getting THAT close, in more ways than one, is something of a preference to her. And this was after several hundred lifetimes. There is even evidence that some of the things Alexial reincarnated went through were not the will of the God who punished her, but of another, less benevolent individual. Either way, of all of Alexial's lifetimes, "Setsuna" as far as her lives went, was probably her best one thus far.
I had to laugh a little in the beginning about how the animators treated Christianity. Here in the US we treat the religions of other people to be mysterious and exotic too. Most of the time the details were incorrect because they didn't bother to do basic research. I remember growing up how the bookstores wouldn't put books about Buddhism and Hinduism in the Religion section, they were put under Philosophy, New Age, or Occult (those that even HAD those sections).
Except Anno confirmed that he deliberately blow up everything as he was pissed by otaku autistic bullshit.. the issue is that they think that he touched they spirit when in reality he was sarcastic.
He feels EVA is important to the medium, even if he doesn't actually like it or think it is that good (I person agree with that sentiment). He feels the same way about the Dragon Ball.
Garland Mueller I don't think so.. original design material about the show don't show much more as Ideon inspirited show what meant to end in bad way. And in fact if you look close in those they could be quite decent. Yes, Anno is artsy guy but fact that he abandon anime after that show is quite meaningful. Most of those stuff like fact that he get life treats come out long after show emission ended and many Eva-fanboys still don't acknowledge critic of creators themselves. if you ask my personally RahXephon is definitive Evangelion knock off what even make romance between boy and adult women rational (it is in fact my favorite romance ever, and before someone call my pervert he should check why).
Caitlin Brewer No one deny it is important. It was first shows what wasn't horribly censored or D2V and it opened Yanks eye that anime is an art. Still story in it is a trash and so much potential was wasted, not mentioning fact that most haters and fanboys are idiots.
The anime is absolutely terrible. The manga isn't bad, and even has some interesting story arcs. All the stuff that doesn't make sense in the anime? That's stuff they changed for the anime. The manga has a radically different plotline.
Yeah I hear the manga fucking amazing I wish he would mention it or at least said something about it I mean it not the manga fault it got one of those shitty anime adaptation
Angel Sanctuary is a mediocre anime adaptation of a rather great manga. I am not actually joking. The manga starts rather stupid and then the Apocalypse happened and the plot went epic. In short, here is some stuff we learn latter: - the incest plot is actually part of a curse put on the main character, that all of his reincarnation are to live tragic lives - the black haired guy is Lucifer - the bully that died early in the anime returns as a cast member and get very well written back story and character arc - the manga ends with an epic war between heaven and hell - the demons are actually an innocent race living in Hell, that has been oppressed by Heaven. They literally have done nothing wrong....ok maybe some stuff - God is a mad scientist and angels are his biomechanical creation that live in a fascist society.
I’m pretty sure that alexiel had a inscestious relationship with her brother before the curse even started and saying that he is apart of a curse to live tragic lives doesn’t justify the fact that everyone involved in the production of angel sanctuary are trying to make it seem like it’s right to have a relationship like that. The one who wrote the manga of angel santuary is definitely going to Hell for making god a bad person. I hope he burns.
I love how Sage uses the phrase "Pimps in from out of nowhere". I don't really hear "Pimps in" used by anybody else but it's uniquely badass in a certain way and funny as well.
Minor correction, Sage. High School starts later in Japan than in the USA. So he would be 15/16, she would be 14/15. That said, it's still an incredibly creepy relationship. And this is one of few animes you've reviewed that I've actually seen, back in the days when anime was much harder to find, so I grabbed almost anything my local video rental store had available.
It's a shame because... the manga is SOOOOO much better. After reading it, I was sorely disappointed with the OVA series, to the point where while the manga is one of my all-time favorites, the anime is one of the worst I've ever seen. It's astonishing how much of a difference there is between the two, while only loosely sharing the first couple volumes of plot. Angel Sanctuary the manga goes deeper into Rosiel's psyche, which is very much like the Joker: pure insanity, the kind that you love to hate. It also shows more depth and turmoil with the siblings' forbidden love, and the celestial war between Heaven and Hell just gets crazier and more heavily layered. It's complex, mind-boggling, and thoroughly entertaining dark stuff. The anime.... *sigh* barely scratches the surface, while simultaneously tries to be deep and it just.... doesn't work. If Angel Sanctuary made a fully fleshed-out 26+ episode anime series, it just might be more successful. As it is... I prefer the manga.
Why can Crispin Freeman not avoid being in shit? Also I swear that if you added an accent to the immortal guy's voice, we would be hearing Joey from Yugioh, someone tell me that they can hear it?
I last heard Freeman in Eureka Seven. That show was ... all right. Preposterous and a little shmaltzy, but okay. My Blu Rays had an interview with Freeman which really shows how thoughtful and analytical he is.
Oh for the love of... If you thought this was stupid but saw a single thing in it you thought might have potential if handled better, please read the manga. This was a super-compressed re-written adaptation of a 20-volume series that only covers a worse version of the very beginning. Almost everything that doesn't make sense here does in the manga. It's freaking amazing. Their relationship goes through so much opposition it becomes compelling. They deny it themselves, she tries to set him up with someone else, their parents try to split them up, her mother tries to get religious intervention, before it's over they get PUT ON TRIAL IN HEAVEN over it. The fact that their relationship basically pisses off God is the whole point. The series goes through Hell and Heaven and if you ever wanted to read a manga about angels it is THE series. And even if you don't like the leads there's countless other fascinating and mentally damaged characters to choose from who also get plenty of focus. It's still melodramatic as hell, but don't you typically want that in a shoujo?
I know, even the christian one's have awful corny writing. You'd think they'd try and make the writing more western considering that Christianity adds a big ol' dose o' western shit.
Saying Christianity and Japan have an "Interesting" relationship is similar to saying the Carthagenians and Romans had an "Interesting" relationship. I can understand why you didn't go through it all given that this isn't a historic lecture, but for those curious... *deep breath* After Daimyo Oda Nobunaga became the first Shogun of Japan and went on a bloody warpath, he opened the ports to Christian explorers from England, Portugal and Spain because he believed Christianity was another religion coming from India, same as Buddhism. Under his reign, Christian missionaries were able to spread the Holy Word, up until the Uprising in 1582, and a huge anti-foreign influence campaign in Japam.was undertaken by people like Mitsuhide. And it got a lot more heated when Toyotomi Hideyoshi took the place of Chancellor of the Realm in 1586, and he initiated both a war effort on China that roped Korea into it because ports, and began a huge cultural Purge on the Christians from Europe and especially on natural born Japanese Christians. To make gruesome details more quick, those from Europe were either forced off the Archipelago or killed dead with all remnants of their existence wiped off the face of Nippon; sometimes they weren't given a choice. The Japanese citizenry were given a similar ultimatum: either forego their salvation and return to either dominant religion in the country (Shintoism or Buudhism) or end up like their Lord and Savior: death by crucifixion. Anything Christian was burned, torn; any variation of destroyed outright, and most Christian practices still happening in the country were carried out in secret with secret churches and so on. The only exception was a trader named William Adams who became a noble under Tokugawa Ieyasu due to uncovering a plot by a would-be successor and the previously allied Portuguese. Christians overall wouldn't see Japanese lands officially until ports opened again in the mid 1800's, and wouldn't be given freedom of practice until the post-war reformation after WW2.
The problem is that the OVA doesn't explain anything that the manga actually has. All of the complaints Bennet has here are fully explained in the books. That's kind of the sad thing about it. Two big themes are the nature of love and that there is no TRUE evil, even in Hell. It's a lot less creepy than it comes off. Imagine if your favorite long-running show got reworked into three episodes that cover the first 3 seasons. That's kind of what happened here.
If your a fan of Avatar: The last airbender, then you only have to take a look at the airbender movie. Same concept really, it's just that an entire tv season put into a single movie. Either way, the result of either things is not for the franchises.
The narrative is so break neck because they decided to take 3 volumes of manga, remove half the main characters INCLUDING the biggest antagonist of the first 3 volumes, and make a 3 episode ova out of it *sighs*
I never heard of this but good lord...And now I can't get the image of a Demonic Ash Katchum...So this is going to be a fun mind freak. I did learn some stuff about after life and stuff.
It is confusing. Primarily you have Sheol for most people, which is basically a jewish ripoff of the Asphodel fields. Places like Gehenna are iffy because they don't really specify all that much who exactly goes there, save for vague statements. Most of what we have about hell actually comes from a few extra-biblical sources, such as the Book of Apocalypse and The Divine Comedy.
Sage, High School in Japan starts in 10th grade, so the main dude would actually be somewhere between 15 to 16 years old. As for his sister, yeah, not sure.
Yeah, in Japan elementary school is six years, junior high school is three years, and senior high school is three years. According to official sources, main dude is 16, and his sister is 15.
Am I the only one that thinks Suave reviewing hentai could be a hilarious prospect? I'm not talking about full 30 minute reviews or big grandiose plotlines, I'm talking like 5 minute reviews with a quick punchline.
Gonna be honest, after watching this review for the who knows how many time, I was so curious to see where Angel Sanctuary went that I bought the entirety of the manga. Now Kaori Yuki is one of my favorite shojo manga artists. I've collected all of her manga that was released in english. I swear this would have been a 2000s cult classic if not for the very close incest. So thanks for leading me to a creator I love, Sage.
Because of course Suave owns a copy of Anal Sanctuary... Also, a story involving forbidden love can only end in tragedy? Me thinks Sage hasn't read Bunny Drop...
That ending never happened. There was no timeskip. The real way Bunny Drop ended was that Daikichi takes in Rin as his daughter and he ends up with Yukari and marries her. That's the real way it ended. I SWEAR! Cross my heart and hope to... NOT LIVE!
@kevin willems An anime and manga series about a man who takes in his grandfather's illegitimate child as if she was his own daughter. The anime's a better version mainly because it doesn't cover that part we don't speak about and has our main guy end up with the single Mother he clearly likes.
its also worthy to note that Japan "brackets" their age of consent. I dont remember the speicifcs, but its like 13-16. 15-18 and such.. age groups do the smexy
This in fact differ from region to region.. in some it is basically like on west but in some.. well.. pedobear to the rescue. In reality it is more a old tradition reference in media then real thing.
oh yeah, i knew there was a lot of specifics but i didnt remember what exactly. i also heard that themes like rape, incest and other strange sexual shit comes up so often in anime because of the detachment of Japan and the christian morality but i dont know how accurate this is.
My god, the voice actor for Setsuna sounds like he was ripped out of the Abridged version. There's no way anyone can take that hammy, over-the-top delivery even remotely seriously.
The manga makes a lot more sense, considering one of the primary themes is that there is no true evil. The demons in Hell aren't tormenting people, they're just the natives there.
I read the manga and I didn't even know there was an anime. I'm surprised it's so goofy. The manga straight up made me want to walk into a church and confess my sins after reading it. It's messed up and takes itself very seriously.
Ah, the ol' "This sounds cool, lets use it" trope without actually knowing anything about how the mythology works. I mean, you don't have to follow the rules of the mythology, but if you're gonna make up shit anyway then why even bother using something that's been pre-established?
My high school actually had quite a few issues of the manga for Angel Sanctuary. It caught my attention because the art was really nice (though, eventually it boardered being very very cluttered within itself and confusing) and I stuck with it for a while, despite the gross incest and confusing as hell plot line that jumped from place to place. Let me say: It gets a whole lot fucking worse.
I haven't been this brain-f**ked by an anime on this show since.... Jungle De Ikou? Sin of the Sisters?....Tenchi 2?.....Apocalypse Zero?.....Ninja Resurrection?.....Mad Bull 34. You know, I've been scarred by this show so much, I've lost track of which thing scarred me the most.
Sarah: "Why do you think our folks split up? I suppose it had something to do with dad having an affair." Sage: "I think you cracked the case there, Nancy Drew." Me: (Thinking back to "Tekken: The Motion Picture"). Jun Kazama (talking to Kazuya): "Why are you so upset? Is it because your father threw you off that cliff?" Spoony: "Well done, Holmes! I think you've solved this mystery!" A wasted opportunity.
I actually dig this one. In so many ways it makes no apology for its weirdness, and that works for me. It allows the central taboo to remain taboo instead of looking for an easy cop out. It allows Heaven and Hell to be complex metaphysical planes because that's how it would have to be if such places existed. If you could get to the afterlife by subway, we would have mapped the route by now. It doesn't answer all of the questions posed by its own lore, but that just makes it feel more like real history to me. Even the strange turns in the dialogue made it sound more like my high school then almost anything else I've seen. I remember one girl checking people's auras while the dude behind her declared his love for Bob Dylan. Meanwhile, a group of blondes adopted their version of "California valley" dialect. Nothing wrong with all that, but it was a bit out there. Angel Sanctuary is just one of those odd experiences where all the broken pieces fit together perfectly, in my opinion.
In terms of sincere depictions of Christian ideas in anime, Yasuhiro Nightow actually converted to Christianity before he wrote Trigun, which heavily informed that series' themes, while Chiaki Konaka was raised Christian yet drifted away from the faith as he got older, which definitely informs the existential themes in his work and explains the occasional presence of realistic Japanese Christian characters in his work even if their faith rarely comes up directly. I think the former is Catholic and the latter a lapsed Protestant but I can't recall exactly...
I was waiting for you to review this one! One of first non mainstream anime I rented from my collage video store! I thought the art style was pretty, and actually my introduction to incest in anime!
I would honestly like to see Sage review a straight up hentai someday, since he apparently has a fairly extensive collection. Also, Lillith is nowhere in Christianity. She's from medieval Jewish mysticism, ie Kabbalah.
The manga has so many detailes. And it's frustrating teh anime covers the first three volumes but cuts out some very significant detailes. Sarah loves setsua because he saved her from a pedophile when they where kids. Rosiel poses as Sarahs friend Ruri after her murders her, so he can kill Sarah to awaken alexiel. He's wants alexiel to kill him, to show her love by killing him which she promised to do before he went insane. but in the battle of heven she couldn't kill him because he was her brother she loved hm but not in 'that way' she and lucifer actually have a thing. when lucifers soul is sealed in the sword setsuna uses, she uses him as her weapon. The spirit who posseses Kira is Lucifer who follows alexials many incarnations. Alexal didn't just get defeated in a war, she helped Gehenna in a wa aginst god which she decres because she believe him to be false. and thats not even half the complexity of the story! I feel like if they where going to do angel asancturary as an anime they shuld have done the whole fist act not just the first three vlumes. and they deffinently shouldn't hae cut out such significant character motovation. For example. Part of the reason rosals golums are cyber punk esque, i because Katan Mixed science and magic to resurect Rosiel by using the 'angel sancturary' computer program to Kill peple using their energy of death as the power to elease rosieal from his seal. The story is amazing and very very complex. Much to complex for a Three episode Ova, and it suffers for it. I happened to watch the Ova before I saw the Manga in a local book shop. I was curious and bought the first volume fguring if I didn't like it I could return it o donate it to my librarys manga section. The first volume is a lot more intricate then the first episode and gose into so much more detale, such as Why Kira stands by the fight and dosen't get involved at first. How The thugs found out about Sara (Kia dosen't tell them about her in the manga Rosiel dose posing as Ruri after he'd murdered her.) Ruris romantic feelings for setsuna, and her jelousy of Sara when she discovers Sara has feelings for her own brother and he reciprocates. And spoilers. When he gose to Hades to save sara, He doen't by the time he gets to where she should be, her soul had been claimed by heaven to lure him to a new war between heven and hell. diffrent factions wanting to use the awakened soul and powers of alexiel or destroy them, pending on their needs. Its frustrating to see bennet so Angery because The story s really intricate and If he ever ead the manga I think he'd really like it much beter then the OVA.
I have read the manga and let me tell you, AS goes waay deeper than the anime. You find out that the two demons are actually siblings and there story is complicated. The Angels in heaven are very complicated and deep too and their stories are sad also. You really have to read the manga to get the depth of the story and the journey everyone goes through.
The brother and sister hug... and someone spreads it around as salacious BLACKMAILING MATERIAL? THEY'RE SIBLINGS, It's not likenthey were caught in flagrante delicto, for Christ's sake! What the hell is a HUG gonna prove?!
If you actually knew something you would know that Anno actually used those symbols and terms on purpose. It's not like they are thrown in for no reason. They do serve the story, the creators clearly researched what they were using....Also Anno refuses to explain the point of Eva so why the fuck would he say he outright did this stuff on purpose? Obviously they want to hide it as much as possible to make people think and figure it out for themselves but unfortunately some people are still too stupid to understand.
They wanted an uncommon religion and is mysterious and the symbols look cool = "they used all the symbols on purpouse." Boy you are smart. "Also Anno refuses to explain the point of Eva so why the fuck would he say he outright did this stuff on purpose?" Umm. Yeah. There is no other possible reason for this. "Obviously they want to hide it as much as possible to make people think and figure it out for themselves but unfortunately some people are still too stupid to understand." Yeah. I mean, OBVIOUSLY. The 3rd movie is a masterpiece that only the most high IQ people can only understand. Well done showcasing us the perfect amount of pretentiousness we all love about that fanbase ^^ But, you know, we other people are just that stupid.
Gehenna is actually a real place, a small valley in Jerusalem. Kings of Judah used it to sacrifice their children by burning them and was considered cursed as a result. Could be the inspiration for the "humans ruined Hell by polluting it" stuff.
