Angelic Layer

Hey there.
There is an Angelic Layer Manga and Anime. However, because its been a while since I've read the manga and I just finished the anime, I'm only going to talk about the anime.

Title: Angelic Layer
Genre: Action, Comedy, Shojo-ish
Rating: 6/10

Plot Summary: Suzuhara Misaki moves to Tokyo city in order to attend school and for a hope that she will see her mother, who left 7 years previous to work in Tokyo. After exiting the station, she sees on a big screen two people fighting. However, these are not people - rather they are Angels, which are dolls controlled by a Deus. These dolls are custom made, and they fight in Angelic Layer, which is the name of the sport. She is told all this by the scientist Icchan, who walked up to her and started telling her this stuff. Ignoring the possibibility that he might be a lolicon [AKA, pedophile][He isn't], she followed him into the Anglelic Layer store, where he went and showed her what to buy to create her own angel. After creating her own Angel, who she called Hikaru [which means Light], and making friends, Kotaro and Tamayo, she enters tournaments and goes on to become the Kiseki no Rookie [Miracle Rookie].

Analysis [Contains Spoilers][Highlight to View]: Its a decent enough anime. Its done by CLAMP, which makes some good anime/manga, but I do have some problems with it. Early on in the series, Kotaro developes a crush on Misaki, which is teased upon by Tamayo. However, later on in the series, Tamayo admits that she's had a crush on Kotaro for a long time. If thats the case, why did she even push him onto Misaki to start with? The other thing I can't get around is the fact that she is the Kiseki no Rookie. She starts playing, and then she never looses. She only lost once, and that was too Kotaro's little genius sister, Hatoko. She beat every opponent after that, continuously gaining in strength, without really appearing to. Additionally, the Champion, Shuko, who is her mom, lost to her. When she hadn't lost to 77 or so other players. Finally, there is the matter with her mom. Her mom, quite frankly, is a wuss. A gigantic one. She's afraid to see Misaki, because she's afraid of what Misaki will think of her. She doesn't want Misaki to see her in a wheelchair. However, by postponing it, isn't she just making it worse?

End of Spoilers

Analysis [No Spoilers]: Some of the fights are cool. I think that the plot is a bit iffy, but its a 26 episode show expanded from a 25 or so chapter manga. There really isn't much you can do with it. I think that the comedic moments are great, but sometimes it just pushes it. Some of the fights are good, some are bad. It seems like in order to make a new plot point in the fight, they introduce something, that they can miraculously explain away in all of the previous fights. While sometimes, it works, but other times ... I just can't buy it. Theres only so much you can ignore.
Additionally, when you 'launch' angels onto the layer, you say an opening shpeal. Which is kinda lame. And I really dont see how Hikaru can fall like the way that she does in that.

There isn't really much to the anime except for the tournament. The first 4 or so episodes deal with her starting, and then there is the tournament. The rest of the plot then deals with the tournament. The unimportant matches get an entire episode, and some of the 'big' matches, you never see the character again. If you do, its very very minor.

This is a cute anime, and ok for a laugh. Some of the fights are good, while others are meh. Watch it if you want.


First Image - Icchan talking to Misaki when she buys the Angel Egg.
Second Image - Athena, Angel to the Champion, launching her ultimate attack.


First Image - Hikaru on the Layer, with Misaki sitting in the controlling egg behind her.
Second Image - Hikaru kicking Mao, an opposing angel, during the same fight.

There are better images that I could get, but I have the episodes in .ogm format, which makes them hard to look through.

/Vavoysh

What is Manga?

Manga. The, to the general public, less known 'form' of anime.

That is actually a misconception. Manga is usually the basis for most anime out there. Many anime series are developed using the plotline and characters from the manga, usually with some edits involded. These edits sometimes add new characters, change the plot, or make it so that the entire plot can fit within a nice 26-52 range of episodes.

Manga is the japaneese form of graphic novels. There is also Manwha, which is the korean form, but that is not concernable right now. Manga is created in a right to left format, instead of a left to right format, and each page is split into panels [I wonder why I said that part ... it seems obvious.]

Manga has much more forms of art than anime does, mostly because most anime is done by companies, whereas each manga is written by a different person, each of them called Mangakas. There are some cases where a manga is drawn by a group of people, where each of them does a certain part of the drawing process, such as one person does characters, another does backgrounds, and such like that.

Occasionally, two people write a manga. One of them is the plot 'director', while the other one draws. This happens quite often in fact - two popular mangas, Death Note and Hikaru no Go, were both drawn by Takeshi Obata, though written by different people.

A flashback page from Death Note. Many flashback pages are colored in black instead of the usual white to show that they are indeed flashbacks. Notice how the use of contrast between the light and dark are used to give the characters a more evil look than they would normally have.


A scene from Hanazaki Kimitachi [For You in Full Bloom], a shojo manga. Notice how the style of the manga is different than the ones before and after. This form is typical for most shojo mangas. Notice the large kanji behind the girl in ithe last panel. This is common in most mangas, and are called sfx [special effects], and are used to show sound or emotion and the like.

A two page scene from Flame of Recca. This shwos a more free-form panel distribution, with panels just floating in the page. In the right, it is up to the reader to distinguish the 'panels' for him/her self.


A page from Ai Kora [Love College]. Note how in the first panel, there are lines. These lines are called action lines and are used to focus in on one thing in the panel. Additionally, notice how in the last two panels, the guy suddenly 'chibifies', and motions are greately exagerated. These are used as a form of comedy.


An action scene from the manga Psyren. Note how the Action Lines, are used to show motion in fights, as well as focus on one thing as shown above.


The title page for Full Metal Alchemist. Most manga chapters start with something like this.

The previous pages are some good examples of the styles and artwork associated with manga.

Manga can be divided up into the same way that Anime is - shonen, shojo, romance, action, etcetera. Many people enjoy only a certain type, but often times the types are intertwined - you will find action mangas with some romance themes in them. The same is true for anime.

There are many more mangas than animes.

Manga is usually distributed in magazines, that only contain one 'chapter' of a manga. These chapters, if the series is good enough, will be published in volumes, or tanboken as they're known in japan. Mangas can run for various amounts of time and chapters, and are published every week, every two weeks, or every month.

I hope this has helped you a bit on what manga is.

/Vavoysh

What is Anime?

Anime. We know it, we love it.

But what exactly is it?

Anime is, in its simplest sense, Japaneese cartoons. Its name comes from what it was origionally called, Japanimation, which eventually was just shortened to anime, although how they got the 'mey' sound, I don't know.

Anime is used in many things - TV shows being the most common example. They can also be used in some movies, and if you want to stretch it a bit, computer games.

Anime got its start in the 1920s, when Japaneese people decided to experiment with - guess what - animation. It then quickly grew in the 1930s as a way to make settings and have plots that simply were not possible given technology. It further grew as a simplication of American animation techniques, to make things even cheapter. This has been continueing to this day, with alot of anime being drawn by computers nowadays instead of by hand.

Anime is a way to show things that couldn't be possible in this world, or even just elaborate on this world. Many times, there will be plots where someone gets magical powers, or gigantic robots come and fight. Anime is just a different form of story telling, that can cover wide ranges of subjects. These can include shonen [male stuff], shoujo [female stuff], romance, action, drama, comedy, bits of everyday life [which probably similar to a sitcom], and many more things.

There is a certain 'art' to anime. Every artist in cubism draws slightly differently, yet they are all still considered to be cubists. It is much the same way for anime. There are great similarities in most anime works - however, each has its own unique style. Many times people will watch an anime just for its glorious artwork, and discard another for its horrible one. The artwork can greatly affect the mood of the scene, amplifying the viewer's emotions.

A picture from Angelic Layer, depicting the so called 'chibi'[childish] side to anime. Note how the person in the back isn't well defined line-wise, and lighting falls pretty much uniformly on him.

Two images from Death Note, depicting a more dramatic style of drawing. Note how the light falls across the face, and how there is much more detail in order to give a more evil, dramatic feel to the images.

Asides from those points, most people watch anime because its fun to watch. You can immerse yourself in another world, with a whole other set of characters, and live through them things that you could never do yourself. [Much like little kids who play superhero after watching superman, but most of the time people don't do that. Unless they're at conventions. But conventions break all known rules of life because they're that awesome.]

People from all walks of life watch anime. Most people don't admit it, however, in America, because its considered 'uncool'. Well, I assure you, it isn't. Many people that say it is such havn't actually watched anime, but they've been told its bad so they don't even try it. Alot of people that watch it get hooked, and continue to watch anime and immerse themselves in fantastic worlds of adventure, drama, romance, and all that sort of stuff. [Kind of makes you wish that it was like that every day.]

Anyways, I hope that that has slightly cleraed up what Anime is. Soon I'll post a post saying what manga is, then I'll get to the actual reviews.

/Vavoysh