Book Review-Angel Sanctuary by Kaori Yuki

Title: Angel Sanctuary

 Author: Kaori Yuki

Series:  Angel Sanctuary #1

Published:    10 March 2004 by Viz Media under a Shojo imprint

Length: 198 pages

Warnings: graphic violence, a little gore, incest, demons, angels

Source: Library

Other info: Kaori Yuki

Summary :When Sara's classmate, Ruri, received a computer disk from a strange man, Setsuna shows up to whisk her away from him. After lecturing Ruri about talking to weirdos, Setsuna comments she's much cuter without glasses, which she dropped in the confusion. Unfortunately, neither of them have been watching the news which reports of mysterious deaths occurring in connection with the CD-ROM "Digital Angels." The disk Ruri received is this same "Digital Angels" disk, and without knowing the danger, Setsuna lets her keep it. As soon as Ruri uses the program, her personality starts to change, and strange things begin to happen as Evils and angels seek the Setsunas's soul for their own mysterious motives...

Review: Setsuna doesn’t know it, but he’s actually the reincarnation of the angel Alexiel, who has been sentenced to reincarnation into the mortal world until she has paid for her sins. So then two demons turn up praising him as Alexiel, and he obviously doesn’t know what’s going on. On a side note, Ruri, after being blinded in an accident, communicates with an angel called Raziel, who is Alexiel’s brother and almost-murder-victim, via means of a computer game she received from a stranger, called Angel Sanctuary. The game that is, not the stranger. On another note, Setsuna has feelings for Ruri’s friend Sara. Who happens to be his sister.

The plot is very confusing. It doesn’t help that half the characters look extremely similar to eachother, and that that was the intended effect. Demonic, or in this case, angelic, possession is not the best topic to approach in manga, when you can easily be confused and your understanding of the characters comes mainly from the art work and how they look. Differentiating the characters is something you need to be able to do to understand it.

When I read this last year, I gave this two stars out of five. This was on the basis that while I liked the art and could pick out little bits, following the main story is impossible. Now, I managed to string together a plot by being fully awake when reading. Just about. This is not a book for whne you want a quick light read.

The characters are easy to distinguish if you pay attention to their personality. Which, when reading manga, I don’t.  Some of these characters are very likeable, some of them aren’t, and some of them change as you read through the story. For example, at first I liked Ruri, but when she XXXXXX(you’ll probably understand if you’ve read it) I started to hate her. Even though I didn’t particularly like the person she wanted it to happen to. But anyway.

I love the art. As always, Kaori Yuki’s unique style fits with the story, and the detailed style makes it look  realistic.

Overall: Strength 3 tea to a manga with a long winded plot that improves a little if you get through the first few chapters.

Links: Goodreads |