Angel Sanctuary

Synopsis: Exposition, Middle, Conclusion. This is what makes up a plot. The reason you can't summerize the plot of Angel Sanctuary's manga is because this happens over 20 different mangas, and it's so complex it would take several pages to do so. The reason you can't summerize the anime is because although it has exposition like a good little show, it lacks the other two parts of the plot. You know, the little middle bit and that pesky little thing called a conclusion.

Review: Do you guys remember Jurrassic Park? Did you all read it before you saw the movie and went "Hey this book kicks ass and the movie's gonna be bitchin'?" Well, imagine you read the book and then saw the movie, and basically the entire movie was the introduction of the characters, the professor guy and the little kids, and then them on the plane to go to the island, and that was the end. No actual dinosaurs, nothing. No island. Just them and then a part of the helecopter ride. Well this is Angel Sanctuary.

Ohhhh the massive complaining I will do here. Complaint one: Hey creators of the anime, did you guys just NOT look at Kaori Yuki's character designs, or what? You forget they were there? Because that's what it seems like you did. (note to self, this is not risidual bitterness for the original Vampire Hunter D's deliberate memory lapse over Amano Yoshitaka's character designs...) Complaint 2: Holy shit, could you PLEASE PLEASE make the voice actors more annoying? Is that possible? Because I don't think that hearing Setsuna grunt and make labored breathing noises is annoying enough.

Complaint 3: Oh here's where we get nitpicky. Lesseee.... The first three books in Angel Sanctuary is the exposition. Not only did you basically sum up three whole books in three half hour installments, but you left out some major characters. Where's that little pretty schoolgirl that Roshiel possesses? Where's all of Yui Kato's scenes? Hey, if I had a story with a perfectly good sexy little street yakuza drug dealer bishounen boy, I'd sure as hell leave him as one of the major characters... Speaking of Roshiel... Let's talk a little about Roshiel. Now I feel sorry for him, and usually side with him in the manga (you bastards who side with Setsuna and Sara and Alexial, you're all sick, sick and wrong!) but on the anime. Lordy. This goes back to character designs, in the manga, Roshiel is the epitome of elegance, with beautiful lace and leather and militant and feminine looking clothes, but he wears... A green trenchcoat in the anime. HAH. LIke he'd be caught dead in a green trenchcoat.

Kira-sempai. We hardly knew ye. In the manga, he's got this integral part as Lucipher, and yada yada, sexy guy, Roshiel wants him, he wants Alexial, protects Setsuna, and so forth, but in the anime, he's just... This guy that has a mysterious invincibility factor we don't really ever learn about.

So guess who they left out of the series? That's right. Belial the Mad Hatter. Smart move, boys. You think that up by yourself? The Mad Hatter. Cool as shit tough as nails, might be Satan, don't know quite enough Japanese to tell you for sure, is he a boy, is he a girl, is he neither antagonist that loves princess Kurai and undresses for no reason badass harlaquin. Would you have left him out? I thought not.

Nope, nope, can't do it. It even ends poorly. It ends with Setsuna killing himself to go down into Hell to rescue Sara, his sister and lover. He kills himself. That's the end. No, the end is Roshiel talking to Katan about how he failed him. And about how he's going to ressurrect him. But that's the end. No badguy's dead... No goodguy has prevailed... Alexial hasn't come back... Nothing. No conclusion WHAT SO EVER.

It's like watching a badly disconnected dream about people who suck and don't have issues you care about. Take it from me, someone who owns the entire manga series and has actually taken two and a half years of Japanese in hopes of knowing how to read the series one day... Read the books instead, please. I don't care if you don't know Japanese. The pictures alone will keep you going. If they won't, then the driving desire to see that scene where Belial the Mad Hatter takes his clothes off will. Trust me on this one. It's yummy.