After only reading one review and looking up a few websites, I decided I wanted to buy an anime called Angel Sanctuary. Another thing that made me want to buy it was the beautiful manga pictures that I had scene.

Okay, so here's a little background: This anime is about a sort of war that takes place between angels and demons. The main character, Setsuna, was once a powerful angel in Heaven, named Alexiel, but when she waged war against God, she was punished. Her body was trapped inside an angel crystal and her spirit was reincarnated into a human body, Setsuna's. Setsuna suffers greatly in life because of his love for his younger sister (and it's not the appropriate sibling love...). Soon demons are chasing after him, trying to awaken Alexiel. Setsuna knows that he is not a normal person, having such feelings and all, but he has a hard time believing that he has a powerful being living inside of him. And the story progresses and goes on like this...

Now for my long list of comments. I love the character designs. They look a lot like the manga drawings, which is great! As for the animation of it all; I wish they would have done more. It just seemed that the cels stood out from the background too much or something. There was also a lot of cussing in this series, plus drug usage too, which I actually liked (it makes it seem more like real life). Oh yeah, and it's bloody. People getting stabbed and chopped up, and one particularly gruesome part where somebody gets their arm twisted off (I won't say who...). The whole situation of Setsuna being in love with his sister was interesting/disturbing; although I found myself wanting them to be together because they would be happy. I laughed a lot through the first episode cuz it wasn't too serious yet. I really liked the second episode, and as for the third episode... Well, I'll get to that later. This series was at times, pretty sad... but I like sad stuff!

Now for some stuff I didn't like. This was a pretty confusing series. It all has to do with a fascinating story being compressed into just 3 half hour episodes. There are so many details being discussed in a short amount of time and some of the characters I didn't really understand very well. When episode three was coming to a close, I was afraid I would be disappointed, which I found that I was. I enjoyed this series a lot, but the end left sort of a "to be continued...". A whole new situation comes up for the characters to get through and it talks about all the hard times ahead, which makes it seem there should be much more to the series. When the credits began to roll after the last episode I was laying in bed just kinda dumbfounded. Then the little scene they have at the end of each episode came up and it shows a child scared in bed screaming that someone's coming to get them. Whatever.

Angel Sanctuary is a great series! I'm glad I bought it, cuz the review I read made it seem not worth the $20. My biggest complaint is that there should be more. Much more. I may have to start reading the manga, cuz the anime just isn't enough!

Reviewed by: Becky (Sun. 9/30/2001)