cokesque

Synopsis

Suzuhara Misaki moves to Tokyo to live with her aunt and attend middle school. She is small, unathletic, self-conscious, and has a habit of saying “Naa!” when surprised. But when she sees an Angelic Layer match—in which contestants compete by controlling small fighting robots called angels—where a beautiful white angel defeats a larger, brutish angel, she begins to understand that size and strength are far from synonymous.

Okay, that’s a lousy synopsis. Sue me.

Impressions

I adore Angelic Layer. It is a simple and somewhat predictable anime, mostly due to the younger target audience and the whole fighting game genre, but should not be overlooked because of this. It is filled with that ol’ CLAMP magic, characters who are delightful and genuine, able to elicit both laughs and tears.

Angelic Layer features an all-star cast of seiyuu, possibly the best lineup of any anime:

Mitsuishi Kotono	Usagi in Sailor Moon, Misato in Evangelion, etc, etc.
Horie Yuu	Naru in Love Hina
Yukino Satsuki	Kagome in Inuyasha, Mutsumi in Love Hina, Milly in Trigun
Enomoto Atsuko	Yukino in Kare Kano
Onosaka Masaya	Vash in Trigun
Yamaguchi Kappei	Inuyasha, Ranma

The art is bright and colorful, and the animation is well-done, particularly the Angelic Layer battle sequences. Along with the Bebop movie, this is one of Studio Bones’ first animation jobs which allwed them to move forward with their own similarly impressive projects.

The music is well-suited to the show and enhances the action, though aside from the very catchy OP (Be My Angel) and ED (The Starry Sky) it is mostly forgettable.

Neko Factor

That Hikaru is tough to catch. Angel, fall in!

- 2003-10-08 18:37 -