As a newbie anime fan, one of the earliest series I ever watched was Ceres, Celestial Legend. Fuelled by a desire to expand my experience with Yuu Watase beyond Fushigi Yuugi, I watched all 24 episodes of the anime in the course of about three evenings, and at the time, it seemed a worthy endeavour. Thus it was that in more recent times, I decided to revisit the series by way of the original manga and a rewatching of the anime- and it was only then that I could see how bad the animated version actually is.

Before I get into the anime, however, I should admit that when it comes to the manga, at least, Ceres is actually quite an enjoyable series. A mix of romance and horror, Ceres tells the story of Aya Mikage, a girl who learns on her sixteenth birthday that she is possessed by the reincarnation of her ancestor, a celestial maiden named Ceres. From then on, Aya’s life is turned upside down as her own family turns against her, separating her from twin brother Aki and placing her at the centre of an endgame involving science, magic and a generations-old desire for vengeance.

Of course, it would be foolish not to admit that Ceres has the same shoujo trappings that appear in any Yuu Watase title- there’s the plucky and determined lead who won’t let anything stop her, the Nice Guy bishounen who falls in love with the lead even though he’ll always be second husband and the Mysterious Sexy Bishounen who forms the main love interest of the series. Even so, the series is different enough from the usual fare to be worth a look, weaving in as it does darker elements about incest, rape and everything that forms the ‘flip side’ of the usually bright and cheery shoujo world. It may not be perfect, but between its interestingly different story and beautiful artwork, Ceres is at least a solid series in manga form, and one that is worth looking into. The anime, unfortunately, is a different story.

Where the manga ran for fourteen volumes, the anime somehow compresses the entire story into a mere twenty-four episodes, and as you might imagine, there are lot of sacrifices made along the way. Entire arcs and characters have been chopped out, whilst the remaining content has been compressed to such an extent that the story is too fast paced for its own good. Without the time for proper development or explanation, events happen for what often seems like no reason, with jarring shifts such as the leads suddenly being deeply in love despite have only briefly met. Matters only become worse towards the end, where a lack of clear explanation and some changes from the manga version lead to what is essentially a series of confusingly inconsistent explanations as to what is going on.

The worst example of this centres on a character named Shuro; in the manga, she is an important character who appears as a fellow celestial maiden and eventual friend from volume six onwards, however in the anime, her role is cut to but a single episode towards the end of the series. If this was to be case, then arguably she shouldn’t have been in the anime at all, but as her abilities also play a key plot role in initiating the final boss confrontation, it was deemed necessary that she appear. Even discounting how strange it is to place a standalone episode at a point in the series when the main plot is fully rolling, Shuro’s one shot appearance in the anime is utterly jarring- those who have read the manga can at least appreciate the cameo, but those who have no idea who she is must surely wonder why there is such a focus on this randomly introduced character, let alone how the writers could possibly expect anyone to care about her hastily explained back story and motivations.

So, then, can anyone expect to enjoy such a poorly paced anime? Well, obvious Watase fans will no doubt jump at the chance to see it, and anime newcomers such as I was when I first watched it will probably not be overly critical of its flaws. Other than that, however, it remains more of a curiosity for fans of the manga who want to see some of their favourite scenes in animated form; since whilst the anime complements the ‘real story’, it cannot possibly hope to stand on its own.

Final Thoughts
As a manga, Ceres quite possible ranks as Watase’s best series, and it is certainly something worth recommending, but unfortunately, the anime is nowhere near in the same league. By all means try it if you wish, but always be aware that the rushed storyline and shallow characterisation marks it as only a pale reflection of the original work.

Alice Senoh has spent her whole life living in her sister Mayura’s shadow, and much as she looks up to her, it can be hard not to get frustrated at times. Finally, matters come to a head when Mayura starts dating the boy that Alice likes; unable to contain her jealousy, Alice wishes for Mayura to disappear- only to be horrified when she does indeed go missing. As Alice later learns, the power of words is not only a very real and tangible one, but something that she must master if she wants to retrieve Mayura. With the help of magical rabbit Nyozeka and Mayura’s boyfriend Kyou, Alice begins learning about the Lotis Words which will be needed to save Mayura from the darkness she is now trapped in- but will Alice’s feelings for Kyou interfere with her mission?

Yuu Watase is well known for her bishounen-filled romance stories, but up until now, I had generally enjoyed her work- Fushigi Yugi’s light entertainment made for a good starter series and Ceres was an interesting mix of drama, fantasy and romance. With that in mind, I was looking forward to trying Alice 19^th; an unfortunate fact given that the series turned out to be an entirely disappointing experience.

Alice 19^th’s main problem is that it doesn’t seem to have much idea of what it wants to achieve; within the space of its seven volumes, the story meanders from one plotline to another, without doing a good job of developing any of them. The opening “girl, boy and magical mascot use destined powers to battle the darkness in people’s hearts” chapters are formulaic enough, but the series only goes downhill from there. New characters are introduced far too late in the story to get any development; the enemy is revealed to be a generic Lord of Darkness seeking to destroy the world for no reason, whilst the Lotis system of randomly shouting out words to attack is completely arbitrary more than a little ridiculous. For the majority of the series, our heroes only learn about six of the twenty four Lotis words, but after some unseen training and a few boss battles at the end, they have somehow learned the rest.

As poorly plotted as the story is, it is by no means helped by the somewhat insipid and generic cast. As mentioned above, most of the supporting characters do not appear enough for readers to learn much more than their names, but even the leads are none too inspiring- there’s determined and angsty Alice; bishie love interest Kyou, the ‘perfect man’ with a tediously tragic past, and Frei, a European Lotis master and ladies’ man whose back story is unimportant enough to be relegated to the last few chapters. As much as you may want to like them, it is near impossible to- they are simply too bland and simplistic to engage with.

As indicated by the title of this piece, one thing that Alice 19^th does have going in its favour is the quality of its artwork. Yuu Watase is no stranger to creating aesthetically pleasing character designs, and this series showcases some of her best and most polished work. Settings and backgrounds are also solid- locations such as a final boss castle filled with ugly monsters may be completely unoriginal, but at least they are well drawn. Unfortunately, as enticing as they are, the visuals ultimately cannot compensate for the complete lack of worth of the core aspects of the series.

Final Thoughts
It may look pretty on the surface, but deeper down, Alice 19^th is a bit of a mess- a blend of the monotonously unoriginal and the nonsensically arbitrary, this is one series better off left well alone.

Frey explains how Eric’s HARD GAY helped him through some difficult times.