 |
 |
|
Reviewed by Alex Storyline: It is a time of great advancement and technology. But the greatest advancements have come in the field of...toys. Among these advanced toys is an egg that you can entrust with your hopes and dreams: the Angel Egg. The main character is Suzuhara Misaki, a naive 14-year-old girl from the countryside who moves to Tokyo to live with her aunt. While trying to find her aunt's place from Tokyo Station, she sees an Angelic Layer fight and she's entranced. Out of nowhere, a weird-looking guy who calls himself Itchan introduces Misaki to the Angelic Layer, and leads her to a store (called Piffle Princess) where she buys an Angel Egg and the appropriate accessories. She of course uses up all her money and has to call her aunt from the police station to come pick her up. :) She designs her Angel to be small, speedy, and strong. It reminds her of a heroine from a manga she once read, so she names the Angel Hikaru (presumably after Shidou Hikaru of Rayearth) :) With Itchan's help, Misaki trains with Hikaru, gets into her first Angel Fight, gets her Angel Card, and enters her first Angelic Layer tournament. There is also a little subplot about Itchan (what's his connection to the Angelic Layer? And why do people think he's a pervert for hanging around Misaki all the time?), but nothing really deep. The art style is more like Nekoi Mick (Wish) than Mokono Apapa (X), but they don't list who does what for this manga. It's cute and kinda fluffy, not bad but not really worth holding your breath waiting for the next volume. "Angelic Layer" is the first strictly shounen manga produced by CLAMP. It runs monthly in Shonen Ace magazine, the same one that ran the Evangelion manga. |