Summary:

A year before the start of the story, a UFO crash lands into Tokyo Bay. The aliens that were in the UFO looked almost exactly like human beings. Beautiful, talented, and friendly, they were accepted by humans and called DearS. Unfortunately, there was more to these new friends than it would seem. A year after the crash, Japan, the DearS’ host country, was getting ready to integrate some of the DearS into their schools as part of a Home-Stay program. Takeya Ikuhara, a normal Japanese high school student, doesn’t really care about the whole ‘DearS phenomenon’ and just takes life as it comes. Even though his high school is one of those selected to host a DearS, he’s not that excited about it. However, as he is walking home, he saves a girl from getting run over by a truck. She happens to be a DearS who escaped and has no idea about Earth culture. She kisses Takeya and ‘imprints’ herself onto him. Takeya doesn’t know the significance of this act, but this DearS has just chosen him as her Master.

Review:

This story revolves around a stranded group of aliens called DearS. In particular, it focuses on a DearS named Ren and a Japanese high school student named Takeya Ikuhara. The premise is pretty simple, and I really don’t want to spoil it for you guys, but it may be necessary to give a more accurate overview of the story. If you don’t want to be spoiled, even if it is just a little, I would recommend skipping to the last paragraph of this review. I’ll try not to mention anything there, but I can’t promise.

So going into a little bit more detail about the story, basically the DearS train to be slaves. They are genetically created to want to serve Masters. However, they try to hide the fact that they are made to be slaves because humans tend to disdain slavery. They are also a proud race, and therefore, they train very hard to make good impressions on the humans that are hosting them. With that being said, Ren, an escaped ‘defective’ DearS, is a big issue. However, Ren shows them something that is radically different than what they are used to. A DearS choosing their own Master; also known as the Gift.

The story uses this premise to shape the relationship between Ren and Takeya, which ultimately impacts the DearS and the humans. Though the story could’ve dragged on in parts, or even gone in a bad direction, the story holds out nicely and ends up being an interesting read. There are some slight inconsistencies, but they seemed more like elements that weren’t thoroughly thought through until later in the series. The story doesn’t have a serious overtone, but isn’t overly lighthearted either. I’m not sure what type of story this is exactly, but it focuses mainly on relationships (primarily the main characters) and how the differences between the two species can affect these relationships. The story is pretty consistent and, as I stated before, it is an interesting read.

The series is rated for teenagers and up (13+). This is a pretty accurate rating because of the intensity of the situations (or lack of) and the mild ecchi-ness. These are pretty much stuff that a typical teenager may run into, well minus the whole alien thing.

I’m not sure what type of art this would fall under. I’m trying to think in terms of shounen and shoujo art style. It is elegant and wispy, but not to the extreme of a typical shoujo manga. It really is nice art; in fact, I almost wrote ‘gorgeous’ in there, but I wouldn’t go that far. It probably leans more towards an elegantly drawn shounen manga than a shoujo manga. Either way, it’s nice. The character design is pretty good, and it seems the author attempts to really give the characters nice clothes (or at least, interesting ones). The background art is not awesome in any definition of the word, but it does help tell the story. There is this one scene where a room was filled with stuffed animals and frills. That looked painful to draw, but it turned out great.

Overall, this story is pretty simple and won’t become a classic. Then again, I’ve read stuff that people consider classic, and it makes me want to look up the definition in the dictionary to make sure I’m using the same one as everyone else. Off topic: don’t mind me, I just finished reading a so called classic and it was painful! I’ll probably write about it in the near future. In any case, DearS is worth a read. It’s focused and gets the job done in a couple volumes. Also, it’s pretty relaxing to read because of the lack of crazy plots and subplots. The lack of overly painful relationships also makes this a relaxing read. If you can get it cheap or from the library in a complete set, it would be worth your time.

Ceres, Celestial Legend, also known by its Japanese name, Ayashi no Ceres is a shojo manga (or shoujo manga) that progresses through normalcy and tragedy, then ending in romance. This series is written and illustrated by Yuu Watase, who also wrote and illustrated Fushigi Yuugi.

Summary:

Aya Mikage lived a normal high school life with her twin brother Aki until the day of their 16^th birthday. When attending a family ritual for their birthday, a strange occurrence happens and Aya turns into Ceres, a Celestial Maiden. Ceres has vowed to destroy the Mikage family. The relatives turn on Aya/Ceres to kill her and stop the rampage, but Aya manages to slip away. Confused and conflicted, she determines to find out about Ceres, the Mikages, and how to save her twin brother.

Review:

At the start of the story, things look normal, but that changes pretty quick. The main character, Aya Mikage is thrown into chaos and confusion. The reader will definitely feel it as well. As the series progresses, you will find different bits come together to give the reader a general idea of what went on in the past and why events are shaping a certain way in the present. Unfortunately, towards the ending part of the series, the story starts displaying inconsistencies or forced connections to tie everything together. Though it did answer questions in the end, it wasn’t necessarily very satisfying. It seems they had to bend some of the connections introduced throughout the series in order to make things connect. I like keeping the continuity throughout a manga series, so this was sort of a downer for me. I’m not sure if the series started losing focus, but it seemed that the story started morphing into more of a love story than anything else. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it may not be what people sign up for when they start reading the story. It could be that the whole beginning half of the story was a stage for the romance in the later part of the series. Though the story is decent, the ending did leave a bad after taste when I put the final volume down. It almost seemed anticlimactic. Overall, the story had quite a few interesting points, but seemed to lose focus as it progressed.

The series description I saw, which I assumed was the official description, gave the impression that this was a romantic horror comedy. That’s not entirely accurate, but it’s not inaccurate either; let me explain a little more. Even though the description implies it has horror elements, it is a stretch to say it could qualify to be in the horror genre. There may be some elements that are a little disturbing, or other elements that are horrible, but I’m not sure if it really is enough to say it is part of the horror genre. The comedy is not overbearing, which for me is a plus. Most of the comedic situations were probably close to real life situations, but exaggerated a bit. As for the romance part, it isn’t one of those series where the main character could not settle on one person to love, so it wasn’t extremely painful to watch. Though the romantic part of the story got more attention towards the end, it wasn’t that bad. Be warned though, there are quite a few mature situations and subjects that are present, as well as some nudity and sex/sexual situations. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this series for just older teens and above, but I wouldn’t feel too comfortable telling anyone below the age of fourteen to read this.

The art is decent and seems to follow the typical shojo manga style. As mentioned, there is nudity, but it is not glaring. Most of the time, the important parts are covered. Even though there are sex scenes depicted in the story, it is not explicit or pornographic in nature. Surprisingly, it is used artfully to progress the story. The violence isn’t grotesque, but it does show digits and limbs being cut off quite frequently; there is also blood.

Overall, I thought it was an okay series. It had some interesting elements and tie ins. Plus it brought together mysteries from the past and situations in the present into a coherent story. The story flow did feel a bit unfocused or even rushed, but it wasn’t painful to read through. I must admit though, I was somewhat disappointed by the ending. Ceres, Celestial Legend / Ayashi no Ceres probably won’t be one of my favorite mangas, but it certainly wasn’t the worst I’ve read.