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Information
Title (English) Ceres, Celestial Legend
Title (Japanese) Ayashi no Ceresu
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book cover

Fantasy Novel

Notes US= "Ceres, Celestial Legend"
New show, 2000, based on manga by Yuu Watase (who wrote Fushigi Yuugi).
The manga, originally published in Flower Comics, is now widely available.
Classification shoujo
Synopsis
Review I was still massaging the life back into my fast forward finger ( from pressing so hard to get past the abominable Yuugi-oh ) when I put "Ayashi no Ceres" on. What a difference! Right from the start I knew that something quite different was coming and I wasn't at all disappointed. AnoC is a fast paced, intricate and surprising series and jams enough in the first half hour episode to fill a half dozen episodes of an ordinary show. There are some very well done segues from action to comedy to drama and back. The animation isn't really detailed, but the plot, characterizations and general "feel" of the show are so good that this isn't really a drawback. There is also a surprising amount of nudity for non-"fan service" show.
(Dave Baranyi)

And the mysteries have already got me anxiously awaiting more episodes from my friend. I've already written to her, imploring her to tape more episodes of "Aya no Ceres" for me. (Dave Baranyi)

Ayashi no Ceresu was based on the manga by Watase Yuu, who is famous here as the original manga artist for Fushigi Yuugi. Fans who liked Fushigi Yuugi should watch this. But according to what I have seen so far, Fushigi Yuugi was better than Ceresu. I think the production managament was poorer than before. (CALCI)

"Ayashi, yes Serious" (g) , rather, "Ayashi no Ceres" ( I had to think of some play on words with that title ) is the "big name" new anime of this current TV season in Japan. "AnoC" is the long awaited anime version of Watase Yuu's sequel to her highly popular "Fushigi Yuugi". The 26-part series is playing on the Japanese satellite pay channel, "Wowow" on Thursday nights at 6:30PM. Studio Pierrot produced the animation.
The story is about Aya, a seemingly ordinary high school girl who is just turning 16 along with her fraternal twin brother, Aki. But Aya has a deadly genetic heritage which is unknown to her - one of her ancestors was a "Tennyo" - a Heavenly spirit who came to Earth one time, married a human, had some children and then returned to Heaven. When Aya turns 16 the Tennyo manifests itself in her as Ceres, transforming Aya into a deadly, powerful and beautiful young spirit who, like her ancestor, is looking for a way to return to Heaven. But this isn't all, Aki has in him the restless spirit of the ancestral husband of Ceres, who returns to reclaim his bride.
I've watched up to episode 15 of AnoC so far and I've found it alternating between being totally engrossing at a given point, then surprising banal at the next. To a good extent, AnoC is a classic "chase, capture, escape" story, set in a "here and now" of malevolent spirits, deadly relatives and unrequitedly love. Well, maybe "unrequited love" isn't quite accurate. There are a several things to keep in mind:
1 - This is a shoujo series, so Aya spends a lot of time crying over her family, her love and her situation.
2 - This is a Watase Yuu shoujo series, so Aya also goes to bed with her mysterious protector Tooya in the second episode. (I don't think so.. G.C.)
3 - This is a Watase Yuu shoujo series that is playing on the Wowow satellite channel, so Aya also spends a lot of time standing around naked.
But also, because it is a Wowow series, AnoC has great production values, excellent animation, a very memorable sound track and superb voice acting. So if you are a Watase Yuu or "Fushigi Yuugi" fan this will be a "must see" for you. If you hated Miaka in "FY", you will still want to see AnoC because, thankfully, Aya is no Miaka. The oddest thing about this series so far is that it is currently being released in Japan only on VHS and not on DVD.
(Dave Baranyi)

I just watched episodes 23 and 24 of "Ayashi no Ceres" back-to-back, completing this series. This was a series that caused me to get rather interesting in the beginning, but ended up leaving me rather ambivalent about it by the end. Now, I expect that "Fushigi Yuugi" fans in particular and Watase Yuu fans in general will probably enjoy "AnoC" a lot, but will the "general" anime fan base like the series? I'm not saying that AnoC is particularly "bad", but it is aimed at a very specific audience - that is, those folks who enjoy melodramatic shoujo action/romances.
What are some of my specific impressions, you might ask? Well, first of all, the series was structured a lot like FY. There are a lot of characters introduced on a regular basis, and equally regularly disposed of in some rather gruesome and bloody manner. The 24 episodes of AnoC have a much higher body count than most anime, probably surpassing the number of corpses who show up in an average season of "Meitantei Conan". In fact, the blood, gore, violence, nudity and sex in AnoC is only matched by Go Nagai's "Devil Man Lady".
I also have the feeling that the anime was aimed very specifically at the fans who have read the manga. I haven't read the manga, so I was often caught short by the sudden plot jumps and particularly by the introduction of characters with little explanation as to how they fit into or advanced the plot. This made the pacing of the series very uneven, with jarringly abrupt transitions between fast-paced action scenes and lethargic romance scenes.
I guess that I was also a bit disappointed because of the expectations I developed from the first couple of episodes. I found Ceres to be intriguing and the potential of the convoluted relationships ( Ceres liking Yuuhi who liked Aya who like Tooya who was a cipher, etc. ) , but this was never developed as the plot line turned instead into a rather traditional shoujo romance. Also, later on, Ceres became more like Aya, and Aya became more like Miaka from FY.
So overall, the show was "okay", the music was "okay", the animation was "okay", the ending was "okay" and so on. But this isn't a series that I will bother to buy on video to watch again.
Dave Baranyi

I liked this series, mainly because Aya is a much less irritating heroine than Miaka and tends to react in a more realistic way. However the character development as the series progresses seems to go in the direction of making both Ceres and Aya less powerful, as though somebody didn't know how to script for a combined feisty heroine and malign super-powered being. And the ending is rather weak and unconvincing.
On the other hand, the portrayal of Aya as a young woman, with all a young woman's feelings, is one of the most vivid you'll find in anime.

Credits Character design & executive animation director: Hideyuki Motohashi
Dir: Hajime Kamegaki
Episodes 24
Release US:DVD, US:VHS
TV Showing See the whole series for free? This series may be syndicated to regional cable, satellite or terrestial TV stations. For Europe click here.
Date 2000
Production Shogakukan, Studio Pierrot, Bandai
Broadcaster WOWOW?
Animation
References & Help Look up the latest data on this title at:
Richard Llewellyn's Animated Divots, or
Anime News Network (see Encyclopedia section) ,
or in "The Anime Encyclopedia" (Clements & McCarthy, Stone Bridge Press, 2001).
Help & further information.

 

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