Ceres, Celestial Legend

Title:  Ceres, Celestial Legend
Japanese Title:  Ayashi no Ceres
Mangaka:  Yuu Watase
Length: 14 Volumes (Completed)
English Translation?  Yes, all have been released by Viz Media.
Demo/Genre:  Shoujo/Fantasy/Romance/Horror

How did I find out about it?  It caught my eye on the store shelves, and I gave it a try.  It was one of the first series I started collecting when I first got into manga.

For their sixteenth birthday, Aya Mikage and her twin brother Aki are taken to a meeting before their extended family.  There, they are presented with a mummified human hand that causes them both to exhibit strange and powerful reactions.  The patriarch of the family announces that Aki will be taken away and protected as the heir to the family, and Aya will be killed.  Unconsciously using her new powers, Aya escapes and is rescued by the Aogiri family, who explains to her that the Mikages are descendants of celestial maidens.  Aya learns that long ago, a celestial maiden named Ceres was bathing on Earth when her robes were stolen, thus preventing her from returning to Heaven.  The man who took them then forced her to be his wife and bear his children, establishing the Mikage clan.  Ceres swore to keep coming back until she had destroyed the family.  As the reincarnation of Ceres, Aya is now on the run from her family as she struggles to find a way to appease Ceres so she can reunite with her brother.  Along the way she finds herself caught in a love triangle between two men:  Toya, the mysterious man hired by the Mikage to capture her, and Yuhi, the young man assigned to protect her.  Meanwhile, there is one Mikage who has plans of his own for the celestial descendants... (dum dum DUUUUUUUM).

I loved this manga.  Oh, how I loved this manga.  It had it all.  Yes, it has its flaws.  It's not perfect.  But still, there are so many things done right that I find it pretty easy to look past its shortcomings.  I'll begin with the art.  This was the series that saw Watase-sensei transition from one art style to another.  I'm not very fond of the style used in the beginning, but I absolutely loved her style by the end (and in subsequent titles).  For a shoujo writer, she's very good at drawing the strange and grotesque, and there are many opportunities for that here.

The story!  The characters!  It's all so good!  I love that this series is so dark.  I love that we watch Aya develop from a bratty teenager to a mature young woman in the series.  She's forced from her simple and shallow world into one where she has to survive, and this change is not instantaneous.  She grows and develops steadily throughout the series, occasionally backsliding, which I felt made her incredibly human.  I've said before that I'm not usually fond of Watase-sensei's female characters, but I really liked Aya.  Still, the highlight of the series goes to the males.  Aki was a very tragic figure.  Pulled from his sister and told that he is the future of his family, he only wants to do everything he can to bring the two of them together again.  However, while Aya struggles to balance with the one inside her, Aki is slowly being completely taken over by the personality of the one inside him, the progenitor of the family, the man who originally claimed Ceres for himself and still wants nothing but her.  This leads to some dark and disturbing (in a good way) plot elements, as now Aya must now deal with someone who looks, sounds, and feels like her twin brother, but who harbors ferocious desires for her.

The love triangle is particularly engrossing and very prevalent throughout the series.  Toya is the mysterious and incredibly handsome man hired to capture, but not kill, Aya/Ceres.  He remembers nothing of his past before coming to work for the Mikages, but he is inexplicably drawn to Aya.  Because he knows so little about himself, he's hesitant to give a name to his feelings for her or to give himself over to her.   Then there's Yuhi, pure and unsullied.  He's probably the only character in the whole series who never waivers.  He's always sure and steady on his feet (fyi, I was a Yuhi fan, through and through!).  Really, I could talk for days about these characters, but I don't want to move into Spoiler Land.  I guess I'll stop myself there.

Something else I loved was the strength of the villains.  For me, villains need to be either A) a mix of good and bad, humanized with good intentions or just plain misunderstood, or B) so epically evil that they're just plain awesome (see Bleach or Fullmetal Alchemist for that business).  This one falls into the former category.  I absolutely love it when villains are made into three dimensional characters that have more than just "take over and/or destroy the world" on their minds.  Kagami Mikage delivered very well as a villain.

As I mentioned before, this story wasn't perfect.  While the main cast is very solid, there were definitely some missed opportunities.  Some supporting characters introduced in the first half of the series are soon shuffled to the side.  Also, an array of bad guys introduced later on are never properly given a time to shine.  I bet if this series had been just three of four volumes longer, the additions being more chapters of character development for these neglected cast members, this manga would be beyond words.  As it is though, I still bloody loved every page.

If you're a shoujo fan, I think you absolutely have to read this manga.  It's a shame that this one often gets passed over in favor of Watase-sensei's most popular manga, Fushigi Yugi (which, in my mind, is far inferior).  Ceres, Celestial Legend has style, flare, scares, romance, action, comedy, twists, turns, and more romance!  What more could you ask for?  I'll also add that it's one of the incredibly few manga that have brought tears to my eyes.  Needless to say, I have collected all 14 volumes of Ceres.