Ceres: The Celestial Legend. Some gorgeous, gorgeous artwork

[dangermousie]

This is partly to further pique alexandral's interest in the anime version of Ayashi No Ceres (Ceres: the Celestial Legend), and partially because I find the art so gorgeous to look at.



AnC is a manga that was turned into an anime. What is it about? Think of it as Buffy through an anime lens. Dark horror, mysterious characters, star-crossed unbreakable OTP, a really really mesed up family, somewhat mystical fantasy concepts. Our heroine, Aya, is almost killed by her family on her 16th birthday. Saved by a mysterious stranger and on the run, Aya must find out what is the power that makes her family want her dead, who can she rely on, what is the truth beneath the family legends, and whether she and her beloved twin brother are destined to be enemies. Oh, and who is the gorgeous rescuer and can she trust him? And if not, can she stop herself from loving him anyway?

It's angsty and dark and gorgeous. And Aya/Toya are a huge OTP.



Raaaaaain shot. I love those:



Toya/Aya:







































Toya:



















Aya:







Ceres:



Yuhi and Ceres:



Aki:





Aki and Aya:







Yuhi:



Other covers:

Huh?













A couple of manga scans:











Randomness:

Comments

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

AWWW! SO many beautiful pictures in one post.Thank you so much!!!! My favourites are where they are laying on the floor ** cough cough ** and the one where he has wings and holds the cross thingy. And eeeeeee! He has wings!!! ( I haven't noticed this before!!)

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked!

The anime cut out some of manga nudity btw (there is nudity in the credits though :D).

Re: wings. It's sort of a spoiler actually, why he has those.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

OH, please spoil me!!! I am such a spolier junkie!!! And you know what I like even more then a gorgeous guy - the gorgeous guy with wings. :D

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

OK. Without going into really long and complicated explanation (AnC has a fairly complicated plot), Toya isn't human. Not only is there the wings thing, but he can also pull a dagger out of his arm and has superhuman reflexes. We find out later that he is related to the existence of Ceres (a celestial being of a long time ago, who possesses Aya occasionally, and is the enemy of the Mikage clan) and his powers are sort of related to that. I don't want to spoil everything :) I can spill further, but are you sure?

Toya himself doesn't know what or who he is until fairly late on. His name means '10' and that and 'Mikage' (which is the last name of Aya's family whose employ he is in) were the only things he could remember when he was found, without any memory of his past. He works for the Mikages now because of remembering their name he thinks they are a connection to his past (they are, but in a very unexpected way. It related to Aya). He hates working for them because they make the Gotti family seem wholesome and cuddly but he is desperate and they promised to restore his memory if he works for them.

He eventually goes majorly rogue, choosing Aya over any hope of recovering his memories.

To tempt you further, there are gorgeous scenes when they go on the run and end up 'playing house' and guuuuuh *melts* And there is hurt/comfort and just everything. I love it.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

Now I am getting quite desperate. :D Tank you so much for this write-up!! You are awesome!!

I also rarely ship no-canon pairings, I don't like to be disappointed and if I don't like the main pairing in fiction it usually means I stop watching/reading. Though one can't protect oneself from things like "Little" Women"

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I am sure it's available for dl too :)

As to Little Women? Bah. The ending really annoys me.

[summertea.livejournal.com]

is actually Yuhi's sister-in-law!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

You are right! It's the blue hair that confused me.

[lizamanynames.livejournal.com]

Ooooh! Ayashi no Ceres! talus introduced me to the anime a couple of years ago - I didn't know there was a mange, though.

...I always shipped Arya/Yuhi, though. (I think I mean Yuhi. The guy with cooking chopsticks.)

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's based on a 14 volume manga (the story is a lot more detailed there).

I like Yuhi (yup, the cooking guy), but never was into Aya/Yuhi. I did like him with Chidori/Chinari/whatever her name (blanking) the girl who crushed on him. I generally never ship uncanon (Clark/Lex is about the only exception because come on...Lana!)

I think except for some severely dark stuff, this would make a good live action show, actually.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

ooo...Ceres...one of my first manga loves...and one of the anime on the "i really wanna rewatch even though i still have a big backlog" lit...and I finally caved in regards to Spiral today(which you'd like...it has an angsty woobie lead...actually, they're all angst-ridden...except Hiyono, who is too chipper to drown in angst) so I'll likely be caving to other series soon, too.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. Ceres is so awesome...

[ilanala]

Wow, that's really pretty...

I think I have the manga on a CD somewhere, so I may have to dig it out.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

It's definitely worth a look...

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yes, of course!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Neat! :)