Ayashi no Ceres

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Ayashi no Ceres
Original title 妖 し の セ レ ス
transcription Ayashi no Seresu
Ceres Celestial Legend logo.png
Logo of the anime
genre Shōjo , romance, drama, fantasy
Manga
country JapanJapan Japan
author Yū Watase
publishing company Shogakukan
magazine Shōjo comic
First publication August 5, 1996 - January 20, 2000
expenditure 14th
Anime television series
Country of production JapanJapan Japan
original language Japanese
year 2000
Studio Pierrot
length 24 minutes
Episodes 24
Director Hajime Kamegaki
music Ryō Sakai
First broadcast April 20 - September 28, 2000 on WOWOW
synchronization

Ayashi no Ceres ( Japanese 妖 し の セ レ ス , Ayashi no Seresu , Eng . "The mysterious Ceres") is a manga series by the Japanese illustrator Yū Watase from 1996 to 2000, which was also implemented as an anime and novel series. It can be assigned to the genre of Shōjo .

action

The girl Aya Mikage wakes up on her 16th birthday as a sky fairy ( 天 女 , tennyo , literally: "sky woman"). Her first incarnation Ceres came to earth 5000 years ago and was robbed of her plumage ( 羽衣 , hagoromo ) by a young fisherman . He took her as his wife and begat children with her, wisely keeping secret that he had stolen her plumage. She also lent him some of her powers, which he used to attack other tribes. However, when she found out, she killed her husband.

In each generation of her descendants, she is now reborn in order to find her plumage and take revenge on the reincarnation of her husband who had stolen her plumage. However, Aya's twin brother Aki turns out to be the current rebirth of the man from Ceres. When the reincarnation slumbering in Aki awakens, he tries to gain the love of Aya. However, she is in love with the mysterious Tōya and confused about Aki's sudden and violent physical affection. She also has to flee as her influential family, after discovering that she is the reincarnation of Ceres, seeks her life.

Characters

Aya Mikage / Ceres ( 御景 妖 )
The 16-year-old daughter of a member of the Mikage clan and heiress of the pure blood of the Sky Fairy. She is a very stubborn girl, she only does what she thinks is right and often argues with her brother Aki. She falls in love with Tōya, the boy who stole her first kiss, and feels very drawn to him, despite his assignment to kill her. As the story progresses, Aya and Tōya become a couple and fight the Mikage family together until the night Tōya is killed and Aya learns that she is expecting him to have a child. At the end Toya comes back and saves Aya. The sky fairy Ceres is reborn in her. She tries to kill the Mikagi family to regain their mana.
Aki Mikage ( 御景 明 )
Aya's twin brother and direct descendant of Mikagi, the man who stole the plumage from Ceres and made her stay with him. Aki is actually a very nice and above all caring boy, but after meeting Ceres, who said he had hidden her feathers, he tries more and more to remember his former life and at some point loses his body to his former self. In the end he dies to save his sister.
Tōya ( 十 夜 )
A mysterious man who, because he has lost his memory, puts himself at the service of the Mikage family and thus becomes Aya's enemy. When the family notices that Tōya can withstand Aya's forces, he is asked to watch them. He has to realize that he loves her and decides to leave the Mikages. He is always reserved, thoughtful and reveals little about himself, not least because he does not want to hurt Ayas. With Aya's help, Tōya regains his memories one day: He lived in seclusion with an old man on the island of Hajijojima, to which Aya took a trip as a small child. Since then, he couldn't get her out of his head and so he went looking for her. Little by little, Toya and Aya fall in love and in the end have a child together. Eventually it is learned that Toya was created from the sky garment, which is actually mana, to bring it back to Ceres.
Yūhi Aogiri ( 梧 雄飛 )
The illegitimate son of the Aogiri family lives with his sister-in-law and is one day assigned by her to free Aya from the Mikage house. From then on he is Aya's protector and falls in love with her, but she cannot return his love, so he always remains by her side. He is an enthusiastic cook, which is why he uses chopsticks as weapons. In the end, Toya asks him to take care of Aya, as he will soon die.
Suzumi Aogiri ( 梧 納涼 )
The wife of the first son from the Aogiri family, who is herself a descendant of a sky fairy, but has only limited kinetic abilities. She lost her husband shortly after the wedding, as well as the child she was pregnant with. Yūhi was just able to prevent her from taking her own life. She is a very loving and balanced person who loves dancing very much. She always takes care of Aya carefully.
Shuro Tsukasa ( 司 珠 呂 )
The voice of the well-known band "Gesang" is Shuro Tsukasa. A C-Genomer, also a descendant of a sky fairy, who reacted very late to the Mikages' drug. Aya learns that Shuro, who pretends to be a boy, has feathers and therefore befriends 'him', but learns very quickly that Shuro is not a man after all and that the plumage is a fake. Shortly afterwards Shuro loses her cousin Kei, with whom she is in love and therefore founded the band with him. Kei couldn't take the drug and died from it. Since then, Shuro has stood by Aya and helped her find the plumage. In the end, Shuro uses all her strength to free Aya from the Mikages' laboratory and dies.
Chidori Kuruma ( 来 間 千 鳥 )
A 16-year-old descendant of another sky fairy who was quite young at heart, who took a photo of the flying Ceres and therefore one day stands in front of the door of the Aogiri house. She looks after her little brother, who was seriously injured in a family accident in which his parents died and is now barely able to walk. After a short time, Chidori falls in love with Yūhi, who doesn't think that's so great because he is in love with Aya. That's why Chidori is mad at Aya. She lives with her grandparents and the house is monitored by Aogiri's people, but the soldiers of the Mikages manage to kidnap the girl and her brother and bring them to their laboratory. When Yūhi and Tōya try to free her, she is shot and dies in Yūhi's arms.
Miori Sahara
Aya's cousin. When she found out that her mother died in the ceremony at which Ceres awoke in Aya, she blamed Aya alone and decided to take revenge on her. The medication also awakened the sky fairy genes in her. Since Miori is a descendant of Ceres, she awoke in her too. She contacted Kagami, who took advantage of Miori to catch Ceres. Miori became part of an intrigue aimed at separating Toya and Aya. She fell in love with him and the memory he was given that he had spent his entire life with her. However, when she found out that Toya had such strong feelings for Aya despite a lock in his head that was supposed to prevent him from remembering Aya, she gave up. She fell and died to injure Aya.

Conception

The manga is based on the old Japanese "Legend of the Feather Dress " ( 羽衣 伝 説 , Hagoromo Densetsu ), which is similar to the legend about the swan maiden . This story is the basis of the plot of Ayashi no Ceres as the trigger.

publication

Ayashi no Ceres was published in Japan from issue 17/1996 (August 5, 1996) to issue 4/2000 (January 20, March) in individual chapters in the manga magazine Shōjo Comic . These individual chapters were also summarized in 14 anthologies ( Tankōbon ) by the Shogakukan publishing house . A new seven-volume Bunkoban was published from October 2005 to January 2006 .

An art book for the series was also published in Japan.

The manga was published in Spain by Glénat , in the USA by Viz Media and in France by Editions Tonkam . The series has also been translated into Italian. Ayashi no Ceres was published in German from November 2002 to December 2004 by Egmont Manga and Anime . The translation is by Antje Bockel.

Adaptations

Anime

The Studio Pierrot produced for manganese a 24-episode anime series in which Hajime Kamegaki directed. The character design was created by Hideyuki Motohashi and the artistic direction was taken over by Shigenori Takada . The series was broadcast from April 20 to September 28, 2000 by WOWOW in Japan.

The series has been translated into English, French, Spanish and Italian.

synchronization

role Japanese speaker ( seiyū )
Aya Mikage Yumi Kakazu
Ceres Junko Iwao
Aki Mikage Susumu Chiba
Tōya Katsuyuki Konishi
Yūhi Aogiri Kentarō Itō
Suzumi Aogiri Mayumi Asano
Shuro Tsukasa Chihiro Kusaka
Chidori Kuruma Ayako Kawasumi
Kagami Mikage Tomokazu Sugita

music

Ryō Sakai composed the music for the series . The opening title is Scarlet ( ス カ ー レ ッ ト , Sukāretto ), written by Ken Takahashi, composed by Taisuke Sawachika and sung by Junko Iwao. For the credits for the first 15 episodes One - Kono Yo ga Hatete mo Hanarenai ( ONE〜こ の 世 が 果 て て も 離 れ und い 〜 ) and from episode 16 Cross My Heart each texted by Yuriko Mori, composed by Ryō Sakai and interpreted by the rock band day-break. For the last episode, Scarlet was also used at the end .

novel

Based on the manga, Megumi Nishizaki wrote a series of novels that was also published by Shogakukan. The individual volumes were:

Reception and interpretation

Ayashi no Ceres won the 43rd Shōgakukan Manga Prize in the Shōjo category in 1998 .

The story is seen not only as a confrontation by Aya with the threat of her assassination, but also as a confrontation with her puberty. Ceres, with whom she is obsessed, is a symbol of her own femininity, which is now bringing change into her life and forcing her to see life anew.

According to the specialist magazine AnimaniA , the work shows a significant further development of Yū Watase since Fushigi Yūgi . The drawing style has changed to a body-conscious staging, the story is told fluently and consistently and the characters showed a pronounced emotional world. The “melancholy and fatalistic atmosphere” is repeatedly broken up by slapstick interludes. The anime implementation is true to the original and the relatively cheap production method only has a negative effect in a few places.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Im Bann der Legenden , Animania 44, 2/2002, p. 46 f.
  2. ↑ a b Patrick Drazen: Anime Explosion! - The What? Why? & Wow! of Japanese Animation p. 40 ff. Stone Bridge Press, 2002.
  3. ↑ 「妖 し の セ レ ス」 の 検 索 結果 . Shogakukan, accessed February 22, 2014 (Japanese).
  4. ↑ Funime No. 19/2001, p. 33

Web links