Ceres: Celestial Legend, Vol. 5: Mikage

妖しのセレス [Ayashi no Ceres] #5

by Yuu Watase

Yuu Watase, the immensely popular writer/artist of the shojo (girls) fantasy smash Fushigi Yugi: The Mysterious Play, has turned her creativity and wry sense of humour to the horror genre with her anime/manga hit Ceres: Celestial Legend. Aya thought she was a normal teenager until she discovered that she can transform into a vastly powerful "heavenly maiden" named Ceres...But Ceres is furious and out for revenge! Chidori Kuruma wants to help her sickly younger brother fulfill his dream of flying. In order to do so, she travels to Tokyo to enlist the aid of Ceres. Unfortunately, Chidori and her brother have a strange connection to the Mikage family and the nefarious C-Project. There's much more to Chidori than meets the eye. Her hyper-cheerful shojo exterior belies inner turmoil and dark secrets that even Chidori isn't aware of...

Genres: Manga, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels, Shojo, Horror, Comics Manga

200 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 1997

About the author

Yuu Watase (渡瀬悠宇) is a Japanese shoujo manga-ka. She is known for her works Fushigi Yūgi, Alice 19th, Ceres: The Celestial Legend, Fushigi Yūgi Genbu Kaiden and Absolute Boyfriend. She likes all music, except heavy metal and old traditional music.

She received the Shogakukan Manga Award for shōjo for Ceres, Celestial Legend in 1997. Since writing her debut short story "Pajama de Ojama" ("An Intrusion in Pajamas"), Watase has created more than 80 compiled volumes of short stories and continuing series. Because of her frequent use of beautiful male characters in her works, she is widely regarded in circles[which?] as a bishōnen manga artist.[citation needed] In October 2008, Watase began her first shōnen serialization, Arata: The Legend in Weekly Shōnen Sunday.
Her name is romanized as "Yû Watase" in earlier printings of Viz Media's publications of Fushigi Yūgi, Alice 19th, and Ceres, The Celestial Legend, while in Viz Media's Fushigi Yūgi Genbu Kaiden and Absolute Boyfriend her name is romanized as "Yuu Watase". In Chuang Yi's English-language versions of Fushigi Yugi (spelled without a macron or circumflex), her name is romanized as "Yu Watase".

Reviews

[Coke Fernández · Rating 4 out of 5]

7/10

[Bibliothecat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review for complete series



After I didn't enjoy Fushigi Yuugi as much as I had hopped I would, I was a little concerned how well I'd like Ayashi no Ceres - after all, I was much more interested in the former. Now that I have read both, I think the latter is the superior work in terms of story telling. Pacing was one of the biggest issues I had with Fushigi Yuugi and, while the beginning is a little slow, the other all pacing is infinitely better. The flow of the story felt right with neither dragging nor rushing and the order of events made reasonable sense.

Thanks to the good pacing, the relationships between characters were a lot more believable. Yuu Watase writes likeable characters but sometimes fails to connect them - it's not perfect in the case of this series but it is so much better done than I have seen her do in other works. My only issue probably lies with how fast Aya falls in love with Toya. I wouldn't necessary call it instant love but she definitely has her eye on him from chapter one and the extent to which she starts to love him comes around very quickly. As a result, I initially struggled to root for them but I have to say that the story between them was otherwise nicely written. I definitely really enjoyed the friendships that were formed and was sad about many of their fates.

This series has an over all darker and more mature tone than many of Watase's other series. While she's never exactly been afraid of killing off a few of her characters. Some of the deaths caught me off guard but over all this was a borderline slaughter fest, at times I wondered if I'd picked up Angel Sanctuary instead - I do see fans of one liking the other. In this darker plot, Watase tried to include some comic relief in the form of Kyuu (the housekeeper of sorts?). I didn't like this character at all as she had zero substance beyond apparently being so ugly characters feel sick at the site of her. This joke soon became very, very, very old, especially given that it was repeated regularly over a 14-volume series. Not too mention that I found this joke to be in poor taste.

Another thing that makes this series different from Watase's other works is the art style. While it is still recognisably Watase's style, it is over all less cute and I take this as an attempt to match the more mature story. I do generally prefer her usual style over this one, but it's not that there is anything wrong with the style used here - it's simply different and, unlike me, others may prefer it over her usual style.

Over all, Ayashi no Ceres surprised me in a good way. It is an all around well crafted sci-fi manga that keeps most of its secrets for the final two volumes. Sci-fi isn't my main genre and there were a few hiccups along the way (Kyuu and the somewhat rushed romance) that prevent me from giving this a full score but it definitely earns its place among shoujo manga classics.

[Ryofire · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really interesting volume where a lot of things escalate at once. Toya finally tries to escape back to Aya, and tries take Aki with him, to rescue him from the Mikages (albeit obstensibly because Aya wants it, and not necessarily for Aki's sake, but Aki definitely cares for Toya to a degree and Toya seems to sympathize with him). Aki also finally collapses under the power of the progenitor's personality, largely with the aid of the cursed corpse of Ceres. It's really just tragedy for Aki.

Meanwhile, everything that happens finally comes to a head for Aya, who has a moment where she understandably admits it's just all too much. She's going through FAR too much for anyone, let alone a 16-year-old with a dubious support system. The good news is, she does have people who support her. It's just still a scary environment.

The character development is what really shines in this volume, whether it's Aki and Toya's relationship, Toya's desperate fear of himself and what he's becoming, as well as his selflessness to try and protect Toya and Aya, Chidori and Aya's developing friendship, Yuhi's admission that his love is his own problem, and Yuhi and Toya's antagonistic but relatively supportive relationship. There's a lot of fun stuff in this volume, and it's arguably the best of them all.

The funniest author's note yet is also in this volume, which more than makes up for the error repeat page in the iOS ebook.

[Leila Anani · Rating 3 out of 5]

5 volumes in and this series still isn't grabbing me in the same way as all of Yuu Watase's other series, I can't put my finger on why exactly - may just be that it's darker and lacks humour.

So Aki fully transforms in this one when he finds that his grandfather is keeping the corpse of Ceres in a hidden room. Really creepy art on that too - nice.

So we're now well into this bizarre love quadrangle - Aya (sometimes possessed by the Celestial Maiden Ceres) in love with Amnesiac bodyguard Toya. Yuhi is in love with Aya and while he grudgingly accepts she's in love with Toya will never give up. Then there's Aya's Twin brother Aki now fully possessed by the spirit of his original ancestor who captured Ceres, raped her and kept her from returning to heaven.

This volume has parricide, intimations of incest, a real skeleton in the closet, unrequited love and a shed load of angst. The only comic relief is Mrs. Q who is a very welcome break, I just wish there was a little more quirkiness and humour to the other characters.

On with volume 6....

[Laurelyn Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the inversion of tropes for the genre but the love quadrangle is a bit too much. The art is beautiful; there's more gore than Sailor Moon and Fushigi Yugi but less gore than Clamp's X series. I feel like our avenging goddess paradigm gets more character development in this issue beyond I-was-repeatedly,-maritally-raped, so it's nice to see Ceres get some meaningful depth beyond the stereotypical reliance on rape as a plot device (which I feel like the author is guilty of in other points of this series).

[Eleanor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yesssss I feel like this one was better than 3 and 4 just because it felt like it actually pushed the story forward in a way that, like, the side parts with Chidori and Yuki don't quite. I mean, Chidori is obviously a recurring character and Yuki's story helps explain C-genome stuff but this book feels much more interesting from a storyline perspective.

The whole Aki thing now is very chaotic and even though I've read this before I still feel like the whole situation is unsolvable! Just so much stress

[Lau · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

Durante medio volumen creí que no iba a ocurrir nada más que escenas de acción (que no me convencen, me pasó lo mismo con Fushigi Yuugi) pero no sólo me equivoqué, sino que la historia dio un giro que captó mi interés al fin. Espero que lo aproveche bien.
Le subo medio punto más por eso.

Ahora sí el incesto es oficial, o algo así. Técnicamente no, pero sí. Ew.

Mención especial a la ficha de Kyuu-chan, es el mejor personaje del manga.

[Kasumi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cuando parecía que Aki no iba a dar juego como rehen de su familia mientras Aya trata de liberarse de Ceres, sucede lo inesperado que da un vuelco a la historia: los recuerdos del primer antepasado toman el control y deja de ser él. Sin duda esto cambia lo que esperabamos de esta historia y nos engancha aun más a ella.

[Serena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Discovering about Aki's awakening was mind-blowing in this volume oh my god. The fact that Aki did turn out to be the progenitor of the Mikage family blew my mind. I mean there were hints but nothing definite. Also, I would not want to get the progenitor mad. Just saying. Even though he was evil, I feel bad for the grandfather and how he died.

[Maria del Mar · Rating 4 out of 5]

El principi se m'ha fet una mica lent i repetitiu d'altres volums, però cap al final wow
Ara bé, peca una mica com la resta de volums que aquí tothom fa petons forçats sense demanar permís a l'altra persona. I una mica de masclisme hi ha.
La història es posa interessant per això.

[Bee (BacchusVines) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now enters the main antagonist of the story. The drama is certainly heating up for poor Aya!

[Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad. Decent series. =)

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ceres has it all - action, romance, suspense, mystery. Great character development and exciting art make for another solid volume. Can't wait to check out mor.

[Aurelie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story has such an interesting balance of ridiculous comedy and seriously dark themes, bit of a whiplash sometimes to be honest

[Judyth · Rating 3 out of 5]

~3/5

[Read more at my blog, Geeky Reading!]

(Contains spoilers.)

This series is actually getting better, and I’m very happy about that. The humor isn’t bothering me as much. And maybe it’s just getting more exciting. And there was more focus on Aki, who I just generally find more interesting than Aya.

First, Toya decides that he’s leaving the Mikage company. He’s just like, screw them, I’m done with this crap, destroys their machines, tears up their cameras and lasers, the front door, and is out of there. He’s all bloody, and he was going to take Aki with him, but Aki decides to stay, but that’s no big deal. Aya is waiting for him, having talked to him before this, and is ready to comfort and take care of him, and love him even more and all that. She’s upset about her brother staying, though. Toya is hurt and stays with the Aogiri’s for a couple days, even gets included on their pay roll or whatever so that he’s included in their group, before deciding that he has to go back to the Mikage’s and take care of Aki, as he sees him as his responsibility.

Aya is happy to have him, and then upset that he’s leaving her again. Yuhi is surprisingly okay with it, even if he is unhappy because he wants to be with Aya. And Aya has a mirror conversation with Ceres, who’s blunt and straightforward about what she wants, and particularly the fact that she wants to kill Aki and find out where her Hagoromo (the robe) is. The two make a deal that Ceres won’t come out and Aya will find the Hagoromo and deal with all of it on her own.

And then some serious shit happens with Aki. He wrote a letter for Toya to give to Aya, and he knows that he’s losing the fight with his past self, and he tells her that he wants her to kill him if his past self takes over. And he does, and he kills the Mikage grandfather (who, remember, doesn’t know anything about the c-project). Aki doesn’t even seem to be present anymore, and his past self is straightforward, blunt, a little crass, and determined to find Ceres (or Aya), who he calls "his woman", and we can tell that it isn’t Aki because he has all these scars. And then he does find her, with Toya as he’s leaving, and he kisses her. He also has a standoff with Ceres and Toya and Yuhi, who try to protect her, before he passes out and is taken away by the Mikage’s. Also, all of this is in public, there are dozens of people around, but that doesn’t seem to matter.

The volume ends with the Aogiri group seeing some famous pop star on television claiming that he’s a celestial descendent, and that he has the Hagoromo at his house. Which is sure to be interesting, and I’m guessing it’s not Ceres’.

So: getting better. I’m very happy about this, and am actually looking forward to seeing what happens next. Also, I might not be reviewing the next one, just to let you know.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yuu Watase is an amazing storyteller and draws some gorgeous artwork! She is one of my favorite manga authors and I love everything she has done. The characters in Ceres are amazing and imaginative and extremely easy to relate to. She is able to capture the character’s emotions amazingly with a realistic outlook on life. Aya’s reaction to finding out about her supernatural powers was real and her ongoing fight through all of her problems strikes the reader as something that would ring true. My favorite character was Touya, hot and mysterious with a little bit of attitude thrown in. The series has gory moments and is dark but everything about life is not always peachy as Yuu Watase truthfully is able to point out.

Note: this review is about volumes 1-14 .

[MISSed Bandwagon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don’t think me creepy for this, but I’m not put off by the incest in this novel. I mean, that’s what makes the story, right? That’s where the dilemma lies, right? The characters wouldn’t be in such a predicament if things went smoothly, would it? I’m not rooting for the incest, I’m just saying that this is how the story develops and the author has decided to use these two characters and put them against each other in a way that hurts them and the answer isn’t cut and dry to solve.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

It gets weirder and weirder, but also better. Ceres' husband from a former life finally awakens in Aki, and we discover that the Mikage family has long been magically protected (or so they believe) by the original Ceres' dessicated corpse(!)

[Shannon (Twilight Sleep) · Rating 5 out of 5]

First manga I started collecting. Watase-san is a literary genius. I love her works. Ceres is an incredible story.

[Katy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one was a 4.5 for me. It's getting really good!

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

to match the "original tennyo" in Aya, the "original bastard" in Aki is now alive and kickin' Yeah!!

[Danyka · Rating 5 out of 5]

I watched and loved the Anime version of this since I was a kid. It also landed on my favorites.

For now, I got no plans for buying a copy.

[Jen Keyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ending was unexpected and glad I have the 6th book to continue 

[Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

All of a sudden, after from reading this. I somehow bursted into tears.

[Katie Gaulke · Rating 4 out of 5]

For what it is, it's fun

[Sydney]

Oh my god. I think I'm going to stop here and give this author a rest. 🤢