Ceres, Celestial Legend
Ceres, Celestial Legend, known in Japan as, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yuu Watase. It was originally serialized in Shōgakukan's magazine Shōjo Comic from May 1996 to March 2000, with its chapters collected in 14 tankōbon volumes. The manga was licensed for English release in North America by Viz Media. The series follows a high school girl, who learns on her sixteenth birthday that she is the reincarnation of an ancient and supremely powerful celestial maiden or angel named Ceres, and her twin brother Aki the reincarnation of Ceres' former husband, Mikagi, is the progenitor of the Mikage family, who had stolen Ceres' robe. Ceres' spirit begins manifesting in Aya, and to save her brother she must find Ceres' long-lost celestial robe, while fighting against her family members who want to use Ceres's supreme celestial abilities for their own personal gain.
Pierrot adapted the series into a 24-episode anime television series, broadcast on WOWOW from April to September 2000. The anime series was also licensed by Viz, but has since been re-licensed by Discotek Media.
In 1998, Ceres, Celestial Legend won the 43rd Shogakukan Manga Award in the shōjo category.
Plot
High school siblings Aya Mikage and her older twin brother, Aki, are forced to go to their grandfather's home for their sixteenth birthday, unaware that it is actually a test to see if they have angel or celestial maiden blood possess within them. Aya learns she is one of many reincarnations of a vengeful and supremely powerful celestial maiden named Ceres who takes over her mind and body only when under intense stress or fury. When she transforms into Ceres, Aya obtains supernatural abilities of flight, teleportation, telepathy, powerful telekinesis, premonition, and superhuman speed; she can also project destructive pink energy blasts from her hands, and create impenetrable shields of bright pink-colored celestial energy. According to legend, Ceres will ultimately exterminate the entire Mikage family in retaliation for stealing her hagoromo, thus preventing her returning home to Heaven. Because of this, Aya's paternal grandfather and his clan attempt to kill her, but she is saved by Suzumi Aogiri, another descendant of a heavenly maiden with incredibly strong celestial and mental abilities of her own, and Suzumi's teenage brother-in-law, Yūhi. Aya struggles to control Ceres' influence over her and appease her spirit once and for all. Her brother Aki is eventually completely taken over by the vengeful spirit of "Shiso Mikagi", the original ancestor/progenitor of the entire Mikage family and Ceres's former lover who stole Ceres' celestial robe, forcing her to stay with him on Earth. Aya promises Ceres that she will help her find the celestial robe in exchange for not killing those who hunt her, especially Aki, since Aya still loves them as family. It is revealed that "The Hagoromo Legend" exists in not just Japan, but also in Europe, Africa, all three regions of Oceania, Germany, China, Korea, Russia, and even the United States.Toya, a former servant of the Mikage family and with no recollection of his past for whom Aya has strong romantic feelings is also trying to kill her as well. However, the two eventually begins to have romantic feelings for each other and they conceive a child together. Toya regains his memory and learns that he is an immortal humanoid organism, also known as "the manna," that the celestial robe created to help itself reunite with Ceres and enable her to reach her full evolution as a celestial maiden. In the end, Aki, having resisted Mikagi's spirit, sacrifices himself to save Aya, and Toya sacrifices his own manna and immortality to save Aya and their unborn child. Months later, Aya and Toya await the birth of their child, knowing that Toya will have to live the remainder of his life as a mortal, although Toya reveals that he will live longer, for his new family's sake.
Characters
; Aya Mikage; Ceres
; Toya
; Aki Mikage
; Suzumi Aogiri
; Yūhi Aogiri
; Kyū Oda, "Mrs. Q"
; Chidori Kuruma
; Yuki Urakawa
; Miori Sahara
; Shuro Tsukasa
; Kagami Mikage
; Alec Alexander O. Howell
; Gladys Smithson
; Wei Fei Li
; Shiso Mikagi
; Assam
; Shouta Kuruma
; Miku Mikage
; Sonoko Mikage
; Mr. Mikage
; Maya Hirobe
; Dr. Kurotsuka
- Voiced by: Unshō Ishizuka ; Steve Olson
- Voiced by: Kazusa Murai ; Elizabeth Stepkowski
Production
Ceres, Celestial Legend is the third manga series written by Yuu Watase. She based it on the legend of the tennin Ceres and her stolen hagoromo. This legend is also the basis for one of the most performed Japanese Noh plays, Hagoromo. It is the Japanese version of the Swan Maiden legend; versions from other cultures are mentioned throughout the series. As with most of her serials, Watase planned the basic story line of Ceres through to the end before beginning work. She notes that it is easier to work this way, but that even with planning sometimes the characters will "move on their own" and refuse to follow her original plans. When she reaches the end of the work, though, she can understand why they did so. Watase noted that one of the hardest parts of writing a serial manga was having to plan for a cliffhanger at the end of each chapter. She wanted each one to make the reader want to know what happened next, so they would want to keep reading.To accurately depict the many locations used within the series, Watase traveled to Miyagi, Okinawa, and Tochigi to visit the locations where legends say Tennin landed. She was able to negotiate entry into some areas normally closed to the public. The characters in Ceres are not based on real people, but Watase notes that each one reflects some part of herself, as does the story as a whole. For example, Watase incorporated her thoughts on genetic engineering and other new technologies through the character of Kagami, who shows cruel disregard for the lives of the celestial beings he creates. While she feels such technologies can be useful to society, they should not be abused. Watase purposefully left Ceres' true nature ambiguous in the end, never clearly stating whether Ceres is an alien or truly a being descended from heaven. She notes, however, that part of the reason for this was that it wasn't something she'd thought about. On reflection, she felt Ceres was a symbol. In Japan, men are considered the dominant sex, and Watase notes that as a woman there are things about the system that anger her, such as men saying she is "just a woman." Ceres became a story about the relationship between men and women. She also wanted to show that while the Tennin and the humans in the story may have come from different origins, and evolved differently, they were still the same living creature in the end, with similar feelings and thoughts.
Media
Manga
Written by Yuu Watase, Ceres, The Celestial Legend premiered in the May 1996 issue of Shogakukan's Shōjo Comic, and ran through the March 2000 issue. The chapters were later published in fourteen collected volumes, with the first volume released on December 11, 1996. Starting October 15, 2005, Shogakukan began re-releasing the series in six special edition volumes, with the final volume released December 15, 2005.In 2001, Viz Media licensed the manga for an English language release in North America. The series was originally released in a flipped trade paperback format. Viz stopped publication after four volumes. In 2003, Viz re-released the first four volumes in unflipped standard manga-size volumes, along with the remaining ten volumes. In the table below, the dates and ISBN numbers given for the first four volumes are for their second edition re-releases.
Anime
Directed by Hajime Kamegaki and produced by Studio Pierrot, the anime television series adaptation aired in Japan on WOWOW, from April 20 to September 28, 2000. It was released to VHS and DVD by Bandai Visual in twelve volumes, with each volume containing two episodes.Ceres, Celestial Legend was licensed for Region 1 release by Viz Media, which also owns the North American license for the source manga. Viz released the series to VHS and DVD in eight three-episode volumes, with the first volume released on July 24, 2001. The VHS editions were dubbed in English, while the DVD volumes offered a choice between the dubbed English audio track and the original Japanese audio, with optional English subtitles. The DVD version also offers extra features, including art galleries, character profiles, and interviews with Yu Watase. In 2003, Viz re-released the series in two-volume collector's edition sets that contained twelve episodes on each disc, and all of the on-disc extras from earlier releases.
The English dubbed version of the series was broadcast in Southeast Asia by AXN-Asia. In 2014, Discotek Media announced their license for the series. Discotek re-released the series on June 6, 2015. Crunchyroll added the series in both English and Japanese.