Kidou Tenshi Angelic Layer

If I were to describe this anime in one sentence, it would be: "Pokemon with Battle Dolls!"

Story: 6/10
We follow little Mizaki, a little girl wanting to see her mother after years and years of being away from her. Upon arriving in the city where her aunt lives, she sees a jumbo vision screen that has two little battle dolls (known as Angles) fighting one on one. She is intrigued by them and decides to try it out for herself, unknown to Mizaki her mom is actually much closer than she thinks. This is the base of the storyline, along the way she meets new friends ... and rivals alike. To her; Angelic Layer is nothing more than a fun activity she likes to play as a sort of hobby, she soon becomes more involved with it and eventually signs on to a tournament...where her mother is the grand champion. It does good with keeping the tension between her and her mother actually meeting one day, as many episodes have them barely missing each other. The story starts off well with introducing each main and supporting cast roll, and there are quite a few of them. However, during the half way point you may start to notice a filler or two happening ever so often, or battles that seem kind of pointless to the base of the story. Speaking of battles, this is another negative about the series, in that Mizaki is one of those main lead characters that rarely ever loses, which might ruin the anticipation of each battle for some viewers. To its credit though they do end on some nifty cliffhangers every now and then, and do a pretty decent job of making the battles exciting for the viewer. Oh and the ending is just awesome, it concludes very well and doesn't leave you with any sort of questions. So you need not worry about investing your time in a 26 episode long series, only to have it disappoint in the end, because it doesn't! Its a good story as a whole, but does lack somewhat being that the only real goal in mind is Misaki meeting her mother.

Angelic Layer shouldn't contain anything that viewers would find offensive, there are little romance scenes going on, but they are never shown or implied as dirty...since these kids are pretty young.

Artwork: 8/10
If you're familiar with a company known as "Studio Bones" then you'll notice right away that Angelic Layer is very appealing to look at, even considering the fact that this anime isn't the newest out there. With very colorful setting and character models. However, the characters themselves (with the exception of Misaki) look pretty standard and generic, I was never really able to find one that stuck out for me. The fighting scenes are cool though, they move swiftly and have nice balance of unique fighting moves and martial arts. Along with some containing actual power style techniques. Almost makes me wish they would bring over a fighting game of this series, heck I would buy it!

Soundtrack: 8/10
The closing themes change twice during the whole series, which helps give good variety to the show. They are pretty darn catchy, as is the opening theme song "Be My Angel." Character voices were also spot on! I listened to it in both English and Japanese. I felt they were just about equal, but I would give a slight tip of the hat to the Japanese version, as it seemed to match a wee bit better! Regarding the background music, you only really get one memorable soundtrack, it plays this sort or arena style action theme, it fits well with the fighting and builds up the anticipation of each match.

Characters: 7/10
They are varied in their personalities, and you get a pretty good variety of them because of this series' larger style cast line up. Though I feel that I should mention that the major bulk of the cast are indeed females. Even so they seemed to lack a real sort of depth to them, there aren't really many episodes where we get a true understanding about the supporting cast or rivalries, usually it will include only a brief flash back or passing mention. But I must say they do interact well with one another, and you get a fair amount of character chemistry too. I would also point out that this title is quite good with its whole "friendship" feature.

Bottom Line: 7/10
If I were a big fan of these "one on one" battle style anime, then I probably would have given it a bit higher of a score. Still, it kept me entertained! If you can make it through some of the filler style episodes, and don't mind the story dragging on some what, then you will like Angelic Layer!

Title: Angelic Layer
Genre: Action, Comedy, Shojo-ish
Rating: 6/10

Plot Summary: Suzuhara Misaki moves to Tokyo city in order to attend school and for a hope that she will see her mother, who left 7 years previous to work in Tokyo. After exiting the station, she sees on a big screen two people fighting. However, these are not people - rather they are Angels, which are dolls controlled by a Deus. These dolls are custom made, and they fight in Angelic Layer, which is the name of the sport. She is told all this by the scientist Icchan, who walked up to her and started telling her this ... stuff. Ignoring the possibibility that he might be a lolicon [AKA, pedophile][He isn't], she followed him into the Anglelic Layer store, where he went and showed her what to buy to create her own angel. After creating her own Angel, who she called Hikaru [which means Light], and making friends, Kotaro and Tamayo, she enters tournaments and goes on to become the Kiseki no Rookie [Miracle Rookie].

Analysis [Contains Spoilers]

Its a decent enough anime. Its done by CLAMP, which makes some good anime/manga, but I do have some problems with it. Early on in the series, Kotaro developes a crush on Misaki, which is teased upon by Tamayo. However, later on in the series, Tamayo admits that she's had a crush on Kotaro for a long time. If thats the case, why did she even push him onto Misaki to start with? The other thing I can't get around is the fact that she is the Kiseki no Rookie. She starts playing, and then she never looses. She only lost once, and that was too Kotaro's little genius sister, Hatoko. She beat every opponent after that, continuously gaining in strength, without really appearing to. Additionally, the Champion, Shuko, who is her mom, lost to her. When she hadn't lost to 77 or so other players. Finally, there is the matter with her mom. Her mom, quite frankly, is a wuss. A gigantic one. She's afraid to see Misaki, because she's afraid of what Misaki will think of her. She doesn't want Misaki to see her in a wheelchair. However, by postponing it, isn't she just making it worse?

End of Spoilers

Analysis [No Spoilers]: Some of the fights are cool. I think that the plot is a bit iffy, but its a 26 episode show expanded from a 25 or so chapter manga. There really isn't much you can do with it. I think that the comedic moments are great, but sometimes it just pushes it. Some of the fights are good, some are bad. It seems like in order to make a new plot point in the fight, they introduce something, that they can miraculously explain away in all of the previous fights. While sometimes, it works, but other times ... I just can't buy it. Theres only so much you can ignore.
Additionally, when you 'launch' angels onto the layer, you say an opening shpeal. Which is kinda lame. And I really dont see how Hikaru can fall like the way that she does in that.

There isn't really much to the anime except for the tournament. The first 4 or so episodes deal with her starting, and then there is the tournament. The rest of the plot then deals with the tournament. The unimportant matches get an entire episode, and some of the 'big' matches, you never see the character again. If you do, its very very minor.

This is a cute anime, and ok for a laugh. Some of the fights are good, while others are meh. Watch it if you want.

review taken from animeruwelz, check my profile for details

CLAMP decides to take the standard shonen fighting tournament setup and retools it into a series for girls. Partly it does this by making the tournament a fighter between customizable dolls, and making most of the competitors young females.

Like most tournament shows, the themes of doing your best and friendship pervade the experience. A doll used in the Angelic Fights is usually treated by her (or rarely, his) owner (deus) as though it were a dear friend, with concerned cries going out when they are injured. Unlike most competition shows, however, Angelic Layer isn't treated as the be-all-end-all of life. Characters who take it ... too seriously end up losing to Misaki and come to see that winning is less important than making friends and having fun. That's not to say the entire show is light-hearted and gay; Misaki's personal mantra seems to be: I'll do my best in spite of my tiny size!

The plot is mostly simple enough: Misaki arrives in Tokyo, since she'll be going to a new school there and sees an exhibition Angelic Layer fight. When the pretty, smaller Angel wins, Misaki is immediately enamored and wants to create her very own Angel. After winning her very first fight, she enters the annual tournament, and proceeds to advance round after round, with help and encouragement from her friends, growing as both a person and a deus. Along the way, she makes new friends, and they occasionally stop by for a picnic or a trip to the beach.

Misaki herself is an adorable girl, and a virtuous heroine, but, unfortunately, somewhat shallow as a character for most of the story. Her motive of being strong is dedicated to not being a burden for her mother, whom she hasn't seen in years and has been away in Tokyo for work; or so she believes. The truth about her mother is revealed about halfway through, and eventually that plot thread allows for Misaki to rise above her basic role as the talented newcomer at the end of the show, but until then, she fails to be much more than an enjoyable stereotype.

The supporting cast lend a great deal of charm to the show, most notably from Icchan, the goofy, eccentric creator of Angelic Layer who hides his role as such from Misaki while guiding her into the game. Aside from tormenting his assistants and providing screwball antics, Icchan displays a caring and sometimes insightful side behind his silly facade, proving to be a deeper character than the lead for much of the series. Misaki's classmates, the childhood friends Tamayo and Kotaro, provide a regular dose of levity, with Tamayo regularly practicing various martial arts holds or wrestling moves on Kotaro, who develops a crush on Misaki. Kotaro's little sister, Hatoko, fills the role of a mentor for Misaki. Many of the rival deus also befriend Misaki, eventually, nearly all of them with a brief, touching, backstory to endear them to the viewer, although pop idol Ringo just provides silly and energetic entertainment value.

The series makes use of lots of vivid, solid colors, and is pleasing to look at. Even during rainstorms, the pallet never feels downright dreary. Character designs are moderately varied (Just, be careful about the announcer's purple suit, wow), although most of the characters have only one outfit that they where in the entire series. One wonders why so many characters participate in these games wearing their school uniform. All of the Angels have unique outfits as well, ranging from strikingly beautiful to kind of funny looking. Hikaru, Misaki's angel, is a distinctive red outfit that's somewhere in the middle. The battles are fairly fluid, although certain moves are represented with flashy single frames, and in some of the longer battles, some scenes are shown from a distance. People who watch more recent action shows won't be impressed with any of it, though.

Sound effects are used well throughout the show, whether in the Angelic Fights or for comedic emphasis. Especially for comedic emphasis. The English dub, however, fairs less well. I only had access to the dubbed version, so I can't judge the Japanese track, but the English voice acting is probably the series weakest aspect. The children, especially younger children, frequently come across as a little wooden or strained, and not entirely believable. Hatoko's light and wispy tone doesn't sound bad, but it doesn't quite seem to fit, Jessica Boon's Misaki always seems just a little bit too dramatic, Monica Rial plays Tamayo maybe a little too gruff, and so on. Icchan feels pretty spot on, though, but his harried assistant's whininess is a bit grating. One major distraction in the voice acting is the regularity of unnatural pauses in the middle of a sentence. Yes, this is a side effect of the difference in sentence structure from Japanese to English, thus the lip flaps make it difficult to get the dialogue to flow easily, but perhaps if the translation was a little less rigid (I'm assuming, again, I only saw the dub) it might have been less obvious. Also, the pronunciation of "deus" as deuce struck me as odd, since deus (day-oos) is Latin for god, and matches the Angel theme.

All-in-all, it's a nice show. It's got a good message and will generally provide a warm and cuddly feeling with a few chuckles along the way. There's nothing really ground-breaking here, but it's a good kid-friendly show, if that's what you're looking for. Surprisingly, there's very little in the way of romance for a CLAMP series.

In my view, Angelic Layer is an anime that is often overlooked by most anime viewers in the community. I feel bad for it because is it actually a very nice and peaceful show. If you are looking for gore and darkness it is definately not for you. However if you are looking for something that is light and funny, without a buttload of romance this is perfect. Although it my seem childish at first within the first 4 episodes you will be hooked. In Angelic Layer, the girl connects with her feelings and with her past through these dolls which she controls.I not only ... find that cute but the plot is original making it unique. The best part is: it is enjoyable and suitable for all ages. I definately reccomend this for anime fans!!!! :)

I have a strong soft spot for kid tournament anime. Ever since I was a kid intrigued, watching kid tournament anime thanks to it's flashy fights base on set project as well seeing set strong fighter fight set strong fighter in a match.
Even though I enjoy watching Kodomo tournament anime, I don't find them to be all that great in actually. Yes, there were a few kid tournaments that were actually good such as Gundam Build Fighters, Cardfight Vanguard Season 1 and Future Card Buddyfight Season 1 many of the kids tournament anime seemed to be meh at best by comparison especially when theses that ... three shows that I enjoy actually have more things going on outside its tournament nature in terms of story and charterers.

As a fan of the sub genre self I decided to check out other kid tournament anime and the first anime that appeared other than the pretty good Danball Senki series which am currently watching from time of the review is Angelic Layer a 26 episode tournament series done by Studio Bones as featuring the art-style from Clamp. I went into this show with pretty high exceptions as I expected this show to be a engaging tournament show that had a good sci-fi tournament setting and fun and likeable characters.
Unfortunately I didn't get any of that as show quickly devolves into a generic tournament anime that was filled with cliche characters and cheesy predictable writing that was too much for my tastes. Angelic Layer isn't a bad series, but I don't think it's all that great. It's a decent anime that is very enjoyable for children as well newer anime fans. However, if you like me who had lots of Kodomo tournament anime in the past, you will begin to see that Angelic Layer has a lot of small cracks which become larger as you progress the series to a point where the series starts falling apart in the end.
Also get use of hearing the word predictable throughout this review.

Story.
The story follows sixth grader Misaki Suzuhara who has just moved to Tokyo to live with her aunt. When she arrived in Tokyo, she sees two battle between two dolls on a big live-screen called Angelic Layer which is a highly popular game in which players (called Deus) buy and custom-design dolls known as Angels that are moved by mental control when on a field called the "layer."She soon meets a guy with a lab coat named himself Icchan where he encourages Misaki to purchase and create her own angel. She ended up getting an angel that resembles the protagonist from Magic Knight Rayneth, and she calls it Hikaru. Despite being a clueless of the game in first glance she competes in tournaments and is assisted and watched carefully by Icchan and from there Misaki life as a competitive Angelic Layer player where she has to defeat other players to become the best like no one ever was.
The story on paper was interesting and entertaining however it actual execution the story is boring and predictable. Am not joking when I say this but Angelic Layer is one of the most predictable stories I have ever seen and it's not for a good reason which falls into the shows cheesy writing which I will talk about in a bit. My problems in Angelic Layer begin with the overall pacing as the series is overall pretty inconsistent as it can go either way too fast or way too slow. It was okay in the first few episodes but it really got out of hand as the series went on as many of the fights seemed to either drag out just to fill the 20 minute mark or fights that are too short where they lasted 2 to 5 minutes. I will admit there were a couple of fights that solidly paced overall but the most part the pacing could have been a lot better.
The pacing seemed to plays along with the shows cheesy writing.

The writing in Angelic Layer is such that many of the dialogue and conflicts are cheesy for the sake of being cheesy. There's not much self-awareness as the series seemed to ride on the cheese train. It's gets even worst when the writing goes into full angst mode One of the example of this happens with one match of the tournament where Misaki is fighting a girl who complains about being too tall. Uhhhh what?

On top of the inconsistent pacing and cheesy writing comes in the series of plot holes that ruined the story even more. I won't mention them here but can easily notice them as you watch the series itself.

The worst thing about Angelic Layer is that is ultimately predictable, but it's not of a good reason. Personally, I don't mind predictable shows as long as they good characters that make it up unfortunately with the expectation of two characters which I mention in a bit the characters in Angelic Layer weren't not all that good. The battles in the Angelic Layer have predetermined meaning thanks to the power of-plot armour that Misaki has she cannot lose an Angel fight. She may lost once an Angel fight in the beginning but after that, she becomes an unstoppable god.
As for the love triangle itself like with the tournament, it's very predictable and not well executed even though it had potential to be good.
Overall the story of Angelic Layer was underwhelming. It had potential to be fun and interesting, but the predictable and cheesy writing ended up destroying all the shows potential of being a solid kid tournament anime.

Characters.
The characters, for the most part, aren't much better as they okay at best and at worst wasted potential. They are not necessarily bad characters it's just the writing at the various points ruined many of the characters in Angelic Layer.
First up we have Misaki. Out of all the characters in Angelic Layer, she's easily the worst of the bunch. She's is a self-insert Mary sue who is simply perfect at everything. She doesn't much of a personality other that she is kind and clumsy and most of her dialogue was plain boring to listen. She slightly gets better in the final episodes but by then it's being its way too as she comes off as a bland and unlikable Mary Sue.

Icchi Chan is a pretty cool character While he doesn't have much depth, his still, a pretty entertaining character who has a lot a charm though at times he does go completely off-rails for my liking at times.

Next, we have Hatoko.
Man what a wasted potential Hatoko was. She was a badass character in the first half but as the series progress, she loses her badassery to a point where she became nothing but cheer-leading fodder for Misaki. It's such a shame really.
Now we get to my favourite character in Angelic Layer Tamayo.
I really liked Tamayo I really enjoyed of what she did for her character. Despite being a cheerleader for Misaki she was filled with passion and joy. I really enjoyed her tomboyish characters towards the cast especially towards Kotoro and Misaki. Honesty she should have been a main protagonist rather than Misaki because she's not only interesting character that is filled with charisma but she was only character in Angelic Layer that wasn't a bore to watch. Thank god!!!

Now we have Kotaro and not gonna lie he's is boring.
He's just an incredibly bland character who simply allows Tamayo to do all her karate moves on him like a punching bag. He doesn't even attempt to counter Tamayo moves and his dialogue was boring as hell.

Finally, we have Ohijro or like who are you again? Apart from being a love interest for our Mary Sue lead as well being a step brother for Icchan he's was a forgetful character who didn't do much to the overall plot.

The rest of the characters are very forgetful as they all come and go for plot reasons and they barely leave an impact on the overall plot.

Visuals.
The visuals in Angelic Layer are a mixed bag. On the one hand the series well polished that contains great lighting and cinema-photography while at other times the series can look pretty messy and inconsistent to a point where some of the scenes in Angelic Layer look pretty ugly. The characters designs despite being done by CLAMP were average and not all that appealing to act for the most part. The background scenery is okay as it uses a series of basic sci-fi and urban colour palette for the environments.

The animation itself was fine. While the Angel fights were nicely animated the human characters have somewhat limited animation. While it's wasn't bad it just didn't do much especially when the series likes to use stock footage and animation shortcuts.

Sound.
If there was one word to describe the soundtrack of Angelic Layer, it would be forgettable. Apart from three to two tracks, I can't remember the tracks in Angelic Layer.
The opening theme "Be My Angel" by Enomoto Atsuko is a decent opening theme that is upbeat and catchy.
The ending themes, on the other hand, were pretty forgetful and dull.
Now for sub vs dub.
I only saw the first four episodes of Angelic Layer subbed and I thought it was pretty good. Not great but not too dull.
The dub on other hand is pretty weak. Apart from Monical Raial as Tamoyo, the dub, in general, is pretty bad that it's filled with lacklustre to downright awful performances left and right. Stick with the sub for this one.

Final Thoughts.
I have mixed feelings towards Angelic Layer. On one hand, the premise and setup were very intriguing despite being weakly executed. I liked characters like Icchan and Tamayo as they were a joy to watch and I thought the some of the battles despite being very predictable were fun to watch. Unfortunately, Angelic Layer had a lot of problems that actually hurt it. The soundtrack minus the opening and ending themes were very forgetful and repetitive. Most of the characters apart from the ones that I just mentioned ranged from dull, mediocre, wasted potential to downright awful and the tournament ultimately ended up being tedious thanks to its massive plot armour and predictability.
Your honestly better off watching Gundam Build Fighters as it's much better version of Angelic Layer that has a better character cast and a more intriguing tournament arc.
Overall I enjoyed Angelic Layer, but I don't think it's a good show. It's a semi-decent series that's it's great for people who are under the age of 12 but completely falls for anyone who is over the age of 12.

Final Score 6/10

Story:

A young girls moves to Tokyo to live with her aunt, and on the way gets involved in a new sport that is gripping the nation. This journey chronicles her journey through this new world that she has discovered. I personally enjoyed the story, especially the ending.

Animation:

Animation is nice. To me the style fits what this anime is supposed to be.

Sound:

The music is nice, I enjoy both the opening and closing themes. The Japanese voice acting is done very well. I have not heard the dub, so i can't say ... anything about that.

Characters:

Overall the characters are good. Since this is not a particularly long anime, there are many that just show up for an episode or two, but there is a solid core throughout the show. There is not any of them that I particularly dislike.

Overall:

To me this is an enjoyable anime and pretty cute.

To tell you the truth, I was skeptical of this anime when I first started watching it. I found it from an anime mix AMV I saw on Youtube. I think that "battle" animes are usually boring and repetitive, but Angelic Layer wasn't. It had in depth fighting for every battle, and no two fights were the same. It also had a very nice twist at the end which was really cute! The characters were really thought out, too. Athough Misaki was the typical cute main character, I think that Tamayo was a really good character. And Icchan's personality was great. =)
Overall, this anime was ... amazing! It wasn't a masterpiece, but I found myself laughing a lot. It was intense and cute at the same time. The more episodes you watch, the more the storyline is revealed, and there's a LOT more to the anime than what's in the first couple episodes. I really recommend it.

I saw this anime recently, and I must say the story was alright, but It's kind of boring if the main character always wins, and you know who will win as soon as fight starts. I'm not going to bother writing what this anime is about since you can read that in the summary at the top of this page.

The art was alright, CLAMP is well-known, and has "ok" art in my opinion, its not the best out there, but not bad. Also, this show is NOT widescreen, so that kind of disappointed me a little, but that doesn't really have ... much to do with art.

The sound was bad. To back that up, try listening to Misaki-chan's (japanese) voice for 26 episodes. Trust me, you will get annoyed VERY soon, but even with that, the show is watchable, and has nice background music and sound effects during fights, really gets you in the mood.

Characters are alright, a bit too average and expected, but passable. Like the main character, Misaki-chan is kind of WEIRD because she's too nice to everyone and makes weird sex-like noises randomly throughout the show whenever she's surprised or something, kind of confusing.

Enjoyment... what's that supposed to mean? I watched the show because I was bored, but I guess it kind of made me curious about what kind of Angels will show up in the next fight, so I was, in a way, looking forward to the next episode, plus the added romance between characters gave the plot some twists and turns, good pairing, so hopefully you won't be disappointed in that aspect.

I generally recommend this show for someone to watch on a side to other shows and probably not give it as much priority, but in the end it's up to you.

The story line is simply sublime although I would of expected Misaki Suzuhara to be more annoyed with her mum at the end but this would have been an expected reaction. I like the idea of using medical research to create a game to gains fund and improve the technology this story line alone makes this worth it.

However at the end I wanted to know did Misaki mother diced to marry Ichiro? I don't think any good Anime collection should be without this show, maybe I just like the stuff the guys & girls at Bones put out.

If you have not seen this ... show watch it you might love it, I wise there were more Anime's of this standard out there.

I'd have to say that it's a good thing I force myself to finish anime, even if I am clearly not enjoying it in the beginning. Personally, I felt the first 10-15 episodes were very hard to watch - mostly because the three recurring girls were the characters I found most annoying. And sure, I ended up sympathising with two of them, but that didn't make them any less annoying at the end. I greatly enjoyed the other characters, however. Perhaps the three girls are good enough characters that they evoke an emotion in me - annoyance? Maybe. Who knows. I also felt that they ... were trying too hard with Oogata's character - seems a bit ridiculous at times. I understand he's supposed to be comedic relief, but it seems too forced. Icchan's solo bits were good comedy wtihout being overboard.

The art is simple, reflective of the times during which this anime was created. There were a few frames I noticed that had evidence of being inbetweens - clearly not polished enough for closeups; some scenes the faces seemed too lumpy. I noticed this less and less as the episodes went on.

The sound/music was decent - a mix of likeable and not-so-memorable tracks. I greatly enjoyed the second ending theme.

Overall though, at the end when I finished the series, I found myself enjoying it, even though the first half of the series was a struggle for me.

Angelic Layer:

When it first started out, the story gets you hooked with dolls battling one another in an in-zone layer. i thought that was pretty cool and the fight scenes were well done resembling the same styles used in cardcaptor sakura.

as the series went on, the anticipation started getting me impatient and later on too long of a wait, only referring to battle scenes. and the entrance to the layer took up some time, much of like the sailor scouts transforming or using their powers.

i would've liked to see the story develop deeper in some way. the episodes with all the waits and pauses ... felt like it was just trying to kill time.

overall i still found it enjoyable to watch.

Angelic Layer was one of the anime I watched growing up.
I was recently reminded of it by the anime Gundam Build Fighters which also has a similar premise, so I thought, "What the hell, let's rewatch Angelic Layer. I've forgotten much of the details anyway."

I enjoyed the series. The battles were fun to watch and definitely enjoyable. The rivals all have some kind of special ability which makes every fight unique. However the damage is not consistent, sometimes a punch or kick takes out half the life bar, and other times it does barely a scratch (sometimes I think they should have gotten rid ... of the lifebar instead....). Also I didn't get how the tournament works.

Story is good enough, nothing special. Misaki, our protagonist who has a disappeared mom, moves to tokyo. There she meets new friends, discovers the sport Angelic Layer and becomes a player (or Deus, as the anime calls the players) of the sport. The characters were interesting and Icchan is one of my favorite characters. He's one of the comic relief-there are funny moments here and there which made me laugh.

Overall I'd say it's a good anime. If you like good one-on-one battles (or maybe you enjoyed Build Fighters and is looking for something similar while they're making the second season) then I'd recommend this anime to you.

The anime, Angelic Layer, isn't recognized very often. Among us otakus and maybe the older audience may be able to recognize it. The story is very lighthearted and predictable at moments but its cute to watch if you want to watch something similar to yugioh but with girls and fighting dolls. It is not filled with too much romance but it does have some shoujo elements put to it and, if this encourages you even more, the anime is a CLAMP work which makes it almost automatically good.

I guess really what this series is trying to spell out, is that anyone - no matter what gender, race, physical appearance or disability - can achieve what they want, when you can put your mind to it.

STORY: What was mentioned above applies to everyone. It's brilliant to come across an anime series that has morals and such within it (and/or role model characters), that can be used in our everyday life. Apart from that the storyline is fairly bland. This has a tournament theme to it, so expect something along the lines of Pokemon and Beyblade. Also expect predictability. I think we can all ... start guessing what's going to happen in the end, once we're a few episodes in.

ART: The overall art is actually quite clean and bright for something made in 2001. We can all recognise that CLAMP is behind the character design, since it's so distinguishable. Animation is average as well, although it does prove to be impressive in some Angel fighting scenes, particularly the last one. Similar to Rozen Maiden, I feel that the humans haven't been benefitted by the same detail given to the Angels. All the Angels have unique designs, usually expressing the way they're controlled, and what their deuses are like.

SOUND: The sound was quite nice; orchestrated music during serene scenes, since this is a light-hearted anime, and upbeat modern music, during some of the fighting scenes between Angels.

CHARACTERS: There is a kind of blandness and unoriginal feeling about them. Although in particular, the main character, Misaki Suzuhara. I'm not quite that familiar with the whole 'Mary-Sue' complex, I have read about it, but in some way, she does appear to almost be one of these 'Mary-Sue' characters; she is almost always victorious in her Angelic Layer battles and just about everyone around her loves her.

I guess really the fans of CLAMP would be interested in this, along with anyone who has the time for something tournament-themed and light-hearted.

Angelic Layer is an anime for a younger crowd, with enough in it to keep the little ones happy, but not enough to be satisfactory to those that have become adults.

Story 4/10

Aside from a brilliant setup, the plot of Angelic Layer is a failure. The concept is plausible, clever and very interesting in theory. The delivery however, left me extremely disappointed. The main emotion wrench in this anime is caused by such a stupid reason, I felt scorn and disbelief when i was supposed to be happy and cornily crying. I really don't mind corny moments that make sense, but to have a corny ... moment when id rather throttle the perpetrator and scream sense at them... aside from that huge failure, the fighting scenes were fairly bland, with no techniques or skills to the battles, just long dialogues and short fist fights. There were several intriguing side plots, but all too quickly the anime returns to the main and boring core. Story for Angelic Layer is a 4.

Art 6/10

The art in Angelic Layer is nothing to get excited about, with a few interesting battle sequences. It is to be noted that the angels themselves are pretty cute, and there is a wallpaper worthy image at the very end with Hikaru and Athena.
Art gets a fair score of 6.

Sound 5/10

Again nothing to get excited over the sound for Angelic Layer is hardly worth mentioning save for the extremely grating voice of the main character Hikaru which pulls the score down from fair to a tolerable 5.

Character 7/10

The characters in Angelic Layer are pretty hard to judge. It ranges from extremely interesting characters like Tamayo, Sai and Mr. Icchan, bland characters like Hatoko and Kotaro, and a complete -fail- character Misaki's mother Shuu. A score of 7 seems to fit the characters.

Enjoyment 6/10

This anime was interesting enough to watch til the end but only just so. I don't think I would be able to sit through it again however. The fights were always tantalizingly close to being cool but weren't. The character interactions were also a tease in this regard, with only small dives towards complexity that are swiftly diverted or solved without much detail. I wouldn't recommend this anime to an older audience, as there is no grit or grime to it (at least none that makes sense to wiser and more mature people). Enjoyment gets a score of 7

Overall 6/10

Angelic Layer earns a solid 6 overall. It's weakest point is the delivery of the story with a major flaw in the backbone of its core. (Seriously the resolution to the only mystery completely destroyed any hope the anime's story had.) It's strongest point is definately the characters, the antics of Mr. Icchan and rough love of Tamoyo are -winners-.

This is a pretty decent show, having a coherent plot and interesting (yet still mostly stereotypical) characters. There are some scenes that are very sappy, but being a show aimed squarely at girls this is somewhat forgivable. Yet I was saying 'stop trying to make me cry, dammit, it's not that tragic! (sniff)' at several points. Yeah, I'm a big softie.

The show manages to meld a couple sub plots involving the supporting cast that not only get good treatment, but are resolved in a satisfactory manner as well. On the supporting cast, outside of a couple minor characters whose only purpose is to further Misaki, ... they each get a good amount of screen time so you get a sense of who they are. I did find Hatoko pushing my suspension of disbelief, though. It would have been much more believable if she were 8 or 9 years old, not 5, and I found it easier to pretend that she was.

The fights themselves are very well animated, and quite well choreographed. Unfortunately, this is often at the expense of the rest of the shows animation, as it can be quite choppy at times. But since the fights take up much of the show, this is not a major problem. A nitpick about the fights: The show is inconsistent about the HP and damage done by the angels. Sometimes a punch will layer out, yet at others a mighty kick will do nothing. This leads to some fights were you're thinking 'hang on, wasn't she screwed just then?' It doesn't detract from the enjoyment of the fights overall, but just something I noticed.

The dub acting was well done, for the most part. The main characters did a good job overall. There were some flat spots, and a number of occasions were the English script had a noticeable pause in the line to let the mouth flapping catch up. The biggest problem is the little children. Normally this wouldn't bother me so much as little children don't have big speaking roles, but this includes all of Hatokos spoken lines. She sounds in no way like a 5 year old, either in voice or script. Whilst her voice wasn't as grating as the other children, it wasn't....right.

The music was entirely appropriate for the show, if somewhat forgettable. Overall, Angelic Layer is a pretty solid title, both for it's dramatic elements and its fighting elements. I think it manages quite a bit of universal appeal despite being marketed mainly for girls.

On a side note, though I haven't read the manga in ages, I quite clearly remember the anime being a lot better than it. Not because the aciton sequneces make a whole lot more sense animated, but the story was made much more believable and I remember the animated postscript being much more satisfying.

[I dropped this show when i figured that no new rivals and angels will appear. Tell me if there's anything really entertaining after 21 ep.]

This show was sort of entertaining, especially in its second half, after they modyfied the battle arena. In supokon-like animes like this one of the most interesting points is meeting new rivals with amazing skills and cool look; and also watching the protagonist become more and more skillful. So, here we get all of it.
But let me tell you about the things that really suck here.
1. the humour. poor Ogata guy
2. one of the ideas of this anime is solving one's ... psychological problems about the height. they tell us: "You are a small person and hate it? You are a tall person and hate it? NO PROBLEM! Fight with these robots and everything will be ok!" -- stupid, really. and like, "She defeated me. But i am small. Beat her with your robot for my sake robot and show that the small people can win!"
3. voicing. maybe some men will like Misaki's cheeping voice, but for me, it sounds really unnatural
4. romance and a love triangle. so boring. "i like him but he likes another girl"
5. Oh, that's so annoying. another psychological problem to be chewed during the whole 26 episodes. "I don't want her to know i am ill, so i better disappear without letting her know where i am......or maybe i should see her...i'll go and see her right now!....oh no, i changed my mind" LOOP

So, i wish there were only robot battles with no drama subtext))

So, the story may be 5-6
The art is 7 (colours are good)
Sound is 7 (the second ED is really good)
Characters are 4 (poor, excluding maybe Sai)
Enjoyment is 6
Overall, 5/10

I first found pictures from CLAMP's anime Angelic Layer when looking for random anime angel pictures, and right from the start it was hard to resist the concept of the angels.

I couldn't help but think from episode one, where Misaki gets an Angel, that I would kill to get one myself. The costume designs, particularly of her doll Hikaru and that of the others she fights, are really appealing. It'd be so cool to get an angel make it look however you want, then fight on the layer.

The plot of the anime is relatively good, although it mainly follows Misaki's fighting progress. ... There are relatively few characters, but they are in general well-developed. The music is repetitive, and you get well used to the themes, but that tends to be the norm for a lot of animes. The fight scenes are pretty darn cool, my favourites being the epic fight against Wizard near the end, and course Misaki's final fight.

And one last thing. You've got to love the mad doctor Iichan and his imaginative punishments for his second in command. Octopus down pants, anyone?

Angelic Layer is created by CLAMP, which is pretty well known and I have seen, Card Captor Sakura, Chobits, Magic Knight Rayearth and Tsubasa Chronicles, so I guess I'm pretty much used to their work.

After watching those animes, the romance here lacked extremely. The first anime I watched, CCS, I was so in love with it for years. And the romance was amazing, compared to this - - the ending pretty much sucked.

Unless your a fan for family reunions - which im not - you'll love it.

Story: 8/10
Overall, I felt the story was really good. It was passionate and lovey between the mother and daughter, ... as you get to see Misaki develop her emotions. It also gives you that sense of finding your identity. The real problem, or issue i had was the ending. I'm was quite hyped up about the romance in this anime, and in the end, Misaki never ended up with anyone, although you can refer she ends up with Ohijiro although she does say he's like a "brother". You still get the sense that Tomoyo and Kotarou end up together. Hikari also says at one point something along the lines of "I still havent told him my feelings" which is a big appointment because that romance kinda goes no where once her mother appears.

Art: 7/10
I usually love CLAMP's artwork and would give it a 9/10. But for some reason, this just didnt appeal to me. Maybe it has to do with Misaki's hair style. it was always the same - quite boring
Sound: 6/10
Okaii, most of the characters were fine but...... Misaki's voice made my ears bleed. Too squeaky, too high, too realistic. That's honestly all I got to say, and that's the minus 4 points there.

Character 7/10
Again, character development was nice, each character had their own story, and you got a feel for their situations.

Enjoyment 8/10
There were a lot of times I just couldn't stop watching, even though it's obvious Misaki would win, it was epic to see how she did. Also, once the romance began to flourish, I was really out of my seat. BIG BUMMER

Overall: 8/10
Honestly, I was thinking of giving it a 9 or 10 out of 10, and then the ending was a MAJOR disappointment.

Angelic Layer has a decent premise but ultimately fails to do anything with it. I'm all for battle anime about a sport where you control essentially, an avatar. The problem is the lack of any description of any fights.

For a battle show, good fights make or break it since that is the only focus of the show. Yet, despite this focus on fights, the fights do not seem very exciting. While the show tries to create a sense of tension in the air when fighting, there are not enough descriptors, monologues, or commentary on the fights. Since it is a show about fighting, you would ... think that it would almost be martial arts-like. You can customize your avatar to specialize in whatever you want. There are big sized avatars focused on strength, or more agile, smaller builds specialized in dodging and getting small hits to get advantages over time. Whatever you want your avatar to be, you can customize it to be tailored to your ideal fighter. While yes, the avatars have superhuman strength compared to humans--they can jump many feet into the air and leave afterimages--they still just fight with their hands and feet. There's no magic involved, and it's hand-to-hand combat, so you would imagine there to be an application of martial arts techniques. There aren't. You just see two players flail their hands around with barely any focus on the technique or strategy either player is using, then the fight ends.

There are no rules for the fight. There are no people who specialize in running the clock, pushing people out of boundaries, or people who aim for specific joints to disable them, or people who go for light hits only to play for points only. The amount of damage an avatar can take varies from match to match, some matches only take one punch, while others take many hits. You have no idea how points or damage is acuumulated: do you take more damage if you get hit in the head? Is it game over if your head takes enough damage? If you hit their legs or damage something, do they get debuffs because of the injury?

So, the fights basically don't matter. How are the characters? Very generic overall, but I thought the character dynamics between Misaki and Hatoko was only there to have some drama, which I think applies to the rest of the show as well. When Misaki performs cowardly in a fight and doesn't "fully" trust her doll, Hikaru, Hatako pouts and acts cold to Misaki. I thought they were pretty good friends? Hatako just brushes Misaki off and tells her she's no good without telling her why. By the way, Hatako is also like, 12 years old or something. Same thing goes for the relationship between Misaki and her mother. There's a very simple misuderstanding or lack of communication between the mother and daughter that ends up having the mother not talk to her daughter for many years. Basically, this strained relationship is only there to have the mother and daughter make up through Angelic Layer. I am also told that there's a love triangle drama as well, but I never got to that part of the show. Just a lackluster melodramatic show that can't actually prop characters up by themselves.

The doctor was actually the only fun character. He's definitely a plot device to introduce the viewers to the game and also guide Misaki, but is ultimately a fun character that has his moments. The only "good" moment of the show for me, was when the doctor teaches Misaki how to practice movement in Angelic Layer by having her practice dance moves. While dance moves doesn't seem like it does anything, it actually provides timing movement quite well with your thoughts, which I thought was a nice little depth to the game. Too bad that's about as far it goes. As mentioned earlier, Angelic Layer fights are very simplified and almost don't even have enough detail for there to be an understanding of the game.

Animation is pretty mediocre, but I'm surprised at the amount of fights that get animated each episode, no matter how poor it looks. This show doesn't get any prizes for both animation and artstyle, but it's not the reason it sucks. I suspect the white stage is just a completely white stage rather than one that changes for each game, say, like a mountain or grassy plain, is due to the fact that it's easier to draw and animate both for the manga and the anime.