Ayashi no Ceres

Ayashi no Ceres presents a beautiful love story, which intertwined with great action and characters makes for a sad, yet heartwarming story that can grip your heart.

It starts off very peacefully, with Aya Mikage and her twin brother Aki spending time with their friends, celebrating the twins' 16th birthday. However, this peaceful day is interrupted by Aya falling off a bridge, down on the highway underneath. Miraculously, she lands without getting a scratch, and she's saved from cars on a collision course by a mysterious, red-headed man. And that day marks the end of the happy days for the two.

They are summoned to the family mansion to celebrate their 16th birthday, but instead, they end up being the victims of the Mikage family's gruesome rite of killing off female descendants with strong tennyo powers in them. Said powers suddenly awaken, preventing her from getting killed.

From here on, the story goes darker, deeper and angstier as we're thrown into the mess that Aya suddenly finds herself in, being hunted by her own family all of a sudden. She has to deal with the fact that her twin brother has turned into a reincarnation of an evil man from the past, and she has to make sure Ceres doesn't take over her body completely. This leads to some great action scenes, as Ceres emerges to fight the Mikage family from time to time, with her astounding powers.

And then there's the love, the beautiful, yet sad love that is Aya's and Toya's love - Toya is the guy who saved her, but also a Mikage henchman, which means he's out to get her. However, he slowly falls in love with her, and her with him, despite the two of them being enemies. Now they must find a way to live out their love without the Mikage family or Ceres, who has a vendetta against the Mikages, getting in the way. Of course, there's Yuhi, and there's actually some mutual love between Yuhi and Aya as well, creating a love triangle that can rip Aya apart.

The characters in the anime are all very realistically portrayed. From Toya's quest to find his place in this world to Aya's struggles to remain herself through all that happens around her. The love that slowly develops between Toya and Aya is never forced, and their relationship progresses nicely over the course of the series.

The side characters are all good too, and despite not having so major roles, they fulfill them excellently, and they are portrayed very well too. Most of the characters you will see have some depth to them, which causes your heart to be with them as well, and not only Aya and Toya.

I'm also fond of the character development that takes place during the course of the series - at the end I could see how much they had matured, obviously having learned a few things about life and love during the events that took place during the course of the series.

Studio Pierrot did a nice job on the animation, and despite it being a bit old, it's very good. The lighting effects are very well done, though the same can't always be said about the special effects - they had their moments they too, though. The overall detail is very good, but there's one thing that bugged me, and that was the fact that their hair seemed transparent when in front of their eyes. You can't see your eyes through a layer of hair >_

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Ayashi no Ceres:

Story:
A very original plot line, immersing a young woman on her 16th birthday, into a world of danger and constant threat while those who are around her and those who she loves are hurt. With love triangles that are sometimes heart wrenching and at other times very sweet. And with a very important message which you will be blatantly told if you haven't already figured it out by the end of the series.

Characters:
Characters that are simply amazing, follow them all through their pain and trials that they have to overcome. All are excellently portrayed and their feelings really reach you. The romance between some of the characters is just grand, it really gives and shows you the true feeling of love.

Sound:
Soundtrack is just amazing, opening song: Scarlet, must be hands down one of the best openings for an anime. The background played throughout the anime is outstanding with beautiful instrumental and piano music. The voice actors, just wow, their acting, the feeling they put in each character, it is just outstanding, some scenes I actually think in the recording studio the voice actor actually cried.

What is so good about this anime?
For an anime that was released in 2000 the art is simply amazing. The plot line is so intricate and very original. The romance between various characters that really portray their anguish, sadness, happiness, confusion, and love. An amazing soundtrack that completely fits the mood and just makes you want to listen to the songs over and over again. I have to say, this is one of the best romance anime's out there. Enjoy this series.

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"The victor is the one left standing." So quoth Aki, local sage and official series craziest person, which is really saying something for this series. I mean, between Toya, Aya's cousin, Aya's OTHER cousin, Yuji, Mrs. Q, Grandpa Mikage, and Aya herself, we got crazy coming out of the walls.

There is precisely one good thing about this series, which is the opening, "Scarlet" by Junko Iwao. Not the weird animation, just the song. I have the Japanese version and the piano only version and they're quite pleasant and pretty.

As a disclaimer, I don't hate "Twilight" because it's a meme to hate "Twilight", which is layered with all kinds of sexist overtones. I hate "Twilight" because it's sexist as frick, horribly written and has a lot of paternalistic lessons for young women and men. And I'm PRETTY sure Stephanie Meyer and her copycats watched this series before writing their schlock, cause "Ayashi no Ceres" does its BEST to put BellaxEdward to shame on WTFery levels. It came out in 2000. "Twilight" was 2005. It could have happened.

You want generic tropes with good ol' 90s animation? You got it! Toya's got like double or triple plot amnesia which gives him extra doses of mangst, because what's a bad shoujo without amnesia? He then meets Aya and for reasons unbeknownst to me, cept that she got through his "cool dude mystique" and decided that he was safe and that she felt safe with him she falls in love with him, because I guess you fall in love with people because of that? Even though she knows nothing about him and barely knows him. Toya then "rediscovers his memories" and then gets Harry Potter syndro-I mean, convenient headaches! And goes back to the dark side! And then we find out that his memories aren't his memories after all! Because some time ago he was brought in covered in bruises and given false memories that gave him pain when he thought of Aya. When did any of THAT happen, exactly? Who cares, because ONWITHTHESTORY!

And if you think THAT didn't make sense, I'm not going to get into the rest of the plot because it REALLY doesn't make sense. Possession, reincarnation, abusive scumbags, spoiled kids with creepy obsessions, underage sex, incest, lots and lots of obsession, attempted child murder, attempted fratricide, stalking, sexist stereotypes... It's got all kind of fun in it, I guess.

It also really bothered me that the Smart Dude had incredibly tiny glasses which wouldn't have helped if they were normal-size anyway cause he had these ridiculous bangs in the way and I kept grumbling to myself "cut your friggen hair you incompetent you're a SCIENTIST" and I LOVE long hair on men so this was incredibly confusing.

Also, common sense? Hahahahaha WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THIS IS A TERRIBLE SHOUJO NO ONE USES THEIR COMMON SENSE HERE! It's verboten! (I like shoujo but gods help me I can't STAND this anime).

Despite the implications of the ending (it's hilarious, really, you just have to lose your sanity to appreciate it), this series also presents a double standard that's tropic of reverse harems. Women don't get harem endings (where the end result is left open to interpretation and more than likely they have an open marriage), so one of the guys (there are typically only two) have to either die or vanish. It's typically the hot one, so the underdog who's "better" for the woman (despite her preferences hahaha women making choices what's THAT about, amirite??) gets a chance. Well after the woman's lost her virginity, anyway, since that's a BIG part of their character development, donchaknow? Interestingly, guys in harem stories typically don't lose their virginity, if they have it, although male harem stories arguably have the men get sexually assaulted far more often, as a gag joke, so... Yeah I don't think it evens out but trying to understand this series hurts my brain.

Anyone telling you this series has character growth is a LIAR and you SHOULD NOT listen to them. Unless they mean that after about 18 episodes characters with pretty much zero personality suddenly get backstory at 100 miles an hour. Backstory does not equal character growth but sure, whatever floats your boat.

You want a good shoujo? Well... watch "Yona of the Dawn". It's arguably a reverse harem set in a fantasy world. It's hilarious -on purpose- and well-written and includes a lot of great character development and the animation is pretty. The "Sailor Moon R" film is also a great shojo film about a superpowered woman rescuing her male hubby who is endangered by his ex-boyfriend. Just don't watch this. Don't.

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Why can't we have more Shoujos like this!This show is full of win!

Let me get this out of the way.The main reason why i can't give this a 10/10 is because I wish the main character,Aya could do more or be more PROactive.

However,her role is well defined and established in this story,never did i feel that she had no reason to do what she did.Which is not something i could say for most anime these days.

And at least she has some real character and personality.Not being made artificially strong just for the sake of the tired 'strong girl"trope,implying girls need bs plot armor to be strong.

The 2 dudes she loved are allright,and do have a meaningful love triangle.
a heroic yuuji and our emo boy Toya.

Fortunately both of them are more complex than they seem.And you kinds get why she choose the one.(hint.Nice guys finish last). Unlike some shows, this nice guy isn't a loser.He makes some tough choices and goes through a lot.

The other guy is tied too well to the plot for me to go too deep into him.
He is a lost dude whose struggle to find himself isn't cringe worthy

This show is very ecchi for a shoujo.There are shonen harems with less service than this.That is because this anime had a source material which was once a PORN manga for GIRLS( Girls like porn too lol)

But the show knows when how to tell a serious story.Or tone it down when it needs too.

The story also has Aya host a spirit called Ceres(Goddess host from TWGOK is the best modern equivalent) .She is the" Diana to the Tenri.She basically is gonna kill if she doesn't get what she needs.


There is a whole mystery surrounding Aya ,Ceres and her family line.Conspiracies and corporations around.One of the best original Conspiracies in anime around.

I love the fantasy in this anime, it has well established rules
so when the fantasy happens, it didn't feel that the author pulled stuff out of nowhere to make stuff happen(unlike madoka).This can get very over the top,but it has a realism to ground the story.

The villans ,I'd say one of them needs a tag team of Keima,lelouch and Kira to take him on.He is a very focused dude who works towards the shows theme,"perfection".He isn't just the bad guy.More is shown rather than said for this dude ,which is what makes him stand out.

The other villan seems so generic at first.However,he has however one of the most realistic motivations out there.

The violence is brutal.and i've seen a lot of violent anime on my day.......

When I say "Is shoujo a dead genre" ,This is the kind of show I am talking about!

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