Manga Review: Ceres: Celestial Legend, Volume 3, by Yuu Watase

Rating (Out of 5): ~3

Publisher: VIZ Media (Shojo)

Volumes: 14

Spoilers?: Some.

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Goodreads Synopsis:

Aya Mikage leads a normal life until she turns 16. Then her own family tries to kill her Aya learn that she possesses the blood of the tennyo (heavenly maiden), and when severely shaked she will transform into Ceres. If allowed to live, she is destined to bring ruin upon the Mikage family. In this volume, Aya has a deadly encounter with a "firestarter," and Yuhi, in a moment of weakness, confesses his love for Aya

Review:

This volume went by much faster and easier than the previous ones, which was nice. That’s a good sign that the books are getting better, as I hoped/suspected they would.

So, there was more violence and death in this volume. There was also more romance. And some ‘funny’ scenes that were only there in an effort to lessen the ‘horror’ element of the series.

The violence and death are supposed to be really powerful, I think, but it hasn’t really affected me very much. It’s not good, and it’s changing things for the characters, but to me it hasn’t really seemed to be as horrifying as I think it probably should be.

Aya seems to be accepting Ceres a little bit, though, which is good. She needs to get over her reservations, and maybe just get the hang of having Ceres in her body. Honestly, Ceres doesn’t seem that bad to me. A bit too forceful in her ideals and not willing to change them even a little, but still not too bad. She’ll take care of things when they need taken care of, and she’s much more durable than Aya, so that’s a definite plus for me. Also, she doesn’t seem as sensitive.

Aya’s family, though, also don’t seem willing to change their ways any bit. They’re determined to get the celestial descendants, and they’re willing to kill in their efforts, and it’s just ridiculous. Also, they’re using Aki. I like Aki. I’m not really sure what’s going to happen with him, but I have hope that it’ll be good.

We met a new character, another descendent, in this volume, which ended rather terribly. I'm sure there will be similar encounters in future books.

The romance I am not a big fan of. I’m getting used to Aya and Toya, I even like Toya a bit. But then Yuhi confessed his love to Aya in this volume, and that just doesn’t work for me. I don’t believe that Aya and Toya can really love each other at this point, let alone throwing in Yuhi as well. It’s just too fast, with too little development, and I don’t believe any of them.
Also, the way that Yuhi goes about his confession, was not very good. It was very... forceful and it made me a bit mad, particularly how Aya did not fight back well enough, and how they didn't really confront the fact that he shouldn't have done that. That's all I'm going to say about that for the moment, though.

I usually don’t mind the humor from Watase. And it doesn’t really bother me too much here, aside from the fact that sometimes it’s not really funny. And it bothers me that Watase doesn’t seem to be able to make up her mind about whether she wants this to be horror or comedy. You can’t kill a character in one panel and then throw in a joke a page later. That just doesn’t work for me.

The volume ended with a dramatic cliffhanger, which didn’t really leave me in suspense. It was just overly dramatic, and I don’t have any doubt that the problem with be fixed in a little time while the other characters stress and dramatize the situation, and I just don’t really buy it.

So, it’s apparent that I’m not really feeling very warm and fuzzy about this series. It has its problems, and I’m not really connecting with it. But I still have hope. I believe that it’s going to get better, hopefully soon.