Angel Sanctuary

Angel Sanctuary (Japanese: 天使禁猟区, Hepburn: Tenshi Kinryōku) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kaori Yuki. It was serialized in the shōjo manga magazine Hana to Yume from July 1994 to November 2000. It follows Setsuna Mudo, a human teenager who, as the reincarnation of a prominent angel who rebelled against Heaven, becomes entangled in political machinations between the angels and demons. The 120 chapters were collected and published in twenty bound volumes by Hakusensha from February 1995 to February 2001. Titled Coming of the Seraphim in the early stages of its development, Angel Sanctuary was inspired by the Japanese fantasy novel Nocturne and was originally slated to be only ten chapters long, which led Yuki to worry about being able to properly end the story. Angel Sanctuary made cultural references to various mythologies, including Greek and Norse, as well as to real-world people, music, literature, and places.

Viz Media published an English-language translation in North America from February 2004 to June 2007. Angel Sanctuary was also adapted into a series of drama CDs, published from December 1999 to September 2001, and a three-episode original video animation (OVA) by Bandai Visual and Hal Film Maker published in 2000; Yuki assisted on various aspects of both adaptations. Angel Sanctuary was critically and commercially well-received by English-language readers and critics, with Yuki's art and narrative highlighted as its strengths. The OVA received more mixed reviews from critics, who were generally divided on whether they enjoyed it as an introduction to the events of the manga or found its content objectionable due to the sibling incest.

Beginning in Japan in 1999, Angel Sanctuary focuses on Setsuna Mudo, a 16-year-old troubled high-school student in love with his 15-year-old sister Sara. While struggling with his incestuous feelings, he learns that he is the reincarnation of Organic Angel Alexiel, who led a rebellion against her fellow angels after witnessing their slaughter of the Evils, a group of demons, after God's disappearance. At the conclusion of the revolt, she sealed away her younger twin brother, Inorganic Angel Rosiel, within the Earth, emotionally unable to fulfill his request to be killed before he became insane and destructive. Captured and branded a fallen angel, Alexiel was punished by having her body frozen and her soul endlessly reincarnated as a human whose life is full of misery.

While Rosiel is freed by his subordinate Katan, Setsuna finds his life and Sara's endangered by various attempts to awaken Alexiel's dormant soul within him. Realizing they cannot bear to be separated, Setsuna and Sara run away together and consummate their love, hoping to start a new life together. Sara eventually dies protecting him from one of Rosiel's subordinates, and devastated, Setsuna awakens Alexiel's soul, causing widespread damage. Adam Kadamon, the angel closest to God, intervenes by turning back time to just after Alexiel's awakening and freezing time on Earth; she then tasks him with freeing her from her imprisonment. To search for Sara's soul, sent to Hell for incest, Setsuna's body enters a near-death state. While in Hell, his soul searches for hers, eventually learning that it has been taken to Heaven instead. Sara, meanwhile, awakens in the body of Jibriel, the archangel of water held prisoner by the angels; revealed to be Jibriel's reincarnation, Sara is eventually returned to her original body but finds herself impregnated by the malicious angel Sandolphon, who hopes that she will bear him a body. After Rosiel absorbs Sandolphon to gain his power, an act which speeds up Rosiel's physical and mental decay, Sandolphon's remnants possess her, causing her to see Setsuna as a monster.

Assisted by Lucifer, the ruler of the demons who is in love with Alexiel, Rosiel unseals the Tower of Etenamenki, where God rests, with Alexiel's body. Intent on restoring the Earth, Setsuna follows him, with Kurai and the archangels of fire and earth; along the way, he aids an injured Katan, who hopes to save Rosiel before he loses his free will to do so. At the tower, Rosiel kills Katan, only to realize that he had killed the one he loved and tried to protect from himself; he then goes into a state of destructive despair. Awakening in her own body with Setsuna's help, Alexiel reveals to him that she had always loved him: because he had been born the opposite of his healthy sister, she bargained with God to save his life in exchange for her imprisonment, from which she later escaped with Lucifer, and an agreement to never show him any compassion. She then kills him and absorbs him into her womb so that they will never be apart again. Before dying, Rosiel passes along his power to Setsuna.

Setsuna and his group find Adam Kadamon's head, used to nourish the unborn angels, and learn that she attempted to prevent God's plan of destroying humanity by hiding him and the tower from the angels and freezing time in hopes that Alexiel's reincarnation could save them. Because God draws power through Adam Kadamon, the archangels and Kurai seal her up, while Setsuna confronts God and encounters Sara and Lucifer there. Sara overcomes her possession to cast out Sandolphon, and Setsuna defeats God with Lucifer's help. Time returns to normal on Earth, where Setsuna and Sara joyfully reunite at last.

According to manga artist Kaori Yuki, the concept for Angel Sanctuary has been with her "for the longest time". As a middle-school student in her second year, Yuki found the story of fallen angels, particularly Lucifer, fascinating; in Angel Sanctuary, she offered her own interpretation of fictional angels, which differed from her thoughts on actual angels. Yuki was inspired to write about angels and demons in Tokyo after reading the Japanese fantasy novel Nocturne; the book centered around a demonic prince and princess who search for another demon on earth, who has possessed an idol singer, and try to destroy it. While the original title for the manga was Coming of the Seraphim, Yuki later decided against it in favor of Angel Sanctuary, as she thought that "angel" should be included in the title and "sanctuary" had a sense of something "forbidden" or "against God". Sara, originally named Sana, was the first character designed, while the first episode of the manga imagined was one in which the protagonist's love interest "was actually a living angel". She decided to set Angel Sanctuary in Japan in "near future", partially because the setting would be largely unchanged and partially because she had a wish to draw modern clothing styles and sailor uniforms.

As she had been already working on a successful serial, the gothic mystery manga Earl Cain, she faced difficulty in convincing others to let her begin another serial. Initially, she was allowed only ten installments of Angel Sanctuary, which led her to worry about being able to properly end the story. At that time, she had the character development up to Zaphikel's death scene and fragments of the plot; she found it difficult to construct a narrative to join the scenes she wanted to draw. The original character designs underwent changes, and only Kato's remained unchanged. Several angels were planned to make an appearance, but never did; among them were the Angel of the Yoke and the leader of the angels, Sakaki. For the conclusion, she originally had planned to use a tragic ending, but decided against it in favor of a happy one, because she thought that it would be too upsetting for the fans to read after twenty volumes.