Angel Sanctuary 1

Angel Sanctuary 1 by Kaori Yuki, 2004 (Originally published in 1995). 198 pages. Published by Viz Media. Source: Borrowed.

When Sara's classmate, Ruri, received a computer disk from a strange man, Setsuna shows up to whisk her away from himTruthfully. After lecturing Ruri about talking to weirdos, Setsuna comments she's much cuter without glasses, which she dropped in the confusion. Unfortunately, neither of them have been watching the news which reports of mysterious deaths occurring in connection with the CD-ROM "Digital Angels." The disk Ruri received is this same "Digital Angels" disk, and without knowing the danger, Setsuna lets her keep it. As soon as Ruri uses the program, her personality starts to change, and strange things begin to happen as Evils and angels seek the Setsunas's soul for their own mysterious motives....

Story:
The beginning of Angel Sanctuary is what sold me on the first volume, it was just good and thrilling that I'm having trouble finding the words to describe my thoughts on it. Truthfully, I wasn't expecting it to start off so gruesomely, but it definitely made a pretty unforgettable kick off in that you got to see what the catalyst for the story would be.

What was probably the most interesting thing about Angel Sanctuary would have to be the mysterious deaths that were being caused by Digital Angels game that some of the kids were playing. what made this part so good was that it was something that was given, not bought,  to those who were either not popular or had some kinda of grievance with some one and that the game slowly began to change them. even creepier would have to be that it knew them and the that it promised to make all their troubles disappear before they would die. I just could not put it down when it came to this part because it was just so creepy, but creepy in a way that you couldn't put it down.

I am definitely looking forward to seeing more of the story unfold in the next volume, and maybe even get a little clearer view on the characters so that I can decide how I feel about them.
Character(s):
Right now, the most disconcerting thing about Angel Sanctuary was whatever the relationship between Setsuna and Sara is/was/could be. Why, because I'm pretty sure they were brother and sister, and that he likes her as more than a sister. Now I may be wrong since I finished this a couple of weeks ago, but I just found it to be odd.

Individually, I just don't think one volume is enough for me to truly be able to give my thoughts on any of the characters in Angel Sanctuary, so I am going to hold off on my thoughts on them until I have a chance to tackle the second volume (which I just borrowed from M, my friend at the library). Although I will say this, I liked them and that that they were all quite interesting.

Artwork:
I did and didn't like the art work for Angel Sanctuary. On the one hand I thought that it was quite nice and did an excellent job of giving the characters and story depth in the visuals.
While I did like  the art for this manga and how well Kaori Yuki  capture the story with it, I did at times have a little bit of a hard time with the 90s-tastic clothing and hair styles of the characters. But disregarding that one fact it's nice work.   

Final Verdict: Angel Sanctuary definitely has me intrigued by the concept, and looking forward to the next volume.

Angel Sanctuary 1 earns 4 out of 5 pineapples.