Ceres is another manga that I have been borrowing from a friend a while ago. Having finally finished the 13th and 14th volumes after my school audition, I ended up finishing Ceres feeling very disappointed to say the least. I was expecting so much more from “one of Yuu Watase’s best series”.

As the title says, Ceres started out enjoyable enough. It succeeds well at its hook and leaves the reader hungry for more at the end of volume. I have to admit that I had already noticed many cliches that bugged me. There was the spunky and irritating heronie, the handsome “myserious stranger” that ends up becoming the apparent love interest at first sight for no apparent reason, and the poor guy that’s always at the bad end of the love traingle. However, I eagerly dismissed those with the engaging plot line and the more realistic harshness of the world.

The high quality continued throughout the next volumes as they introduced more perils and side characters that were much more interesting and likeable than the main ones. In particular, I was happily surprised to find that Ceres herself was actually a three dimensional character that wasn’t just a mean antagonist set out to destroy people for no apparent reason. However, this all started to change in the sixth or seventh volume. Or around the time when the main characters started to have sex. While that didn’t really bother me (it wasn’t explict), the quality seemed to drop right around there. The next arcs seemed to be nothing more than pointlessly complicated endavours and the characters seemed to lose their depth.

Maybe this series could have been saved by a good ending, but the ending was anything but good. It seemed as if the ending was rushed because it was canceled early or something. I also didn’t like how the main characters DIDN’T die when all the likeable characters around them DID. An obvious theme is sacrifice and I believe the way things were going one of them should have died. Instead, they remained alive in order to please all the fans that wanted a bittersweet ending. Oh please.

So to wrap it up, this manga is NOT recommended unless you’re a fan of shojo angst or love at first sight. I simply found it another overhyped Yuu Watase series. Oh and I heard there was a Ceres anime made some years ago but it was levels below the manga. Is that even possible? Oh well. While I enjoyed it at first, I’m more than glad it’s done.

Tags: Ceres

Category: Manga & Comics

I believe myself~