Angel Densetsu

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To be honest, I had avoided this manga like the plague when I first laid eyes upon it about a year ago. The artwork, in my eyes, was so non-appealing, that I always figured that even if this story was funny and exciting, I would never be able to fully enjoy it because of the art. I noticed that the ratings on MAL for Angel Densetsu were relatively high (~8.30 at the time) so I figured that I shouldn't judge a book by its cover. So a few days ago, on a whim, I decided to read the first few chapters to ... see if it was anything special. Five days later, I had finished reading all eighty-four chapters with a satisfied feeling. Angel Denestu (translated as Legend of Angel) is your classic example of why its wrong to judge a book by its cover. Although the artwork may not look appealing, and a lot of the characters do not have eyebrows, Angel Densetsu is a relatively enjoyable comedy story about the encounters with devil-look alike, Kitano Seikichi.

Although born with an evil face that has been commonly compared to the devil's, Kitano Seikichi is a soft-hearted, caring teenager (hence where the "angel" word comes into play) who is constantly pegged as a thug because of that evil coutenance. Because of this, on first glance, everyone he meets instantly misunderstands him and more often than not, this leads to hilarious confrontations eventually ending up in fist fights. Although Kitano-kun is the featured main protagonist, the story more-so revolves around his friends, his teachers, his peers, his neighbors, and a plethora of other people and their encounters with Kitano-kun. As the mangaka (Yagi Norihiro) has stated, its more of a story of Hekikuu Town (the town Kitano-kun lives him) then about any particular character. Though the manga has an "episodic" feel to it, the mangaka nicely ties everything together quite well. The story is fueled by comedy and the first half the the manga, the comedy, although nothing new in this day and age, is quite entertaining. It does get a bit old towards the second half of the story, as the mangaka re-uses a lot of the puns and such, but still holds up relatively well.

As I have already mentioned, in my opinion, the artwork looks pretty horrid. This manga was essentially a one-shot to begin with, which might explain the simple character designs, but through a series of events, the mangaka was able to land a deal and thus we get our eighty-four chapter story. The art does improve once you hit the second half of the story, but it doesn't really take away from the fact that a lot of the characters are drawn pretty much the same with maybe one different feature. It feels like Norihiro-sensei was rather lazy with his drawings here. Especially when you compare this work to his other work, Claymore. Although I will admit there are some instances where he outdoes himself with character portraits in more of the bigger events. Once, and if your able to get past the art and take it for what it is, the story becomes so much more enjoyable to read. Taking the opposite point of view, the artwork is simple to understand what's happening in each panel and very consistent from start to finish.

As with these kinds of stories that are essentially a collection of one-shots or what not, its all about the characters. Here's the important point. Although the characters are drawn horribly, and essentially all of them are relatively simple in personality, its the character interactions with Kitano-kun on which the story hinges upon. Norihiro-sensei introduces all types of different characters, whether they are thugs from rival schools, innocent children, in-school peers, teachers and even other parents, he is able to create an exaggerated, yet quite amusing reaction and series of events with their encounter with Kitano-kun. Because all of them instantly compare Kitano-kun to the source of all evil, its pretty entertaining to see how they go about avoiding, fighting and talking and sometimes befriending, Kitano-kun.

Again, if you are able to get past the artwork and lazy character designs, Angel Densetsu is a more enjoyable read than one would like to believe at first glance. Its rather funny to watch Kitano-kun and a bunch of his friends as they actually get into real fist-fights with other thugs, and while all of the other thugs know exactly what is going on, Kitano-kun, without fail, is pretty much clueless on what exactly is happening to him. His friends will ask him to help "take out the trash," referring to other thugs loitering around town. On the other hand, Kitano-kun will fully believe that he is going to help to literally clean up trash and litter on the ground. Seeing how Kitano get himself into and out of these kinds of situation is quite amusing. On the other hand, those amusing situations do get repetitive after awhile. And people may not even be able to get past the artwork to begin with. At the end, if you're looking for an entertaining, comedic, turn-off-your-brain type of read, Angel Densetsu is something I would recommend trying to take up, as long as your able to get past the art and some of the designs.

Wow. I've never written a review on MAL before but I had to start for this particular manga. Reading Angel Densetsu was one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life. Pure, comedic gold. I'm the type of person who loves comedy manga but had always generally stuck to the mainstream. THIS manga, however, needs more love and attention.

STORY: Episodic, but it works brilliantly for this manga. We see short, hilarious bits of Kitano's life as he meets (and battles) a list of oddball characters who each bring something important to Kitano's life, and vice versa. The story is entirely character driven, which was a ... good choice on the author's part, as he was able to write some of the best characters I've ever read.

ART: Eh well, it does get better. Don't let the beginning chapters scare you away. I honestly had to ease my way into it, because I wasn't really used to a main character whose point is to be physically unattractive. But by the very last volume, I looked back and realized that I had learned to love Kitano regardless of how he looks. I know that sounds weird, but that's actually the point of the manga anyway. Plus, as a reader of Claymore, I know that this artist's potential is only just budding in Angel Densetsu.

CHARACTERS: Excellent. Perfect. I even loved the big, stupid guy who used to be the Guardian. By far the best characters are Ryoko and Ikuno. They surprised me by being strong female leads in a genre that isn't always fair to both genders. Males and females are pretty much on equal status in this series....and they are ALL funny. Each character brings a unique style of comedy to Angel Densetsu. And Kitano...there are NO words to describe this guy. One of a kind.

ENJOYMENT: I've never, ever read a manga with this type of comedy before. It's similar to that of Yankee-kun to Megane-chan, but it's much more refined and makes a lot more sense. Characters like Ikuno deliver classic lines at just the right time and the comedy never seems out of place at all. The fighting is even enjoyable, which is a lot coming from someone who generally finds fighting manga distasteful. I actually found myself taking screenshots of some of my favorote scenes, because the comedy needed to be immortalized on my computer.

OVERALL: Angel Densetsu is a gem of comedy and character development. I couldn't have asked for more out of this manga. There's no more to say. Just read it all the way through and you won't be disappointed.

This manga was the first published work of Yagi Norihiro's who went on to write the "Claymore" series. His art improves drastically as the story progresses but the manga remains utterly enjoyable throughout.
The story revolves around Seiichiro, a kind hearted teenager whose face and behavior, unfortunately, inspire the uttermost fear. I won't go into detail about the story because it would spoil your fun but do expect to be surprised. The reactions of some characters during their first encouter with Seiichiro might make you think about how one sometimes (very unfairly) judges a book by its cover.
One simply cannot help laughing when reading this ... manga. Sure enough the stories are a little far fetched and never realistic but that is not the point. As bizarre as they may be, these stories carry positive messages of understanding and courage. All characters are interesting and Norihiro manages to make almost each and everyone of them endearing.
The author managed to stop before repeating himself so "Angel Densetsu" is a very complete work which absolutely anyone should enjoy. So read it people!

Is it possible to have a lead character that has a face that resembles the devil himself? In Angel Densetsu it is. Follow the life of Kitano Seiichiro, a transfer student who terrorizes everyone in his school unwillingly.

Angel Densetsu is a comedy/school manga where the main focus lies in the comedy. The story is pretty generic: Kitano transfers to Hekikuu highschool, where he is mistakenly believed to be a delinquent. This leads to encounters with the thugs of his own school, instantly overwhelming them, spreading the legend of the devil delinquent in the whole neighborhood. Consequently, all the delinquent bosses of other schools challenge Hekikuu's ... boss, Kitano. This leads to hilarious situations and amusing fighting scenes; but this is of course only possible with his devil-like face, his exceptional fast reflexes and his misunderstandings of situations that inflict pure fear in all of his opponents. Who would be able to not feel any terror of a devil?

There is little story to tell besides the daily live of Kitano and the people of Hekikuu town and their silly actions. The jokes become somewhat predictable as the story develops, but the episodic nature and the introduction of new characters keeps the manga fresh and enjoyable. The misunderstandings that Kitano continues to make also leads to hilarious dialogues, making the other people to misunderstand him even more.

There is little character development to be found in Angel Densetsu. The lack of character development is however compensated with the constant introduction of new characters, each with its own charm and own ideas about Kitano, though most have two things in common: they regard the lead character as the devil and are mostly stereotypical.

The secondary characters play an important role in the manga, like Kitano's parents, fathers of the martial artists, Killer Bear, you name it. Without these, the manga would certainly be less amusing. Combined with the introduction of new characters, the comedy aspect of Angel Densetsu wouldn't be as good as it is. There is little romance to be found in the manga, though this will influence the behaviour of certain characters to take determined actions.

The style of the manga is old and simplistic with the typical faces and hairdo of a 90's manga. The art style gets better as the story progresses, but this mainly concerns better movements of characters as better facial expressions and more consistent drawings. This leads to a low diversity in character appearance, making it more difficult to tell characters apart. That being said, the art style may put some readers off to not read the manga; I however found that this was not a problem as the comedy aspect kept me interested in it.

Angel Densetsu was definitely a very enjoyable manga, with an interesting concept of having a devil faced main character, different from nowadays handsome protagonists. The exaggerated expressions and jokes may turn old and predictable, but it kept me nevertheless entertained throughout the whole series. If you enjoy the comedy genre, this may definitely be a manga for you.

Thanks for reading.

Holy shit this is the funniest manga ever! This is slapstick comedy at its best, with equal lashings of deadpan humour. The play off between Kuroda and Takehisa is hilarious. Intellegent and well written, this is an wholly enjoyable series.
The artwork is excellent, clean and distinct. (As to be expected from Claymore's artist)...highly recommended

Holy mother of poo-py.

This is the holy grail,sire.

It's all good, it's all funny.

Angel Densetsu is by far one of my favorite mango's. I sat through one session and actually read the whole thing.

Actually that's not true it took me like 2 days.

... Anyway...

This series is a must-read. It's a feel-good story. On with the review!

Story: Oh boy is this a fun ride! You'll be laughing and reelin' at every single panel that has Kitano in it. It's pure gold. I was nearly choking on my spit at every page. You're gonna have a fun time, trust me.

Art: Woo. Fair. It has got some style and looks different than most. Art isn't as bad as most say. It's pretty good, actually. It doesn't turn you off at all.

I felt a bit off at first, but the art becomes a part of you and the story.

Character: They have feelings, yes. Many of the characters are different, yes. Many of them are smart. Some of them are dumb. There's a great variety of people and you can't help but to admit that KITANO is your god-damned favorite character.

He's lovable, funny, silly, scary. Hell, he's everything.

He definitely makes the series. He is the series.

Actually disregard that since the other characters support him and make him look even better and they lift the story up into something greater as well.

Enjoyment: I am so giving this a 10. It was fun and good and made me feel UNGHHH.

It's great. A feel-good manga that gets ya a dancin'.

Overall: 9!

Calculator gave me a 8.6, but I really enjoyed this so I'm givin' it a little somethin' somethin'.

Great read, guys.

"Never judge a book by its cover."
Such a common saying but it is expressed no truer than in the Action, Comedy orientated gag manga, with a smidgen of Romance; Angel Densetsu.

We live in a society where keeping up with appearances has become a way of life and one is generally judged & treated based on how they look. Now enter Seiichirou Kitano, a young boy who just moved to a new town with his loving parents and is now optimistic about his transfer to a new high school. On paper Kitano is a model student; he has excellent grades, a perfect attendance record and would ... even attempt to help the elderly cross the street. But just one look of his face is enough to send someone running for the hills or to paralyze them in fear, as they feel as though they are looking at the devil himself. So this young devil boy must deal with the ordeals that go along with living a life full of misunderstandings, just so us reader will have something to amuse ourselves with and amusing, this manga certainly is.

From people misinterpreting his good deeds for acts of evil, to thugs assuming he is as tough as he looks, this manga is full of hilarious misunderstandings. The structure of Angel Densetsu is quite difficult to pin down because it is episodic, as a gag manga should be, but the story actually has something I always like to see in my stories... overarching progression (both story and characters).Things actually develop, events lead from one chapter to the next and yet it still feels oddly episodic. Quite an odd yet appealing combination.

The same can be said about the characters, that are both an odd and appealing bunch. Like Kitano with his eerie appearance & perception of his surroundings/situations; but you just can't help but like him. The rest of the characters are given almost as much attention as Kitano but they are still a bit of a mixed bag. With some you'll find entertaining and interesting to read and others, whose very presence becomes a bit of an annoyance or will just piss you the reader off.

Well at least for a gag manga of its time, the artwork does a great job in achieving what the mangaka wished to achieve. By creating a lively manga, with a variety of characters, each with their unique design without going to extremes. However the most notable thing about the artwork is how much it improved from chapter 1 to completion. It was nice to witness how the man, who will later create the Shounen Jump hit Claymore, improve in his style and technique.

Angel Densetsu was a manga I judged by the look of its cover. I assumed it would bore me with its tired old fashioned jokes, however I found it surprisingly entertaining and instead of feeling like a generic gag manga; as the story progressed, it started giving off vibes akin to the old show/movie The Adam's Family. Yet I'm not here to say this is the funniest manga around and that everyone should read it, because even the humour eventually begins to wear a bit thin. But the mangaka actually notices this himself and begins to change things up, later on and in my opinion, for the better. Overall we have an odd gag manga with a fair amount of issues but still remains enjoyable to read and for a manga that was serialized for several years, it was good to see the mangaka improve in comedy, story and artwork.

I've read this manga for a total of 2 times. Honestly, the second time I read this manga, all it took was the 1st page to kept me reading on to the last page (84 chapters) within a day or two. This is really one of the most amazing works I have read, apart from being somewhat fictional and exaggerated (due to lack of explanation for some feats) at times.

[Story:8]
This is quite an interesting manga because, as per what the mangaka wrote in the last few pages of his last chapter, do not look at the story as "Angel Densetsu", but instead look at it ... as the characters living their likes in Heikaku town. So even after the end of the manga, the characters live on ... in our hearts.

This is mainly about school life, slice-of-life, drama, romance and lots more. What's particularly striking to me on my second time reading it is that I begin to feel for the main character Kitano Seiichirou. And I begin to liken it to the real life, and think that this manga is quite realistic in its view towards discrimination. And also, if you work hard to understand people, eventually others will understand you, even if you are discriminated badly against, like Kitano.

One drawback about this manga is the lack of Kitano's past, which was only slightly revealed as a side story near the last few chapters, the explanation of Kitano's skills and the cramming of some character development in the last few chapters. It made the manga seem a bit rushed towards the end.

[Art:8]
The art in the beginning chapters was quite inconsistent, especially for Kitano. But other than that, most of the background, characters and action scenes were drawn quite well. One thing to note is that the art used is the REALISTIC style. Not manga style. Which is good, since it makes the manga look more realistic.

[Character:9]
For the most part, the characters were consistent and the interaction between them is golden. There were some archetypes present, but overall the characters feel quite original and fun. The unique thing about this manga is that although the school- and delinquent-style of Angel Densetsu reminds me of Yankee-kun to Megane-chan, there is a totally different feel of the comedy aspect due to the contrast between characters inside Angel Densetsu.

And Kitano has got to win a prize for one of the most original character designs EVER. You've heard of discrimination because the person looks like a delinquent (ToraDora)... has psychic powers... looks like a wrestler, robot, gorilla, etc. (Cromatie High School), has a baby on his back (Beelzebub) and so on... but have you ever heard and seen the DEVIL? Lol, actually the main point of this is not his looks, but rather his and other people's reactions to things. Now, there is a problem with Kitano-kun, and that is inconsistency. Somehow, he learnt to speak properly after the first few chapters, but still, this does not make it less funny XD.

Personality-wise, I think that the characters do fulfill their role well, except to me, maybe Takehisa and Ogisu, who seem to fade out at quite a number of chapters.

[Enjoyment:10]
I'm expecting a third read soon :D.

[Overall:9]
Words are hard to describe how funny this manga series is. Too bad it was only made into a 2 episodes OVA. Pity how this manga was not recognised well enough, I figured that this manga should be a good read for people who are discriminated or want to learn more about discrimination. Yes, at times the comedy due to discrimination might seem sad, but because it is so exaggerated, it is bittersweet.

Here's the scene: The student council president has sent one of his lackeys to scout out Kitano, the student with the demon face, because he thinks Kitano plans to send the school into disarray. The lackey's plan was to approach Kitano nonchalantly so he wouldn't think anything was up. However upon approaching Kitano, he catches a glimpse of his face and sees the killing intent in his eyes. Kitano knows! Kitano can sense that the lackey is tailing him and he's not too pleased at all. But the lackey is too scared to move as Kitano gets closer. The lackey's knees wobble as Kitano closes ... down the distance between them, eyes narrowing every second, reaching into his pocket to draw what he's almost certain will be a knife.

And then, when Kitano is barely 5 metres away from him, he lets out a blood curdling scream and draws the knife from his pocket. The lackey can't move! He's like a rabbit frozen in the headlights. He can't even bring himself to look at the knife Kitano drew from his pocket. Then Kitano, without warning, lets out a second screech like a banshee and suddenly the lackey can feel life in his legs again. Without looking back, he turns and runs faster than he has ever done in his life before the demon can attack him.

Kitano, meanwhile, wipes his nose with the handkerchief he drew from his pocket and mumbles something about how his cold is acting up and making him sneeze a lot.

Legend of an Angel is a delinquent story about a kid called Kitano who has the face of the devil, which causes everyone to think he's plotting to kill everyone and eat their faces for brunch. In reality, Kitano is a nice, if a bit oblivious dude who is just trying to make friends in his new school. What's great about the set-up is that making the scary-faced guy normal doesn't detract from the inherent awesomeness of watching the supposed mind-games taking place. All the mind games are worked out through the victim's mind rather than scarer-in-chief, so we get to see his brilliant yet ridiculous plans unfold regardless. Watching the legend of Kitano build is just as hilarious whether the stuff happens is intentional or not.

It's not admittedly the cleverest humour in the world. The claim to satire about appearances is pretty shallow and never really evolves beyond that. But the scenario is changed around enough that it continues to be funny. Plus it has that good quality every running joke has in that one of the biggest parts of the humour is waiting for that inevitable to happen. When someone new claims they want to hunt down this Kitano guy they've heard so much about, I honestly got excited at the prospect of seeing someone new react to Kitano.

There are a few problems. For one, the art is shit. It doesn't necessarily need to be great for what is a gag comedy, but even so it shouldn't be quite this bad. Consider how much more effective Kitano's devilish glares from the shadows could look if under the pen of a more skilled artist. A lot of the time Kitano looks more derpy than scary, and characters don't really have a wide array of facial expressions. It does marginally improve over the course of the series, but not in any meaningful way.

A far bigger problem is that the author clearly had no intention of having the story go on for that long. It's 15 volumes of a gag manga that really only has a single gag. Kitano does meet a few friends and they go some way to establishing his personality and why he ends up drawing people close to him, but fairly soon all the characters grind to a halt. The more characters they introduce, the more abundantly clear it becomes that the author is just trying to keep the status quo intact.

The whole thing loses its shine and I ended up not actually finishing the manga. That's not as harsh an indictment as it sounds though. It was still relatively enjoyable. I just realised I had gotten the most I was going to get out of it and carrying on further would just dampen my enjoyment of what had been a decent comedy manga. I probably would have enjoyed this more if I was a teenager, as Kitano has that Nice Guy quality that we all like to think we have when we're that age. He is a genuinely nice guy who wants nothing but the best for others. His only real character flaw is his social anxiety and major gormlessness, which is miles more personality than some Yuji Everylead. I don't mean this to sound degrading or anything, but if you're a teenage boy I would highly recommend this.

I never really thought that i'll be able to finish this manga. Like I never like long mangas. At first, I was like "art is soo >.>" . Well, it was all because of the discouraging front cover but, once you tried reading it, sooner or later you'll get used to how it was drawn and realize that the art wasn't really that bad at all.
It was a very humorous manga. More of fightings and stuffs. It was one of my favorite manga so far.

This isn't much of a review, but let's see what I can do: I've red the manga years ago and I still remember it. It's an outstanding story about love, friendship, kindness and above all about missjudgement. It made me fall off my chiar (yes, it really did) several times. I was laughing at one chapter and at the next one I was swearing (mostly laughing)...
The story is about the "scariest man on earth", who is actually the kindest one. It constantly reminded me of Shakespeare's "Comedy of errors". You end up asking yourself: Ïs that guy/girl really what as he/she seems to be?"... ... Yes, you also end up predicting the outcome of every situation after the 10th chapter, but even though you make the right guess you always end up being surprised.
The art ressembles "Claymore"'s but in an earlier stage. I even recognised one of "Angel densetsu"'s characters as the prototype of "Claymore"'s Clare. At first I hated the art- waaay too simple and kind of ugly, but later I realised it was to make the reader concentrate on the story and to get as close as possible to reality (yeah, the story is so good, that we don't need cute idiotic characters to keep reading).
I literally started crying when the story ended, this is how much I ejoyed it... If I write something more i'll start spoiling the story, so read on and find out that nothing is really what it seems to be.

Angel Densetsu is one of the best comedies I've read. Really, when reading things alone it takes a lot to make me laugh out loud. But while reading this I laughed aloud multiple times (fuck me I hate the Internet, the fact that I would even consider using "lol" in a proper sentence - even ironically - fill's me with shame).

While the main thrust of the series is clearly comedy it also mixes in a fair bit of action and as the series progresses elements of romance are added. It's certainly worth noting that the quality of the artwork improves dramatically over the life of ... the title. The material in later volumes looks almost like it was drawn by a different person. So if the artwork in the initial volume causes some hesitation I urge you to stick with it.

I've seen some comments online by people who seem wilfully obtuse in failing to accept the main premise of the story. If you can’t bring yourself to swallow "the big lie" then you're going to encounter issues with enjoying the majority of fictional entertainment. It's not as if the big lie in this puts much of a strain on one's suspension of disbelief.

First and foremost I loved this manga. It is absolutely astounding in every aspect of the word. I can't think of any other way to describe this manga. I started reading it because I was going through people's reccomendations on an anime forum. Most of the time I don't like what people post as "good" in act 99% of what other people post I completely disregard and can never appreciate it or see what they see in the manga or anime. Angel Densetsu is a different story. I thought that the story was going to be some cliche abomination yet somehow keep my interest ... in reading it. Well it really did keep my interest so much that i'm writing a review of it. I'll start by saying that the story is one of the best flowing and solid stories for the type of manga that this is, a comedy/romance/tough guy manga. The manga makes all of these things work out in perfect harmony. The story follows Kitano the main protagonist mostly but in my opinion its actually following all of the characters at the same time as Kitano's life changes and progresses. There was not a single character I did not like and each one brought out wonderful moments that I keep re reading. One of the highlights was when Kitano's father was first introduced to Ryoko's and Ikuno's father. That was by far one of the funniest moments in the manga, it ranks in the top 20 funniest moments at least for me. The Art was really good, not too flashy and fit everything well, I gave the art a 9 because well sometimes i'd get picky and notice that someone looked jank or what not. I really don't give many shits about art unless its critical to the story and stuff. The characters were all wonderful. You come to truly care about each and every one of them and want to see them all succede in their endeavors. The all mesh together perfectly and create a sort of happy vibe that makes the reader feel like time has stopped and they're right there with Kitano and his friends or Takehisa as he fights a few of the enemy highschoolers. I enjoyed this manga, it provides you with laughs that will follow you the rest of your life. Seriously I can't stress that enough. This manga is incredible. In conclusion I found this to be a great manga. I read a ton off of my phone when i'm at work and have downtime which is usually all the time... so I just want to reaffirm that this manga is a wonderful story with wonderful characters. If you want to read a manga that will make you laugh out loud and actually feel happier and get excited when you are about to read the next chapter this manga is for you.

This manga was great, the story progresses at a good pace and by the time the plot starts to feel a little repetitive you're in the last arc. The art takes a little to get used to if you haven't read much of late 80s or early 90s manga. I would highly recommend this manga to anyone that enjoys plots were action and comedy go hand in hand, with a little bit of romance on the side. Favorite manga by far.

This is one of the best manga I have ever read. It has great characters and a great setting. The art is sloppy at the beginning but it gets better with time. The MC is the first one for me who doesn't have a typical shonen face but he wins everyone over with his actions. This is one of the few mangas which has strong female characters instead of the delicate ones. If you have already read this, there is another manhwa called "Transfer student storm bringer" which is similar in setting. I really recommend reading this if you have the time.

Really, really enjoyed this one; finished it all in about two days.

Seiichiro Kitano has the heart of an angel but the face of a demon. So basically he's this really, really, really nice guy who is always thinking about other people but because of his appearance (I think they basically made him out to be an albino and people called him Devil-san, etc, etc), everyone is scared of him and think he's a crazy heroin addict.

This makes for some hilarious shenanigans, like when Kitano gets himself into crazy misunderstandings. There are too many to mention, but some of my ... favorites are when he chases people to give them back their stuff and they run away or when someone punches him he tries to think hard about why he might have made that person upset. Watching people react to Kitano's face never ever gets old!! I always felt bad for him but it was HILARIOUS each time. I know he's supposed to be this scary dude, but I found him adorable from almost the first chapter.

It's also so amusing and wonderful how all the characters around him gradually change their minds about him. Such great friendship in this story! It's really touching how all the side characters were enemies or antagonists in the beginning but were brought together in friendship after their encounter with Kitano. The art remains pretty bad throughout the whole series, but the writing is solid throughout. Very, very enjoyable.

**Please read the the synospys before reading this review**

People judge each other based on appearances. No matter how much we try, we can never forget the pre-conceptions created when we first see someone. More often than not, we get someone completely wrong, just because of his/her physical appearance. Angel Densetsu shows precisely why this shouldn't happen.

Angel Densetsu is a comedy shounen manga originally released between 1992 and 2000. It was written and illustrated by Norihiro Yagi, who later created Claymore.

The main story is simplistic and pretty straight-forward. It doesn't seen very interesting, but it makes up for its lack of complexity with enjoyability and ... sense of humor. Most of the times, the chapters focus on the first meeting of a new character with Kitano, and this always leads to a series of misunderstandings and, sometimes, fights.

The comedy is probably the best aspect of the manga. It had me laughing out loud at least a couple of times per chapter and, surprisingly, it never gets old. This is achieved by the sheer craziness of the characters in face of the "demon" and how quick they are to judge him.

The "main" characters, that is, Kitano and the people who become his friends, become pretty likeable, but at first glance they are actually easily hateablee. Also, these main characters do develop through the course of the manga, which does not ring true to most of the rest. The other character who never realise that Kitano is actually a good guy don't change and get more and more hateable.

This reaction is, of course, partly because of the theme of Angel Densetsu. "Never judge a book by its cover". Basically every interaction involving Kitano is done to prove that people are a tad limited and that this is a fault to our current society. Despite being this obvious, the theme is never too overdone and creates a perfect balance between the serious and comedic moments.

The only point that truly annoyed me was the art, specially early on. It is pretty barebones and lacks substance. During the first half, this is made worse by the fact that the author frequently messes up the proportions of characters. The does get a bit better during the later half, but it is never impressive.

The conclusion is very open and this may annoy some. After reading the author's note at the end of the manga, it made perfect sense to me and actually seemed to be a pretty smart decision.

Angel Densetsu is an incredibly fun read that presents an interesting viewpoint, despite being quite light-hearted. It excels with its comedy, but also has a compelling yet simple storyline.

I would recommend it to basically anyone, actually. The theme that it deals with makes Angel Densetsu a pratically universal read.

This is my very first review on MAL, I'm kinda shy and usually don't like to speak up but I'm currently working on it, so I've thought about giving one of my favorite mangas a review.
I could go on and explain this like a professional, giving ratings to each category and so on, but I won't, for me reading manga is not a job or a chore, it's something to be appreciated, so I'll tell my fellings about this manga, and I can summarize it all in one world "joy", there was not a single moment in this manga I felt like skipping, or that ... I felt was there just to be a filler, maybe that's because how the characters interact with each other, which seens very natural, silly and light hearted, but still every character have his own personality and follows it, this creates a comfortable setup to the story.
The objective of this manga is not simply conveying a plot, or attending a demography, you can feel the mangaka's desire to immerse you in the story, to make you feel part of it, even if just as an observer, the art of the manga helps in that regard, it sure looks very weird at first, to be fair it was for me the biggest point that drove me away from it at first, but after you read through some chapter the style used to convey the story seens to fit the whole plot, it's something almost rideous at first, but after a while you start to see it for more than just drawings and you start to see it as a literary device that both works to create an identity around the manga an develop originality and to immerse you into the world the mangaka created.
As a last topic I would like to discuss that which is the most important part of the whole manga, it's enjoyment, and Angel Densetsu is able to create an incredible mood, with every story arc, chapter and character, I could never feel like I wasn't interested in the development of the plots and never felt like the manga was getting repetitive or cliched, I knew I was going to find joy with each turn of page.
And that's why, even though I could go on and give some "realistic" score to the manga, like eight or nine, I went instead with ten, because this manga reverberates within my soul and warms my heart each time I read it.
I'm sorry if my review ended up as incoherent ramblings of deranged man, but these are my fellings, as much incoherent and deranged as they are, thank you very much for bearing with it.

tl;dr: A hilarious manga about a misunderstood high school student that’s surprisingly heartwarming.

Angel Densetsu is a manga about a high school student named Kitano that others judge as evil solely because of how he looks. He’s actually a very kind and honest boy, but because his face is terrifying everyone thinks he must be incredibly terrifying as well. Kitano is sad about not being able to make any friends and tries to improve his image, but it doesn’t help that he’s incredibly innocent and thus fails to actually understand how people are really seeing him and how they’re interpreting his actions. This combined with fate ... itself seemingly conspiring against him results in all sorts of bizarre misunderstandings that just snowball.

This manga is primarily a comedy and the majority of the comedy is humor centered around all these misunderstandings and how the rest of the cast react to them. It may sound like this’ll get repetitive it never really does. The manga is constantly throwing in new characters to misunderstand and act in new ways, so there’s a lot of variety to how things play out. And just in general the writing in this regard is just really well written. This also isn’t all the manga has so there’s enough of other stories mixed in to keep things feeling fresh. Though some of these stories definitely feel like they’ve overlived their welcome at times, such as pretty much everything regarding Kuroda in the second half of the manga.

While this manga doesn’t really have much of an overarching plot, there are overarching plot threads stemming around the friends that Kitano makes. And a lot of them are pretty touching. The main reason for that is that Kitano is really likable. He doesn’t really have any character arc or development, but he’s really easy to get invested in just because of how good of a person he is. Thus, when people do acknowledge his true self and all the goodness it entails, it’s pretty satisfying. His friend Takehisa is also somewhat likable as well for being a pretty loyal and good friend, though he doesn’t really have any character development either.

The two characters that stood out in terms of development were Ryouko and Ikuno. Ryouko is the heroine of the manga and has pretty solid relationship development with Kitano over the course of the manga. She’s also a pretty fun character due to how she’s strong and pretty high-spirited, and because of her character arc where she starts off as somewhat of a hard ass but slowly gets softer over time. On the other hand, while Ikuno also does have some relationship development with Kitano, the focus with her is much more on her character arc. This was centered around her changing from someone that lived solely to fight to someone that could make friends and enjoy just hanging out with them. What makes her a lot of fun is that a lot of the extreme parts of her personality persist through that. In hindsight I find it kind of strange that in a manga in which the vast majority of characters are guys that two girls end up as the only ones that get developed properly, but in context it worked pretty well. The ending isn’t some epic finale or anything like that, but I felt it did well by the cast of the manga and thus overall, I was pretty satisfied with it.

The art, to put it frankly, starts out pretty awful. Like straight up bad. However, it improves tremendously over the course of the manga. Around halfway through the manga, it’s pretty good and by the end pretty great. This is probably one of the biggest improvements I’ve seen within the span of a single manga, though it starting so low is probably one of the main reasons. The fan translation was also really solid and I thought they did an especially great job with making sure characters voices came through well, such as thugs speaking roughly and crudely and in contrast Kitano always speaking and thinking in a super strait-laced manner. I have some nitpicks regarding translating terms that probably shouldn’t have been, such as it probably would have been better to just leave banchou instead of translating it as guardian, but as mentioned these are just nitpicks.

In short and miserable life I have encountered many, many animes and mangas that have superb artwork but shitty storylines. But all of that changed when I read Angel Densetsu.

When I first opened its pages, I dropped it in disgust as the artwork was terrible! But when I got the courage to open up and read the damn thing...it was actually pretty good. I mean it. Despite the fact that I had to hold in my barf and read it, it was actually enjoyable.

The storyline is episodic but it was not bad. It was kind of like Toradora! but in a more sadder and ... patheticly drawn kind of way. Without the romance of course. It is good and has that school life flair to it.

The artwork simply dreadful and I mean lower than Samurai Champloo (guess there are some things that are that bad in this world). I had to resist the urge to puke my f*cking insides all over the floor while reading it. Although you could get a vauge idea on what was going on, it was still shit. Kinda like wiping your glasses with diarrhea and looking at the world. Dreadful.

The characters on the other hand represent your normal school life characters. The only thing that seperates it from a regular school life manga would be the main character, a hideously deformed (not because of the artwork), misunderstood student with a heart of gold. The others would just represent your regular teachers, students, gangsters and the like.

The enjoyment factor depends on how much the art bugs you but the comedy factor is good and makes the comic better. The gore count is low and so is the sexual explicity count making it readable to almost every type of reader (unless you are picky about the artwork like me or is just a Goddamned art critic).

In short, Angel Densetsu is just another one of those mangas that are funny and is good to read...with a major cosmetic problem. Kinda like [ censor ] and [another censor]. 8/10.