I am a big fan of the works of CLAMP. From Card Captor Sakura to X, I have been greatly entertained by all of the CLAMP anime I have seen. Some of that is to do with the character designs; the eyes of the characters in CLAMP series always seem so expressive to me. The people are just so darn cute, you just sort of want to sit them on your shelf with your other plushies… CLAMP always bring together the reasons why people are doing the things that they do. The scenes all mesh and the interaction is always good, and the stories don’t suck either.
All in all, I had some pretty high expectations when I began to watch Angelic Layer. I was not disappointed.
Misaki, the main character of the story, lives in a small village in the country with her grandparents, but she moves to Tokyo to attend a school that her mysterious mother is paying for. (A recurring theme through the episodes is Misaki’s desire to see her mother again, and the payoff is delightful.) “Grounded” is the best way to describe Misaki; she comes under a lot of attention, but takes it all in her stride, and mostly stays an extremely bubbly person. She is quite a good lead character, in a classic CLAMP way.
Although, what is it about CLAMP Heroines (and some of the Heroes for that matter) that they are usually quite domestic? Good cooks, incredibly neat, good at housework. Sometimes in a power-to-destroy-the-world kind of way, but still… I laughed a lot where Misaki’s Aunt asked her to be her wife, and she was not the only one to do so. It seems lots of people want a little Misaki of their own.