Chrono Crusade Volume 7: Hellfire - Anime Frontier
- Anime Frontier
- Jared Elswick
- 08/29/05
- click here
"...a good series that is easy to understand and enjoy."
Audio
For the audio here, as with almost all ADV series, Chrono Crusade is offered up with a 5.1 English track, so I went with that, although there is a 2.0 Japanese track as well. The voices here, at least for the English track, just don?t seem to match the characters, and Rosette?s voice is just a little too high pitched for me. There are some nice moments of directionality here though, so this track has some good and some bad to it, but I wouldn't really say one is better than the other. The Japanese track has moderately better voices, but the English has more directionality, so either way you've got something to look forward to.
Video
Chrono Crusade originally aired in 2003 and is presented here with a wonderful transfer. The animation itself has a rather soft look to it, and some might say that it suffers from a color gradient problem. That may be, but I have a feeling that this ?problem? is something on the source materials that is there to give this show a certain look and feel. Other than this potential problem, there is absolutely nothing bad about the transfer for Chrono Crusade.
Characters
Rosette - A warrior from the Order of Magdalene, Rosette is fighting to save her brother Joshua from hordes of demons.
Chrono - An incredibly power demon who has a life bond with Rosette.
Azmaria - One of the Apostles, Azmaria is a young girl with healing powers who helps Rosette and Chrono.
Satella - A stuck up German socialite, Satella is a summoner who has vowed to destroy all demons after her family was slain by them.
Joshua - Rosette's brother, Joshua is one of the Apostles and has spent quite some time in the world of demons, as he has inched closer to becoming one himself.
Story
Things have really moved forward with this show since it started out as Aion now has complete control over Rosette, although she?s basically let loose to do whatever it is she wants to do. She?s been let loose into the public and she?s gone on a healing rampage that has caused her to gain quite the following among the common people. This isn?t just for a day or so either, this carries on for a while and over the course of a few months or so an entirely new type of criminal emerges from all of this, those called the Crusaders come about and commit violence in the name of the so-called Holy Woman.
Satella has a bit of a focus placed on her here as we get more information regarding the reason she?s in this series altogether, to exact revenge for the loss of her family. However, we found out in the last volume that Aion?s minion Fiore is in actuality her sister Florette. I can?t say this is too surprising, but it makes for some interesting content here as the two of them actually end up fighting each other. Azmaria even steps in to settle things here too, making for a rather well rounded battle that really came about as a surprise, as I never expected Fiore to actually get too involved with things here.
Of course, things really come down to Chrono and Rosette here as they are the main characters and have to come to their own resolution. With Rosette now in Aion?s control, Chrono takes a bit of time to revisit his past, which helps him to realize that most of what is going on now is a result of him always running away from everything in the past. Of course, everything here comes to a head with a battle, and this is no different as everything between Chrono and Aion and Rosette all comes to fruition with Aion continuing to use Rosette as a tool to bring about the completion of his own goals. The battle is rather flashy, as expected, but I would have liked something a bit more grandiose, as somehow this battle just doesn?t seem like the ultimate battle I was expecting.
Interestingly enough, the volume ends with the final episode playing out as an epilogue, providing a bit of closure to things as we learn more about the overall scheme of things here. We get to see some of what happened in the Black Thursday event as well as what?s to happen not too far from that point in Europe. The battle has apparently changed once more and the events between Aion, Rosette and Chrono is just another fight in an age old war that we get to see through Father Remington?s eyes, which also allows us to see what has come before and what is surely to come much later as the war rages on. As odd as I thought it was to have an epilogue to this show, it really does play out very well and it provides us with a great ending that makes me wish there was a show that followed Remington all on his own, as he seems like such a great character.
Afterthoughts
Overall, this final installment in the series offers up some interesting content as well as some material that doesn't really comes as much of a surprise. Even so, the overall story progression here, plus the interesting addition of an epilogue makes for a good closing volume that is sure to be a good source of enjoyment for those who have come this far in this show. After all seven volumes here, its easy to recommend this show, as it has a good sense of character development, story progression and action, some in great quantities than others, but it all rounds out to a good series that is easy to understand and enjoy.
Posted on Monday, August 29, 2005 (Archive on Thursday, September 29, 2005)