CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

I was in the bookstore today and saw this title...reminded me a bit of DNAngel meets Weiss Kreuz. I read through most of the first volume today, but frankly I have a hard time keeping the characters straight.

Anyway, my question is if anyone's seen/read/familiar with this. Any good? Horrible? Yaoi filled? Your thoughts and links, please.

Ashley, should this be in the manga section? I'm just wondering; but, you're in charge. Anyway, I just bought Juvenile Orion the other day. I still haven't read it. I'm curious about the same questions you asked. I'll probably read through it in the next day or two. Have you liked what you've read so far?

Yeeep, I thought this WAS the manga section! My stupid browser must be acting up again. Oh my, how utterly embarrasing.

I did like what I had read--the story seemed interesting and the art was pretty nice. I just had a hard time keeping up, and before I get into it I want to know precisely what's in it.

Ooo, I saw a promotion for this manga at a Omcha Box store I visited. The art looks absolutely BEAUTIFUL

I liked what I saw considerably, but only had time to read the first half of the first volume. I'm with Ashley: what does anyone know about it? I suppose I could do some research.

The art does look beautiful. I did some research though and found two things that disturbs me. Every description of the author is that they are a talented (and primarily) well known for their shonen-ai works.

The second may be minor or more paranoid but the Age of aqarious group name royally bothers me. A quick google brought up a lot of astrology sites and whatnot, and many new age sites. A comment by Walter Mercado, a well known new ager, says this about the age of aquarius on one of the sites (age of aq. supposedly an era that started in the year 2000)

In the New Age we break free of centuries of false doctrines, destructive indoctrinations, absurd ideas, and children’s stories about God, education, medicine, and love. The corrupt foundations of false society crumble. This time of crises is not the signal of the end of the world. What comes is not the end, but the beginning. The dream humanity has lived for centuries ends and we awaken to a bright new day, a bright new way.

Now I dont know if the books openly are involved in all the new agey stuff but, having such a name to the main good guy group seems a little... dangerous to me. Maybe its just me though. I havn't been able to access any other information on the relationship content yet, hopefully somone will have the ability to find the content, or I can later.

*clears throat and totes in a soap box*

May I first say that it's been half a year since I read this, so please forgive the haze which obscures some of the details in my mind. I'll do my best!

I loved the first volume of this manga. Absolutely LOVED it. The first volume was very interesting and (comparatively) clean. There were a few moments when the priest would say something to/about his almost-adopted(?) son and I would say "That could mean that, or he could just love him in a parental way." Since I liked the manga so much, I chose to see it in that way. But even in the first two and half volumes which I read, there were several characters who were questionably close to other characters of the same gender. Just that shounen-ai possibilities in this manga were a little disconcerting, but I tried not to think about them. There are some manga you can do that, and some manga you just can't. This one was right on the line. Part of the reason I quit reading it was the suspicion that this manga would tip more and more towards being shounen-ai.

I didn't really see much "new age" content. What I remember, zodiac reference and such were similar to those in Fruits Basket. They were more played as back story, not active events. Again, that's what I remember. I could be wrong, but I think if there was alot of dark new age content it would stick out in my mind.

Also, there was some simply unneccesary violence. We see someone getting run through for two pages. We see a character having his wings ripped out by the ROOTS! Stuff like that.

On the nudity score, there were atleast two instances(maybe three) when I can remember Mana (main female character) being nude. Once, she all curled up, and it's to give the reader Mana's sense of vulnerability. I don't remember the specifics of the others. Plus, there is a character who's not wearing any clothes under a sheet. It seems the sheet is suctioned to her, 'cause it fits uncomfortably close to her body.

Overall, I finally decided to stop reading this manga. It was probably one of the most dificult titles I've ever put down (tying only with Alice the 19th), but I made the decision in the end because of the violence which was becoming rapidly more frequent and graphic and because of the vast shounen-ai potential. They're not the most compelling reasons, but they're enough for me right now.

That's all I can remember. Hope it helps. As I said before, I never read more than two volumes and a half volumes.

I have #'s 1-4 and let me say it is my favourite manga series! It's got a kind of Fruits Basket feel to it and it is pretty much as tame as FB was. It's ADORABLE and the art is GREAT. So i would totally reccomend it!
<3 Angel

Mangafanatic wrote:
Also, there was some simply unneccesary violence. We see someone getting run through for two pages. We see a character having his wings ripped out by the ROOTS! Stuff like that.

On the nudity score, there were atleast two instances(maybe three) when I can remember Mana (main female character) being nude. Once, she all curled up, and it's to give the reader Mana's sense of vulnerability. I don't remember the specifics of the others. Plus, there is a character who's not wearing any clothes under a sheet. It seems the sheet is suctioned to her, 'cause it fits uncomfortably close to her body.

No offense but the nudity was both non detailed and symbolic and involved her in a dream state and not any sexual reference at all.
And the violence was HARDLY anything. Seriously. Compared to most of the mangas out there, J.O. coulda been ALOT worse. And that scene where he gets his wings torn out was also symbolic, not uneeded (like in Hellsing where most of the vilence is highly graphical and uneeded). It's also not very graphic NOR does it last for more than two pages in prolly one or two mangas.
Ok that's my 2 cents. ^_^
<3 Angel

I believe the main characters belong to different groups based on their powers because Juvenile Orion is based off of the Aquarian Age CARD GAME. X_x; The manga is owned by Broccoli Books, king of pointless manga/anime to merchandizing tie ins (see Galaxy Angel and Digi Charat)

I picked up the first volume a while ago and enjoyed it a lot (sans the few nudity instances). I'd probably continue it too, if it weren't for my tight funds at the moment.

For some reason, I'm not attracted to this series despite the nice art. Yet.

hehe I'll check Volume 2 and give it a second try since everyone else has good things to say about it.

I've finished it I really enjoyed it and I'd have to agree with Angel37 about the content.
The only thing that bothered me was that [spoiler] one of the main characters turns out to be an "evil god" or demon[/spoiler]

Angel37 wrote:No offense but the nudity was both non detailed and symbolic and involved her in a dream state and not any sexual reference at all.

Agreed. I mentioned the nudity with Mana was to convey vulnerability. I knew it was symbolic, but I don't really know how much that matters. I've read essays in which people said that certain hentai works aren't really about "sex", they're symbolic stories about other topics (loss of innocence and the like), but that doesn't mean I'd watch it. Symbolic or not, nudity can still cause christian men to stumble. I would have felt irresponsible if I hadn't even mentioned it.

And the violence was HARDLY anything. Seriously. Compared to most of the mangas out there, J.O. coulda been ALOT worse. And that scene where he gets his wings torn out was also symbolic, not uneeded (like in Hellsing where most of the vilence is highly graphical and uneeded). It's also not very graphic NOR does it last for more than two pages in prolly one or two mangas.
Ok that's my 2 cents. ^_^
<3 Angel

I didn't say the wings thing lasted two pages. It was the stabbing that lasted two pages. Like I said above, symbolic or not, the ripping of the wings bothered me (and AngelSakura. We talked about this manga once ), and I figured it could bother Ashley or anyone else considering reading JO. When I'm giving a content run down, I try to err on the side of caution (if you saw the Furuba review I give, you'd know what I mean.)

<<Like I said above, symbolic or not, the ripping of the wings bothered me (and AngelSakura. We talked about this manga once ), and I figured it could bother Ashley or anyone else considering reading JO.>>
Just a...tiny bit. If you've read the third Trigun Maximum, you'll see there's no comparison. I'm not squeemish anymore. ^^;;; That's like...nothing now.

[quote="AngelSakura"]
Just a...tiny bit. If you've read the third Trigun Maximum, you'll see there's no comparison. I'm not squeemish anymore. ^^] Perhaps I'd feel the same way now. It's been a while. Oh well, better safe than sorry.

I read a little bit of it and got lost immidiatley..... >o.O<" It's very confusing and goes really fast. The artwork was pretty for the most part, but the girls look kinda funky... >^^<;

Of the things mentioned about it, the thing that would bother me the most and would stop me from reading it is the possible shounen-ai content. Does anyone know if it progresses further than the hinting at it?

Yeah I was gonna buy it the other day, but I had to remind myself Furuba and DNAngel would be coming out soon and I need to save my cash. I was also slightly cautious about possible shounen-ai.

So has anyone read farther and can tell us? If its something like DNAngel where someone could find ways to say a character is gay, I won't care much. Just as long as they really aren't. (btw I REFUSE to believe there's a daisuke/satoshi pairing in DNAngel... *glares at yaoi fans* How can they see that?!)

I don't believe any of the Main characters are gay, the subject comes up more then in D.N.Angel though and there are some comments exchanged between the characters, but in the end it doesn’t seem like any of them are.
I wasn’t sure if I should use spoiler tags for this its not exactly a spoiler, but I think this backs up my opinion.
[spoiler]At one point Tomonori, the priest is talking to this guy, I don't think he even had a name, and he tells Tomonori " Don't do anything illegal" regarding one of his students who is living with him, Tomonori angrily says "I'm not like you!!"[/spoiler]

Hmm I'll have to look into getting it... after I get the whole other multitude of manga I plan to get =_=