Destiny of Shrine Maiden

Story: Kannazuki no Miko starts off as a silly and mostly lighthearted romp with giant robots, mysticism, girls in love (with each other) and pretty art. Even having heard (but forgotten) certain spoilers about the direction the story ends up taking, I thought I was going to like it a lot. Unfortunately for me, the story takes a dark turn which I most decidedly did not enjoy. In particular it was the way in which the offending character continued to be self-righteous and another character rationalized the first one's actions which bothered me. Keep in mind though that I'm a feminist and I have a tendency toidentify strongly with certain characters, so if you can maintain a greater emotional distance it might bother you less. That said, the rest of the story deals with themes of destiny, true love, and star-crossed lovers, so it isn't particularly original. It is kind of fun though. Art: The art is good in general, particularly the character and costume designs - crazy hair, lots of detail in the miko clothes and some of the bad guys' outfits, and attention to eyes. The faces are pretty expressive and the giant robots are cool. There is a lot of screen tone and a few random flowers and so forth. You can tell that they're really working to appeal toward yuri/shoujo ai fans, because those scenes are pretty detailed, though not completely explicit. That said, there are a few panels where I have trouble telling what's going on, and I don't think that Kannazuki no Miko brings anything new as far as art goes either. Characters: There was one character who, for reasons stated above, I came to despise. The others didn't really make an impression for the most part, and a few were flat, not changing throughout the course of the story. Enjoyment: I really liked the most of the first volume, because it was so ridiculous. After the darker turn, I still wanted to keep reading, but I spent most of the rest of the time being angry or shaking my head at what the characters were doing. I would have given this manga a seven or an eight in this category if I had enjoyed it all as much as the beginning. Overall: Not bad. It's enjoyable in parts and it's pretty, but other parts might make you angry and the characters can be a little flat at times. Its attempts at darker themes are sometimes undermined by the over-the-top villains and silly giant robots. It's the sort of show you might like if you like yuri and giant robots and don't mind the dark themes.