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Contemporary CGI-Based Series
Angelic Layer
 Home/Change Series
This small-scale series follows the little girl Misaki’s initiation into a play world of battling dolls as she learns the ropes and moves toward the national championships. The manga, by CLAMP, immediately followed their major hit Cardcaptor Sakura and appeared in 1999-2001. The anime rights were picked up by BONES, then a newly founded animation studio. Angelic Layer was only BONES’s third project: it made its reputation with its following productions: the Cowboy Bebop Movie, RahXephon, Wolf’s Rain, Scrapped Princess, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Ouran High School Host Club.
While most anime fans agree that Angelic Layer is hardly the peer of these classic series, at the time it was a pioneer in the use of CGI technology, winning the Animation Kobe Award for best new anime of 2001. The fight sequences are indeed involving, with the humanoid and robotic qualities of the Angels nicely realized in the animation. This is doubtless a reflection of the staff’s experience in mecha series like Mobile Suit Gundam.
Hiroshi Nishikiori served as the overall director of the series. He got his start (as many important animators did) working on Nippon Studio’s Tonde Buurin, but is best known as the creator and director of Tenshi ni Narumon. Takahiro Komori, the character designer and animation director for several episodes, came to BONES after creating genga for Cowboy Bebop and providing animation direction for several episodes of the Escaflowne TV series. After Angelic Layer, he also served as character designer and overall animation director for Scrapped Princess and Darker than Black. More recently he has been main animator for Snow White with the Red Hair (2016) and for My Hero Academia (2017-20).
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8.82/10 
9.47/10
9.03/10 
84 votes