Chrono Crusade

Chrono Crusade (クロノクルセイド, Kurono Kuruseido^?) is a manga structured in eight volumes, created by mangaka Daisuke Moriyama (森山大輔). It was originally published by Kadokawa Shoten in Monthly Dragon Magazine. A 24-episode anime series was made from this manga, first broadcast in Japan between November 2003 and June 2004 on Fuji TV. The animation work was done by Gonzo Digimation.

History

The action takes place in 1928, in New York, and tells the story of Rosette Christopher, a young woman who, in order to find her missing brother Joshua, joins the Order of Magdalena, an organization linked to the Catholic Church which is dedicated to investigating and eradicating demonic presences in the human world, caused by the chaos that the world is experiencing after the First World War.

After the crisis, the young exorcist Rosette is accompanied by Chrono ―an older demon― whom she and her brother Joshua became friends with four years ago, and with whom, after Joshua's disappearance, Rosette performs a pact in order for Chrono to help him find him.

During her search for Joshua, Rosette will meet the other relevant characters of the series: Reverend Ewan Remington, Kate Valentine, Azmaria Hendrick, Satella Harvenheit and Aion.

In addition, Rosette must carry out the search for her brother simultaneously with her research and demon hunting with the search for the Apostles, people blessed with divine powers related to the Seven Theological Virtues, and her almost constant pulse with the devil Aion, captor of his brother Joshua.

Broadly speaking, Chrono Crusade is an action and adventure series, although not devoid of humor, despite the tragic background of some of its characters, which in some cases will mark their tragic fate and touching on religious themes that make fans debate the origin of good and evil.

Main characters

Rosette Christopher

• Date of birth: April 8, 1912
• Age: 16
• Stature: 162 cm
• Weight: 47 kg
• Measurements: bust, 85 cm; waist, 59 cm; hips, 85 cm
• Place of origin: San Francisco (California).

Rosette is a very beautiful young woman, she is an exorcist of the Order of Magdalena, which she joined 4 years ago after losing Joshua, her younger brother and the only member of her family, who was kidnapped by Aion. She met Chrono by accident when she was 12 years old, and befriended him despite knowing that she was a demon. Rosette and Chrono have a contract, which means that he uses her life as the source of her powers. That contract is symbolized by a pocket watch that always hangs around Rosette's neck and serves as the seal of Chrono's powers. The life that Rosette has left is very short and she does not expect to live past thirty, however she is a very strong and optimistic person, and she is determined to live her life in the best possible way and rescue her brother before she die. Despite the terrible bond that binds her to Chrono, they are true friends who sincerely trust each other, and their feelings gradually develop into something much deeper. Rosette is very rebellious and constantly gets into trouble, although she is valued in the Order as a very capable exorcist. She greatly admires Remington, and it could be said that she is attracted to him, he continuously protects Azmaria and feels terrible jealousy of Satella, who constantly annoys her with Chrono since she considers Chrono more than just a partner in the search for her brother, she loves him.. She plays a crucial role in the last part of the story. The ending of her is the same in both the anime and the manga, but in different ways.

Chrono

• Alias: "El Pecador", "Assassin de 100 Demons", "Sin Cuernos", "Perro de Dios"
• Age: Unknown
• Age Appears: 14 in their child form, 20 in their demonic form.
• Stature: 150 cm in its child form, 180 cm in its demonic form.
• Place of Origin: Pandemonium

Chrono was once a very high-ranking and powerful demon, but is now regarded as a traitor by his own kind. He betrayed the demon society to follow Aion's dream of freedom, however, the different ideas they both had soon drove them apart. Chrono lost his horns, the source of her powers, Magdalena, the woman he loved, dies because of her when she gives her life for him through a contract to save him since he was injured while trying to protect her. of Aion. He was locked inside a tomb for 50 years before he met Rosette, and made a contract with her at her own request. Despite the deadly bond that unites them, he cares a lot about Rosette and serves her unconditionally; Besides loving her. Although he is basically a very kind person, he can be very aggressive against anyone who tries to hurt Rosette. In the anime, Chrono and Rossette live together in a cabin at the end of the fight and remain there until they both die sitting next to each other, while he is in his physical form as a child. They are found by members of the Order. In the manga, the ending is completely different. Chrono freezes Rossette in time so she won't accompany him in her final fight against Aion by promising him that he will return to her home, which is where she is. After about 5 years pass and Rossette, sitting in the church, begins to suffer spasms that end up ending her life. Seconds before dying, she calls out to Chrono, demanding that he come back and not let her die alone, then someone opens the door of the church, causing her to turn around to discover that it is Chrono. They both run to find each other in a hug and so she dies. Almost 100 years later, Azmaría's grandson tells Satella that Chrono never really came back and that Rossette died without seeing him again.

Azmaria Hendrick

• Alias: "Az", "Apostol of Charity"
• Age: 11
• Stature: Apparently 143 cm
• Place of Origin: Portugal

Azmaria is a shy, reserved girl with a calm face, but sad at the same time. Rosette has to rescue her from the hands of a man who adopted her, who has a pact with a demon. But Azmaria is a special person, people like her are called Apostles, since inside her she has the power to heal people, it is said that these people have the blessing of the Lord and that his power resides in them. But Azmaria has always been a person who has lived disowned by the people around her, for having that power, seen as a strange being, even her family and loved ones who have passed by her have finally been killed and that is why that Azmaria sees her gift as a curse. But everything will change when she meets Rosette, who will make her see that life is something beautiful as long as you have faith, good friends, the strength to carry on and hope. In the end of the anime, Azmaria is the only survivor of the group made up of Rossette, Chrono, Satella and herself, and she is seen in the last chapter stronger and already dressed as a sister of the order of the Magdalenes, for which she he understands that he wants to keep his word and become like Rossette. Whereas, in the manga, she Azmaría lives together with Rossette in the orphanage that was frozen in time for the next 5 years before Rossette's death. She eventually marries Joshua and is the only one to live to be an old woman. She makes a video of everything that happened between the survivors of the fight just for Satella to see one day. Her grandson is the one who unfreezes Satella and tells her everything that happened in those years.

Satella Harvenheit

• Date of Birth: June 10, 1908
• Age: 20
• Stature: 172 cm
• Weight: 50 kg
• Measurements: bust 91; waist 60; hips 90 cm
• Country of Origin: Germany

A witch who uses her summoning powers through jewels. Demon hunter and a mercenary. She has quite a lot of money and as she says to waste . She hates demons because her entire family died at the hands of demons when she was little before her very eyes. She resides in the United States, where she left her native Germany in search of her sister. Despite the parallels between their lives and pursuing similar goals, Satella and Rosette profess, especially at first, a certain mutual aversion, mainly due to the fact that Rosette works with a demon. It's funny to see that Satella and Rosette are always on different missions. Her relationship with Azmaria is more cordial, as she reminds her of herself when she was little. Satella swore to herself that she would find the demon that wiped out her family and she would destroy it, who is none other than Aion. In the anime, she manages to meet her sister, who turns out to be Fiore, but the result is not what she expected. Near the end of the anime, she dies; while at the end of the manga, she mysteriously appears in New York in the year 1999, in a frozen state, after a process, she is revived by Azmaria's grandson and brings flowers to Rosette at her grave.

Joshua Christopher

• Date of Birth: in 1913
• Age: 15
• Mental age: 12
• Stature: 175 cm
• Weight: about 60 kg
• Place of Origin: San Francisco, EE. U.S..

Apostle of Hope and little brother of Rosette. In extremely poor health, he spent his childhood with his sister in an orphanage. However, he soon discovered that he possessed the power to heal other people's illnesses and injuries through the laying on of hands. However, he is unable to heal his own ills, plus the use of his powers greatly weakens him. Haunted by this fact, and wishing he was strong enough to stop being a burden to his sister, he soon became easy prey for Aion. He handed over Chrono's horns, which made him stronger, but had the undesirable side effect of amplifying the echo of others' thoughts in his head, driving him to the brink of insanity. In order to silence what he calls "the noise," Joshua inadvertently plunged everyone around him in the orphanage into a state of spatial and temporal arrest ("freezing" or "freezing"). time for them). However, he regained his sanity long enough to warn Chrono and Rosette to stay away from him, or they would be frozen as well. His repressed feelings of vulnerability and resentment turned him into a demon and Chrono's horns caused him to lose his mind, causing him to fall under Aion's sway. That is why he is cared for by Fiore, a young woman who only lives for Joshua and despite the fact that in the series they reveal in the last chapters that she herself is not the person she believes, and Joshua keeps calling her sister due to her lack of sanity. and that makes her believe it herself too. In the end it is discovered that she is actually called Florette and is Satella's missing sister. At the end of the anime, Joshua does not remember anything that happened and his mind is that of a 12-year-old boy. In the manga he becomes a priest.

Aion

• Alias: "The Sinner"
• Age: You don't know.
• Age Appears: 22
• Stature 182 cm
• Place of Origin: Pandemonium

Sinner and demon. Aion tries to subdue all the Apostles under his command in order to reach the Astral Line and thus fulfill his dream of destroying Pandemonium and promoting the rebirth of the world. Aion's goals may be considered laudable, but it is his more than questionable methods that make him a villain. Chrono was in league with him in the past, and still retains some of his followers. The Order of Magdalena considers her his main enemy and has a mysterious interest in Rosette. In the end they destroy it but unfortunately when Remington is in the Vatican in 1981, he stumbles upon Aion, who is not really him, but rather the interpretation that evil will always be there, in whatever form, being him, at least in the anime, the one who carried out the attack against His Holiness John Paul II (+), carrying out in this way the third message of Fatima, which was the assassination attempt on his holiness.

Ewan Remington

• Date of Birth: July 23, 1904
• Age: 24
• Stature: 182 cm
• Weight: 74 kg
• City of Origin: New York, USA U.S..

He is a handsome priest, tall, young, blond and understanding; he is very agile and most of the time he is smiling. He is always on the lookout for Rosette and most of the time he tends to help her, support her and even excuse her in her follies; According to him, he says that he cares for Rosette like a father, he considers himself a guardian for her since he took her to the Order of Magdalena 4 years ago, or maybe even before, he has the responsibility to protect her, which is why he defends her more beyond what it can sometimes do; he usually sides with her when she is scolded by her mother superior, Rosette feels great affection for him and great admiration for her to a certain extent and he likes to go along with her even though she knows it is wrong; he also defends Chrono when no one wants to support him and hides a truth that he reveals in the final episodes, this great truth is that he is actually an Angel; which gives him the agility to fight demons and which is crucial for him to save Azmaria when she is taken hostage by demons. He was originally human but a battle left him badly injured and unable to fight, to heal himself he allows Legion, the demonic equivalent of cells, to be imbued with him. But as he himself says "he was only an observer and had no right to intervene in what was happening", at the end of the anime he is seen taking charge of Joshua and "retired" as a priest, because as he himself says he has lost his faith since he was greatly affected by what happened with Rosette and Chrono. At the end of the manga he already looks old, and it is mentioned that he is in charge of a small Church. Also, in the manga version, during the fight between him and Chrono, it is suggested that he and Maria Magdalena could be brothers.

Side characters

Mary Magdalene

In the manga, Maria Magdalena appears only in volume 6 and has small appearances in volumes 4 and 8. She is a woman similar in appearance to Rossette, blonde with green eyes. She is reserved and quiet, her personality being the complete opposite of Rossette's.

Chrono meets her when he goes to the Order and kidnaps her with the help of Magdalena herself, who prevents both Chrono and Remington from getting hurt. After that they arrive at the Grand Canyon, where she helps Aion and the rest find the head of Pandemonium. Since she is tired, she and Chrono wait for the return of the others. That is the beginning of their friendship, as Magdalena shows Chrono the kindness between humans and demons.

It is further said that Magdalena is a human who does not fear demons and is capable of living among them. After living with the Togabito for a while, during an attack by the reconstructed Pandemonium, she uses her powers to control the astral line and stop Pandemonium until Chrono and Aion destroy it. At that moment, Pandemonium passed through her voice and into her consciousness. Aion discovers this and decides that she must be eliminated, as Magdalena could end up turning into Pandemonium as time goes on. He orders Chrono to kill her, but he was in love with her and rejects the order, so they both fall from Eden due to an attack by Aion and begin to live together among humans, but not before making a pact, since the fall and previous fight with Aion left Chrono on the brink of death. In that form, she gives the portion of her astral line so that Chrono can stay alive.

Slowly she begins to die from weakness and finally, at a moment when they stopped to rest, they are found by Aion and he runs through her along with Chrono, allowing him to completely consume her life and thus she dies, leaving Chrono in his physical appearance as a child.

In the anime, she dies immediately after the fall from Eden, thus avoiding the scene where Aion claws through her at the same time as Chrono and everyone who lived through that span.

It is also revealed that she lives inside the watch that Chrono gave to Rossette and that it represents the seal of her soul, being the guardian of both and who helps Rossette to return to Chrono after dying during the final battle.

In the manga, Remington hints that she might be a sister, during her fight with Chrono in the Togabito's lair, reminding Rossette that she must fight anyone to find her brother, referencing all her efforts to find her. to Magdalena 50 years ago, when she had her first encounter with Chrono and had not yet merged with the genes of a demon.

Japanese/English Seiyuus

Chrono: Akira Ishida / Greg Ayres

Rosette Christopher: Tomoko Kawakami / Hilary Haag

Aion: Kazuhiko Inoue / Andy McAvin

Azmaria Hendric: Saeko Chiba / Jessica Boone

Satella Harvenheit: Michiko Neya / Tiffany Grant

Joshua Christopher: Junko Minagawa / Chris Patton

Ewan Remington: Shō Hayami / Jason Douglas

Kate Valentine: Yoshiko Sakakibara / Laura Chapman

Novel

There is a Chrono Crusade novel, it is titled Tsubasa yo, are ga tamashii no akari da, translated as "Wings, they are the light of the soul" ("Wings, they are the light of the soul"). Its publication began on April 20, 2004. Written by Tominaga Hiroshi and illustrated by Miyazawa Hiroshi.

Music

• Opening:"Tsubasa wa Pleasure Line". Singer: Minami Kuribayashi, Production: Elements Garden
• Final: "Sayonara Solitia". Singer: Saeko Chiba, Production: Yuki Kajiura.

The soundtrack of the series was published in two albums titled Chrono Crusade OST - Gospel I and Chrono Crusade OST - Gospel II, under the Miya Records label, in addition to having 4 Drama CDs: Hajimari no Keiyakusha (The Contractor of the Beginning), Eien no Jikan (The time of eternity), Hajimari no Jikan (The time of the beginning) and Chrono Crusade Museum. Both Chrono Crusade OST Gospel 1 and Gospel 2 are the works of composer Hikaru Nanase.

Chapter Guide

1. Pilot - Sister Rosette
2. The Covenant
3. Apostles - The Angel
4. Sinners
5. Militia
6. Invocative Jewelry
7. The devil
8. Rain that Cae - The puppet
9. Joshua
10. We're gonna get married.
11. Gabriel Hound - The Beast
12. Santa Night
13. Train of puppets
14. Invocation - Prayer
15. The persecutors
16. Creyente
17. Propellers
18. Photography - Four people
19. Expansion
20. Temptation - Poison
21. Magdalena
22. Goodbye, Sister
23. Ruin
24. Chrono