Chrono Crusade
Daisuke Moriyama

I’m not usually very fond of manga — there are certain stylistic choices common to the medium that irritate me, not even mentioning the fact that most manga don’t know how to end — they just keep stretching out into the thirties and forties of volumes, like the graphic counterpart to the Animorphs series. But Daisuke Moriyama’s Chrono Crusade really impressed me.

The vision is unique and cohesive, drawing heavily on the resonant power of religious icons, Sinners and Apostles, while talking about something wholly different. It’s set in the Roaring Twenties, which automatically gives you extra historical depth, and it comes to a conclusion in eight volumes. The annoying main-character-as-child flashbacks have a distinct purpose in the storyline, not just mere sentimentality.

But what really impressed me was the way Chrono’s two forms mess with your head. He’s got a boy-form he goes around in, but his true form is older, mature. And even after the older form is revealed as his true form, it keeps flipping back and forth between the two. You get the boy-form Chrono arguing with older Rosette one panel, and the next a flashback with the true-form Chrono protecting a child Rosette, when they first met, and it’s the same relationship. The power balances are boggling, and I love it.