One of the newest anime series in Japan, Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne is
winning over a wide audience both in its native land as well as in
the United States. Though the show has yet to come to America,
anime fans are already on the lookout for Kaito Jeanne.
Based on the Manga "Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne" (Heavenly Wind
Thief Jeanne) By Arina Tanemura, Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne is
shoujo anime with fantastic music, wonderful art, and above all a
great story line. It follows the story of a high school student named
Maron. Maron is a part of a rhythmic gymnastics team, and uses
her abilities when she becomes Kaito Jeanne, agent for the heavens.
Jeanne is assisted by a small angel in training named Fin. Fin helps
Maron out by giving her information about new missions, and
guiding her along the way. As Jeanne, it is her duty to find evil
spirits within paintings owned by different people, and drive them
out while collecting the energy for the side of good. When Jeanne
does so, the painting is replaced by an image of an angel, and the
demon turns into a chess piece. If any other person tried to exercise
the spirit, it would probably overtake them, but Maron is a
reincarnation of Jeanne (Joan) of Arc, which gives her the powers of
heaven. On a larger scale, Jeanne's mission is to collect this energy
for the side of good, and at the end of the year 1999 the side with
the most energy will win. (I'm not sure what they win... but it must
be important.)
However, no competition would be complete without
an opposition, and for Jeanne opposition comes in the form of Kaito
Sinbad, agent for the side of darkness. Sinbad fist shows up as
Chikai, a boy roughly the same age as Maron who moves in to the
apartment next to her. At first, Maron is overwhelmed by his
handsome face and suave manner (it doesn't take long before every
other girl at their high school feels the same way) but soon she
becomes disgusted with his popularity and tries to avoid showing
her true feelings for him. Chikai has no such reservations and
makes several public proclamations of his love for Maron, however
she shirks them as idle claims. Things become more interesting as
it's revealed that one of Maron's teachers is the reincarnation of a
knight who was in love with Jeanne - and came back to be with her.
A friend of mine recently purchased the Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne
CD, which features image songs by the different voice actors (an
image song is a song which relates to a specific character, their part