My first encounter with Chrno Crusade was when the anime was still airing. I ended up gripped by it - following it weekly - until the tragic (yet satisfying) conclusion. And whilst I did not give it top marks due to its rushed Gonzo 'original story' second half, it did impress and move me.
Until last month, this was the end of myself and Chrno Crusade ('CC' from this point onwards) since I had not started reading manga until long after my memories of the anime had faded away. However, I saw an auction for the complete series and, since I have always wanted to see the full, unedited story, I won it.

The covers of the volumes are truly beautiful and vibrant. The drawings are attractive and the vivid colours help highlight this. And the lovely colour artwork does not end with the covers themselves since every volume has at least one colour page inside; the early chapters having quite a few, where as those near the end have one or two.
As for the standard black and white pages, the art quality is excellent throughout, thanks in no small part to the manga having been serialised monthly; allowing the author a lengthy amount of time to do his work in. The art style has a distinct charm to it and is one of the best aspects of the series.

...I did, however, have some issues following certain parts of the action. A problem that I am sure numerous manga authors share is planning fight scenes to allow the action to flow panel to panel, seamlessly. It must be very difficult to accomplish when restricted to a set amount of pages. Some artists are better at putting stories together and others are good at putting action together, and I feel the author of CC is better at crafting stories than he is at making action. Do not get me wrong, though: the fights were not put together badly and I was able to understand what was going on most of the time.

Before anything else, it is best I give a description of the plot for people unlike me that have yet to watch the anime:

CC comes across as rather silly at first. A nun/exorcist working for the Magdalen Order called Rosette Christopher and her demonic partner called Chrono go on trips around America killing demons. In between these character introduction missions is lots of comedy; some of it as a result of perverted jokes and the majority coming from the dialogue between the main two characters...or rather, coming from Rosette's short tempered personality and poor Chrono getting hit. Thankfully, the story becomes much more interesting and gains depth after the opening chapters - it isn't long before you're shown the tragic events that occurred in the past that resulted in Rosette agreeing to a contract with Chrono where she would give him the power to use his demonic abilities at the cost of her own life (Rosette wears a clock around her neck that ticks away when Chrono uses his powers from that point onwards). Without spoiling too much, all I can really say is that the reason behind Rosette joining the Magdalen Order and fighting together with Chrono is her brother, who went missing prior to the start of the story.

Forgetting about Rosette's brother, the heart of the story is about Chrono and his past as a sinner of Pandemonium (In the CC universe, Pandemonium is the equivalent of what we consider to be hell in our world). Chrono once betrayed his own kind by fighting for Aion (the leader of a group Pandemonium view as sinners) in order to be free from the chains of Pandemonium. However, after the friendship the two shared soured due to a certain person, the two became enemies who walked different paths, leading to the start of the CC story.

What makes the story of CC special is the main theme of the story, which is how people can use what little time they have to the fullest. Rosette is fighting the clock throughout the story as her contract with Chrono causes her to lose a little of her life each time Chrono transforms into his adult/demonic form (he disguises himself as a youngish boy in order not to use his powers and hide his identity) and uses his abilities. Chrono, being the soft-hearted demon that he is, always tries his hardest not to use any of his demonic power, fighting like a human and often simply supplying Rosette with ammunition for her guns. As Rosette selflessly throws away years of her life in order to save her brother and Chrono tries his hardest not to use his powers in order to keep Rosette alive, you can almost feel the unbreakable bond the two share just by reading the pages; they're the best of friends and yet, by fighting together, Chrono can't help but drain the life of the person he cares about the most - it's both touching and tragic.

It's very rare in any fictional story for a relationship between two characters to reach out and touch the heart of its reader/viewer, but that's exactly what Chrono and Rosette's relationship did, in my case at least. What kept me interested in the series wasn't the fact it has nuns with guns (and fairly large buns); it was the relationship of the two main characters. Most of the dialogue came across as natural as the two bonded over the course of the story. They argued and they cried but it was always clear that the two had strong feelings for each other, even if they didn't always express their feelings in words.

Just before shutting up about the story, let me add one complaint about the story that made me give it 8/10 instead of 9/10. I felt that too much story was crammed into the final chapters and not enough was spread over the other volumes. When I was reading the last two volumes I couldn't get rid of the thought that an easy to follow story had suddenly become far more difficult to follow due to the author not pacing it brilliantly. Some of the plot elements, one near the end in particular, lost me and it probably could've been avoided if more time had been spent explaining certain parts of the story.

Now that the most important bits are out of the way I can focus on the less important bits, starting with manga and anime differences. Apart from a death scene in volume seven, the anime diverges completely from the manga towards the end of volume six. But even before the plot diverged completely, there was lots of filler added. For example, Aion appears much earlier (in the flesh) in the anime then he does in the manga, his anime appearance occurring during a zombie outbreak filler story, with him somehow ending up with his tongue down Rosette's throat. Aion also has another filler episode later where it's shown that he uses a human woman (who happens to be madly in lust with him) to kill humans in order for him to use their souls as energy... with Aion somehow ending up nearly raping Satella. Just going on those two examples, it should be clear that both the anime and manga are very different and show the characters in different lights, Gonzo seemingly wanting to turn Aion into a sex pest.

Before my back refuses to allow me to bend over my keyboard typing, the last thing I want to touch upon is the ending of the manga. Surprisingly, both the anime and manga endings are very similar: both end in the same sort of way (I can't elaborate without spoiling) and both stories fast-forward to the future in the epilogue. If I was to choose between the endings, the winner would be the anime ending because... well, it ended the story in a depressing yet peaceful way. And, though I'm sure it was just thrown in to make the story appear far deeper than it really is, I also liked the surprise at the very end of the final episode.

Overall, I loved the story to bits and would recommend it to anyone. If you're looking for a very well done story about someone shortening their own life to achieve their dream, this is for you.

Rating: 9/10

I'm now going to try to rest my poor back. Here's hoping the review helps someone!