Angel Heart (manga)

"For the 1987 horror movie of this name, see Angel Heart."

Angel Heart is an ongoing Seinen Manga series that has been published in Weekly Comic Bunch from 2001 throughout 2010 and currently published by Comic Zenon afterward. It was adapted into a 50-episode Anime series during 2005 through 2006. The series is an alternate history of City Hunter, in which Kaori dies in a car accident and her heart is transplanted into the heroine of this series, a professional assassin who killed herself. Brought back to life with Kaori's heart, "Glass Heart" soon discovers she has Kaori's memories as well. She escapes the organization that trained her and goes in search of Kaori's life, including Chivalrous Pervert Ryo Saeba (the hero of City Hunter).

After the inevitable problems are resolved, Ryo Saeba becomes the former assassin's informal adoptive father (she's only fifteen at the story's beginning) and she takes the name "Xiang-Ying". Soon, she's assisting him in the cases he takes on as a private detective and vigilante, as Kaori did, although in a rather more active role because of her training.

This series displays examples of:


 * Badass Adorable -- Ryo is still the immature, horny and kind-hearted goofball that we fell in love with twenty years ago. Xiang-Ying, Beautiful though she may be, is far too mature and creepy to qualify for this trope.
 * Breaking the Fourth Wall -- In chapter 72, Xiang-Ying tells Xin-Hong that "This hair color doesn't suit you. You should change it. I'm sure the readers agree."
 * Butt Monkey -- Xin-Hong: just look up one entry. ^
 * Cheerful Child -- Miki-chan. She can make Umibozu's melt.
 * Child Soldiers -- Xiang-Ying and the other assassins, who are raised from early childhood to be killers.
 * Chivalrous Pervert -- Ryo Saeba
 * Contract on the Hitman -- Glass Heart's final job from the Organization that trained her was to kill a hitman, and once she goes missing, there's a contract out on her. Several cases in later volumes have to do with this theme as well.
 * Good Feels Good
 * The Heart -- Kaori, who is Xiang-Ying's heart literally and figuratively.
 * Hitman with a Heart -- Xiang-Ying is this (it's why she kills herself; she can no longer bear her line of work) and is it even more once she has Kaori's heart inside her. Ryo is also this, of course, and several other characters.
 * Hyperspace Mallet -- Xiang-Ying inherits the ability to whack Ryo over the head with one from Kaori, and later in the manga Kaori's sister turns up--and she also has the ability. Poor Ryo.
 * Improbable Aiming Skills: Everyone. Almost no Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy skills. That's including blind-as-bat Umibozu and enemies regular soldier.
 * Lady of War -- Fang-Yu Ya; leader of Black Panthers. She claimed that she hates Saeba.
 * Literal Change of Heart -- Pretty much the premise.
 * Neighbourhood Friendly Gangsters -- The Syndicate is full with this; even most of their special operatives turn out to be quite nice guys.
 * Qipao -- Xiang-Ying wears one while working as a waitress in one episode.
 * Real Men Wear Pink: Umibozu's hobby is including taking care of flowers.
 * Sharing a Body -- Xiang-Ying and Kaori
 * The Triads and the Tongs -- The Syndicate that trained Xiang-Ying is a Chinese organized-crime syndicate from Taiwan, which is also the nationality of Xiang-Ying and Xin-Hong.
 * War for Fun and Profit -- But most of the time, their idea of fun is like "helping people in needs" or "making a flower field".
 * We Help the Helpless -- the City Hunter team. Ryo Saeba specializes in helping helpless women, since he's always keen on mixing lechery with work.
 * Apparently this is the hobby of every mercenaries involved with Saeba.