Radiant Review

Welcome to our review of Radiant. Radiant is an anime and a manfra that began in 2013. Nope, I did not spell manfra wrong. Manfra is a French comic book by a French artist drawn in a manga style. Radiant is by French artist and writer Tony Valente. The manfra is published by the French entertainment company Ankama. So here is where it gets interesting. The anime is by Lerche, a Japanese animation studio. Radiant is the first manfra to become an anime. The English dubbing is currently being done by Funimation. Yes, this is an ongoing series. At the time of writing, the anime is in season 2. Radiant is also currently ongoing with an English translation and printed by Viz Media.

Now let us get down to what Radiant is all about. (Warning: There are some spoilers ahead!) I’ll try to keep it down to the bare minimum. The MC (Main Character) is Seth, a young man who has a very mysterious past. Seth has a curse. In this story, a curse happens when a person comes into contact with a Nemeses. Nemeses randomly fall from the sky. These monster-like creatures tend to kill people and destroy towns. Most people in this world are normal humans. The people who fight Nemeses are called Sorcerers. You become a Sorcerer when you get a curse. Once you have a curse you're able to use Fantasia. Fantasia is basically magic energy. Sorcerers channel Fantasia thought magical items. Most normal people hate people with curses for some of the usual reasons someone would hate someone else. Having a curse means you have touched a Nemeses. The curses are random. For Seth, he has horns and is able to use Fantasia without a tool. Some of these curses make people into monsters.

So the story is about Seth and his goal to end the Nemeses threat and bring peace to the world. He’s joined by Mélie, a red headed Sorcerer whose curse is a spirit personality. Mélie is a kindhearted girl who randomly switches to a short-tempered girl who tends to destroy and cause trouble using her Fantasia. These two are joined by Doc. Doc is a Research Sorcerer for Artemis Institute. Artemis Institute is one of the few Kingdoms in the world of Radiant that Sorcerers can live in free. Well, free as in people don’t hate them. The Artemis Institute has a whole thing about money and debt, but that you’ll have to find out for yourself. Mélie works for Doc as his assistant. Doc has a very interesting and surprising curse, but if I tell you what it is, that would spoil to much. The trio are supported by many interesting side characters.

The main enemy group Seth and his friends have to fight are the Inquisition. The Inquisition is an army who have their own Kingdom. The Inquisition like the USA likes to claim they are the world police and tends to be all over the place. The Inquisition believes there is no difference between Sorcerers and Nemeses. That both are evil and need to be wiped out from the world. They also believe they the hero of the people. They use this to justify their acts of evil. The side characters who are part of the Inquisition are often evil people. There are a few exceptions to this. Some of these exceptions become repeat antagonist for our heroes as they go on about their journey.

I find the setting of the world is really interesting. The people live on islands but not in a sea of water. They are in a sea of clouds. The author has yet to raveal what is under the cloud. Most Sorcerers use brooms for travel from island to island while everyone else uses airships in some way. This setting allowed for some spectacular wide shots of new lands and interesting ways to move the story. It also lets each arc Not sure if this is the right word be about one island with each island being a different landscape. This is similar to One Piece storytelling.

Well, I don’t want to spoil too much, so I think it is a very good read with 92 chapters and 12 volumes out. If you don’t want to read it the first season came out back in the winter season of 2018- 2019. Not sure about this either Currently, season two is coming out. As of the writing of this, it is on episode 8 in Sub and episode 6 in Dub. You can find Radiant on a few websites. The official sites for season 2 are Crunchyroll. and Funimation. If you wish to read the manga you can buy the volume or find it available on the Viz Media app. I highly recommend reading or watching it.