"Angel's Friends! Together forever!"
Angel's Friends (2009-2012) is an animated series loosely based on a comic by Simona Ferri. It is about a trio of teen angel girls who are sent to Earth to help some Earth teens, but a trio of devils are sent to interfere. The series lasted for two seasons and a made-for-television movie entitled Angel's Friends: Between Dream and Reality.
Outside of Italy, the series can be seen on NBC and syndication in the USA, often on digital subchannels trying to meet E/I requirements. The English dub for both seasons can also be watched on YouTube.
Provides examples of:
- Action Girl: Raf and her friends, despite rarely getting into fist-to-fist combat. They use the power from their wings to fight against enemies and/or protect themselves and others from danger.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: The characters' design in the cartoon is much more attractive than the original comic. This provides most of the show's Fanservice.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In a truly odd example, the romance between Raf and Sulfus is original to the animated series. In the comics, Sulfus does have a crush on Raf, but she loves instead an Earthly One named Raoul who was Adapted Out in the animation.
- Adapted Out: Raoul, Ang-Li, Mephisto, Putzo and other characters from the comics don't appear in the animated series.
- Age Lift: In the cartoon, Raf is 15 stars (years) old (which is the equivalent of being a teenager). In the comics, they were younger and their ages varied with Raf being 12, Uri (or Urié) being 11, and Miki being 9. The devils were 13 (Sulfus), 11 (Cabiria), and 10 (Kabale and Gas).
- Arkhan in the comics had black hair and appeared younger. But in the show, he has white hair and appears older.
- All Love Is Unrequited: In the movie, it reveals that Kabale is this towards Sulfus. Among the humans, Edward is this to Jennifer.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Well, Raf does this anyway to Sulfus, despite the fact that she's an angel, and he's a devil.
- All Just a Dream:
- Episode 2 starts with Raf returning from the academy, glad that she's earned her halo, only to find her home abandoned and her teddy bear (which has the voice and the mark of Sulfus) teasing her and saying that the reason her parents left was because they didn't love her. Raf denies this, then everything around her starts to collapse and she wakes up.
- Raf and Sulfus both have a dream where they get married.
- Almost Kiss: Sulfus tries to kiss Raf in the Caves of Obscurity but Raf stops him and reminds him of their rivalry.
- Animesque: Despite being an Italian cartoon, most of the characters have Anime Hair and eyes.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Raf to Sulfus in episode 26. They later kiss.
- Barely-Changed Dub Name: Urié in the original Italian became Uri in the English dub. And Dolce's name was simply translated to Sweet.
- The Earthly Ones are given Anglo equivalents of their original Italian names in the English dub:
- Andrea to Andrew
- Ginevra to Jennifer
- Edoardo to Edward
- Giulia and Elena to Julia and Helen
- Matteo to Matthew among others.
- Battle in the Center of the Mind: Miki, Uri and Sweet go inside Raf's subconscious at one point and battle a chalk-monster.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Raf and Sulfus, oh boy!
- Between My Legs: Sweet in The Rules of the Game.
- Big Bad: Queen Reina, who was once a guardian angel that fell in love with the person that she was meant to protect, thus becoming the enemy of both angels and devils. Turns out that Reina's Start of Darkness was caused by Raf's mother's disappearance, and everything in the series was manipulated by Cassidy and Kubral.
- Big Good: Angelie, Raf's mother who was a human with the powers of an Eternal. She had the power to end wars even they are beginning, which is the reason why Cassidy and Kubral kidnapped her. She serves as a liason between both of Angels and Devils.
- The Big Damn Kiss: Raf and Sulfus finally kiss in episode 26 much to the joy of Reina and fangirls. note
- Orbital Kiss: This too, in episode 27.
- Big Eater / Obsessed with Food: One of Gas' defining traits.
- Delicious Distraction: This can backfire on him.
- Butterfly of Transformation: Done literally with Sweet's butterfly familiar, Butterfly which she uses to transform into a human and back.
- Calling Your Attacks: Both and the angels and devils like doing this.
- Canon Foreigner: Sweet, Misha, Reina and many other characters from the animated series are original to it and don't appear in the comic books.
- Catchphrase:
- "Angel's friends! Together forever!"
- During transformation sequences the angels say: "To guard and protect!"
- And the devils: "To curse and confuse!"
- Cerebus Syndrome: Once Reina is freed from limbo, things aren't quite so happy-go-lucky anymore.note
- Chekhov's Gun: The tears on Raf's hankerchief and the memory of sacrilege on Sulfus' glove are used to create a spider that when bitten by it can counteract the VETO, making Raf and Sulfus able to touch without hurting themselves.
- The Chosen One: Raf.
- Council of Angels: The High Spheres. The devils get the Low Spheres.
- Cut Short: The series ends with Blue freeing Reina from Limbo. This angered most of the show's fans.
- Dating Catwoman: Raf and Sulfus, altough you can hardly call him a villain due to the demons nature.
- Dark Magical Girl: Cabale and Kabiria, though they're devils but are not evil. Also Blue, to a certain extant. Sulfus and Gas are male examples.
- Deadpan Snarker: Seems to be a requirement for devils.
- A Dog Named "Dog": Sweet has a Butterfly familiar named Butterfly. Also, "Reina" means "Queen" in Spanish.
- Dub-Induced Plot Hole: In one episode, Jennifer comes down with a fever. Her temperature is animated on a thermometer in Celsius but is spoken in Fahrenheit due to it being translated from Italian to American English.
- Eat the Camera: Episode 17 sees Urie posing as a doctor to help with Jennifer's fever. She tells her to open up and say "Ahh", to which Jennifer reluctantly does, and the camera zooms into her mouth, focusing on her large uvula and sickly tonsils.
- Electric Torture: In the series finale, Kubral and Cassidy does this to Raf and Sulfus in the Final Battle in an attempt to kill them. Only stopped by Arkhan and Temptel.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The demons value their friendship very much and are very supportive of each other. For instance, Cabale brought Breakfast in Bed to Kabiria when she was recovering from poisoning. As for Kabiria herself, she insisted to stay longer in the collapsing school just to save a cat, though she is not supposed to value other creatures' lives.
- Evil Knockoff: Cassidy and Kubral once imprisoned Sulfus, who would not obey even if blackmailed. Then they made a docile clone from one of his hair lock, presumably used for DNA. What was the clone actually made of remains a mystery but he was more fragile than an average person. He dissolved under the dissonant vibrations of Raf's heart, while humans, demons and angels were injured but stayed alive.
- Evil Overlord: Cassidy and Kubral, the true villains of the show, are the leaders of their own armies. They kickstarted the entire events of the show by instigating the Eternal War, which is stopped by VETO.
- Expy: Raf share many similarities with Bloom, the main protagonist from the Winx Club. Both girls are winged humanoids, with Raf being an angel and Bloom being a fairy; they're the Rookie Red Ranger in their respective groups, their main color is blue; with Raf's new powerup near the end of season 1, both girls have the ability to control fire; and to top it all off, both girls were at one point voiced by Liza Jaqueline, who voiced Bloom in the original 4kids dub.
- Extranormal Institute: The Golden School, where angels and devils learn how to protect and tempt.
- Facial Markings: Sulfus has his iconic red star over his eye.
- Failure Is the Only Option: While the angels do succeed in getting some of the kids to do the right thing, the show's creators have said that they will never get to finish their task. Maybe next season?
- Female Angel, Male Demon: The two main protagonists.
- Forced to Watch: In the Veto temple, Raf is trapped under a glass box. She sees Sulfus caught in a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown with Blue, then Kubral using Electric Torture on him. Having to watch while cannot helping the boy she loves is too much to keep up with for Raf. She reactive the destructive power of her heart to break the box-and destroy the Veto scale, by the same occasion. It's exactly what the villains wanted.
- For the Evulz: The devils, a lot of the time.
- Friendly Enemy: The angels and demons dynamic.
- Frills of Justice: Downplayed, as angels and demons, when they transform, simply appear with mundane human clothes. Their original costumes actually look more impressive. Played straight, however, with the Frilly Upgrade below.
- Frilly Upgrade: The Rainbow Motif costumes of the eight characters.
- Gratuitous English: Plenty in the original Italian, usually it's a case of Calling Your Attacks. Some examples include "Speed Fly", "Meteo Fly", "Body Fly", and plenty others. Another example is the Angel's Friends catchphrase: "Angel's Friends! Together forever!"
- Green-Eyed Monster: Raf and Sulfus are easily jealous, despite strictly into each other. They thought of their hot teachers as rivals (twice, once because of Reina's manipulation). Not to mention the moments when Raf pretended to be in love with someone else, hoping Sulfus would forget her, or when she was manipulated into thinking he cheated on her with Sweet.
- God Save Us from the Queen!: Queen Reina, due to her status as the Big Bad.
- Good Angel, Bad Angel: The show's premise
- Goth: The devils' preferred style.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Cassidy and Kubral, the two warlords that started the war between Angels and Devils, and the ones who are indirectly responsible for Reina turning evil, Angelie's disappearance, and the events that Raf and Sulfus have faced.
- Guardian Angel: The heroin and her three friends.
- Healing Hands: Sulfus gets these later in the series. He uses this power to heal his comrades.
- Honorary Princess: In the last episode, Blue is called Princess Blue by one of the guards of the Limbo's gate. Justified as Blue then turns out to be the daughter of Reina, who proclaimed herself queen of the limbo.
- I Can Explain: Sulfus, to Raf, right after she witnessed a kiss between Sweet and Sulfus 's evil clone. Sulfus, who just escaped from jail, tries to explain to Raf the existence of his clone but she won't listen. Granted, the clone has just disappeared, dissolved into thin air when deadly vibrations emanated from Raf's broken heart.
- In the Hood: Maliki, who hides himself from people by wearing this.
- Invisible to Normals: Angels and devils can't be seen, heard or touched by humans until they take on human form. Though Raf isn't sure if this applies to dogs too...
- Ironic Echo: In episode 2, the main duo see Andrew's friend Jacob getting picked on by three bullies:Raf: What do you mean; three against one?! That's not fair!Sulfus: Let me think about it...you could slap a fine on them!
- Then later when Urie and Sweet show up to help Raf in a challenge:
Sulfus: Three against one? It's not fair!Raf: Slap a fine on me! - Jack of All Trades: Maliki. Throughout the series, he is an everyman, operates a steamroller, drives a bus, flies an airplane, serves as a librarian, as a hot-dog seller and as a DJ. Not to mention that he was an alchemist able to make love potions. Really, there is no task this guy cannot perform.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Sulfus is arrogant and bitter cold, but he has a softer side.
- Kill and Replace: Non-lethal version. Cassidy and Kubral make an obedient Evil Knockoff of Sulfus to seduce Sweet, when the later, even at the cost of the life of Raf's mother, refuses to kiss another girl than Raf. During the meantime the clone was impersonating Sulfus, the real one was imprisoned.
- Killed Off for Real: Maliki, only moments after he recovered his freedom and told Raf that she is his daughter.
- Locked in a Room: Raf and Sulfus get trapped in the Caves of Obscurity.
- Ten Minutes in the Closet: Reina purposely pulls this to try and get them together.
- Lonely Rich Kid: Both Helen and Julia (Raf's newly assigned Earthly Ones) are upset because people only hang out with them because of their wealth.
- Love Across Battlelines: Sulfus and Raf.
- Love Potion: When Reina was an angel she tried to make her human, Malachia fall in love with her using his own love potion on himself. It doesn't work...
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Maliki, to Raf, in the end of season one.
- Magical Camera: Urie's got one of these. Turns out to be very handy when Raf's friends need to prove her innocence by going through Raf's memories.
- Missing Mom: Raf's mother was lost when she was a young kid. It was revealed that her mother was abducted by two warlords named Cassidy and Kubral, the Greater-Scope Villains of the entire series that indirectly caused Reina's Start of Darkness.
- Official Couple: Raf and Sulfus. Their love and relationship make up much of show's drama.
- Once an Episode: A kid is being tempted to do something bad. The angels and demons will have a competition to see who goes first. However, the kids don't always listen to who got to them first, which actually makes more sense in context. Another example is...
- Opening Narration: By Raf; explaining a topic either the angels and devils or the humans will go through in the episode.
- Operation: Jealousy: Reina exploits the trope in season 1, by making her spider biting Gabriel and Misha, who then develop feelings towards Raf and Sulfus. As the first became clingy with the latter, Raf and Sulfus experience a Green-Eyed Epiphany, which prompt them to declare their sentiments to each other.
- Orcus on His Throne: Cassidy and Kubral are mostly seen sitting on their thrones in the Underlair, where they keep Angelie, Raf's mother.
- Our Angels (and Devils) Are Different: And in more ways than one, much to their superiors' chagrin; as far as they're concerned, this trope especially applies to Raf and Sulfus...
- Perky Goth: Kabale is a bit more upbeat than her fellow devils.
- Pink Means Feminine: Sweet is definitely the girliest out of the group.
- Playing with Fire: Sulfus has an ability called "Fire Fly". And later Raf, with her "Enflame!"
- Rainbow Motif: The new costumes of the eight heroes at the end of season one- by adding pink and replacing indigo by turquoise.
- Really Royalty Reveal: Subverted. Reina tells Raf that her parents were the king and queen of a powerful empire, who died in a battle between angels and demons. But it's a lie: her parents are Maliki, a scientist turned alchemist, and Angelie, an "ordinary woman", according to herself.
- Red Right Hand: Sulfus once had an Evil Knockoff, made in order that Sulfus's imprisonment get unnoticed. He can be distinguished from the original to his purple hair lock. Others characters notice it, but brush it off quickly, thinking Sulfus was just trying a new look.
- Romantic False Lead: Played with. Sulfus and Raf have no proper rivals, but in season 2 Cassidy and Kubral exploit the trope in order to break Raf's heart and obtain a revealing vibration from it. They first blackmail Sulfus into kissing Sweet. When he refuses, they replace him with an evil clone. In the meantime, Sweet had fallen for the human Alexander. A dose of venom make her hallucinate, and she sees Alexander instead of Sulfus. She then accepts a kiss from Clone!Sulfus, and Raf walks into an horrible scene-her lover kissing one of her best friends. Raf's heart then break in a spectacular, destructive way.
- While imprisoned during the time his clone was impersonating him, Sulfus noted that his jailer, Blue, is in love with him. He charms her and seems about to kiss her through his cell's bars, but it's a ruse: he knocks Blue out by smashing her head against the bars once she is close enough, and steals her keys to run away.
- Rose-Haired Sweetie: Sweet, of the cheery and optimistic type.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Sulfus has a snake as a familiar.
- School Play: In the made-for-television movie, the angels and demons masquerade as theater's teachers for the class of the kids they usually look after. During their summer camp, the latter must stage a play. Take a wild guess-it's Romeo and Juliet. Plus the two main actors finally have health problems, forcing Sulfus and Raf to play the titular characters. The latter make the remark, just before entering the stage, that this story with Feuding Families remind her of theirs.
- Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains: This trope is subverted and inverted with the Devils. Though the Devils are more or less Anti Heroes, they wear more modest clothes than the Angels, whose outfits are rather skimpy. However, this trope is completely inverted with Reina.
- Shipper with an Agenda: Reina is a villainous version. She wants Raf and Sulfus to kiss in order to commit the Sacrilege that will free her from her chains.
- Shout-Out:
- Raf's friends, Uri, Sweet, and Miki, control storms, illusions, and ice respectively. Basically, like the Trix from Winx Club. Also, Cabiria was redesigned to look like Stormy respectively.
- Sailor Moon can be seen during the Halloween special, as an angel, not a costume.
- Shown Their Work: Raf, Urie, and Miki, are references to Rafael, Uriel, and Micheal, biblical angels. There is also a Gabi for the more well-known Gabriel. Dolce just means "Sweet" in Italian, and is called by her translated name in the English version.
- Single-Target Sexuality: Raf and Sulfus, for each other (the later rebuff Cabale, then Blue). Paradoxically, it does not prevent them to be easily jealous, thinking of their hot teachers as rivals (twice).
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: Raf and Sulfus' relationship. Actually done literally in episode 26 when they both hit each other and then make up with a kiss.
- Star-Crossed Lovers:
- Poor Raf and Sulfus, they aren't even allowed to touch each other.
- The angel Tyco and devil Sai (Raf and Sulfus' predecessors) from the ancient past. Their first kiss brought about the end of a civilization. Oops.
- Stalker with a Crush: Blue, a Neutral from Limbo, tries to seduce Sulfus.
- Start of Darkness: The animated series' Big Bad Reina was once a guardian angel like any other, until she fell in love with the man she was meant to watch over. Just like what Cassidy and Kubral wanted.
- Stripperiffic: The main cast of angels, with the exception of Miki, wear pretty skimpy and revealing outfits that shows their belly buttons, legs, you name it.
- Supernatural Gold Eyes: Sulfus and Kabale have these and are notorious trickster devils.
- Tall, Dark, and Snarky: Sulfus. And Cabiria, maybe.
- Temporary Bulk Change: In the first round of the Tournament of Light and Dark, Gas uses Fat Fly against Miki. The attack makes her extremely fat, such so she can't move her body and has to withdraw from the battle before Gas shots her. She returns to normal after the round ends.
- Tin Tyrant: Cassidy and Kubral are tyrannical warlords who are mostly seen with their medieval-like armors that enchances their abilities.
- Title Theme Tune: Although both versions are sung to the same tune, the English theme song is an example, but not the original Italian theme.
- Transformation Sequence: The angels and devils use this to turn into normal looking humans, while passing from the Path of Metamorphosis.
- Tournament Arc: The Tournament of Light and Dark.
