Oh My Goddess 36

Kosuke Fujishima – Dark Horse – 2010 – 41+ volumes

Yes, it is still one of my favorites. Not in any absolutely fantastic way, but because it’s comfortable to read after all this time. I say it every time, but it bears repeating. You really do fall in love with the characters.

This was an interesting story about everyone losing their memories due to a Skuld device blowing up, and how they would react to one another and feel each other out if they didn’t know who even they were. They maintain most of their personalities, but they don’t know anything about themselves or others. They use clues, like the fact that the Goddesses have marks on their foreheads that mean they are somehow related (I had forgotten those were even there), that Megumi and Keiichi were the only ones with shoes that entered and left the temple, that Keiichi was likely the owner since the only guys’ room was clearly a single guys’ room and not that of a married man, stuff like that. Velsper shows up at one point to throw a wrench in the works, telling everyone that Belldandy is his wife and that Urd and Keiichi are together, stuff like that.

This storyline can only go towards a cute scene between Keiichi and Belldandy. It gets there. It’s not anything we haven’t seen before, but any romantic scene between those two is a small victory. Amazing, considering they are as comfortable together as any married couple save when it comes to romance.

Also, Keiichi is wearing a very unfortunate outfit through the entire volume.

It brought out the best in a lot of characters, and even a little bit of the worst in Belldandy. It was a lot of fun to read, and an unusual story in the context of the series despite the gimmick being such a cliche elsewhere. Again, not earth-shattering great, but wonderful when done with these characters. I miss Peorth.

Also, because I don’t review the other new volumes of the series (since I’ve already talked about them in the old format), volume 16 has the wonderful World of Elegance story, and also namedrops Judge Dredd in the back. Since catching up on years of the good Judge’s exploits is one of the reasons I haven’t been updating lately, I was happy to see his name come up for about the first and only time in the editor’s notes of a manga. And it was Oh My Goddess. YES. Though I would disagree about Urd making a good Judge. Romance is kind of her thing.

Oh My Goddess 35

Kosuke Fujishima – Dark Horse – 2010 – 41+ volumes

That “Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga” used this series as its inspiration to do better saddened me a little, because this really isn’t that bad. It’s formulaic, but it’s way less trashy than similar series, and the characters are easy to get attached to. It’s true there are lots of stereotypes at work here, but they’re easy to forgive because they’re twenty years old and less common at this point, and also because it’s easy to pass off some of the bigger offenses as “groundbreaking” and pretend that all those other series copied this one. Which is true to some extent, but I’m sure this still borrowed from what was available at the time.

The stories are still very sweet though. This volume finishes up the Skuld/Sentaro story from the last volume. It’s sentimental, but I think the buildup was better than the conclusion, especially since the conclusion features the usual Urd/Skuld fight and a typical cop-out of the sad situation. It’s still been my favorite story of the past several volumes, though.

Later, there’s a semi-haunted camera. Sort of. It’s really just a camera with personality that won’t take pictures of anything except beautiful women. It’s interesting that in both this story and the Skuld one earlier, the Goddesses are using their powers over time, something that doesn’t often happen, so maybe things are starting to take more of a turn. Belldandy uses her powers of the present to develop old film, saying the pictures are moments in time that have been captured, and she simply needs to trace them back and make them clear. Ultimately, the story doesn’t directly involve any of the characters (though we do briefly get to see the long-gone Aoshima), but the meandering mysteries that lead to out-of-the-way places, frequently with happy endings, are part of why I enjoy this series so much. Stopping to smell the roses is what it does best, so much so that I forget that the main couple is still embarrassingly awkward around each other.

There’s one more story at the end focusing on Megumi. She keeps getting dumped by her boyfriends for being Megumi Morisato, biker chick. She’s drunk and sad about this, but it’s unclear where things will go from there. That’s a story for next volume.

Yup, still the same old Oh My Goddess. After a couple disappointing volumes earlier in the 30s, I’m happy that the last few have returned to all the things that make me like this series so much.

Oh My Goddess 13

Kosuke Fujishima – Dark Horse – 2009 – 40+ volumes

I’m very close to lapping myself on this site.  Actually, looking back at material I’ve already covered, yes, this will be the last review I write for these old volumes, since the first one I posted was the original volume 14, and the new volume 14 has a lot of (or most of) the same material.  Hm.  And I was all ready to write up volume 14, too.  I read that one first, as soon as I got it, and realized I still had 13 laying around somewhere when I went to put 14 away.  Both are good, but 13 has some of the best stories in the series.

There are three stories.  The middle story features Sayoko, who’s fallen victim to some sort of Urd parasite that makes her doubt everything, and the plot is that Belldandy has to convince her that she’s really a goddess.  Sayoko was never my favorite character, but this story was pretty entertaining, and I loved the lengths that Belldandy and Urd go to in order to convince her.  Seeing Belldandy’s goddess transformation, and having her call Holy Bell (was this the first time?) were also treats for me.  But even so, this story is the “dud” of the volume.  The other two are fantastic and character-driven.

The first one of the volume goes back to Skuld, who is still trying to master her powers.  She meets Sentaro, a neighborhood kid, and the two develop a mutual adorable crush.  Skuld learns about her powers, love, Sentaro and she get closer, blah blah blah.  It sounds sappy, and it is, and in any other series it would probably be boring.  But in Oh My Goddess, it’s magical, and it makes me like Skuld, one of my least favorite characters.

It’s also worth pointing out that this volume came out at the same time as 34, which goes back to Sentaro for the first time since this story.  To have both of them at once in English is nice, and I’m secretly wishing that the series re-launch was planned specifically for this event.

The last story in the volume introduces a new character, Chihiro, a strong female character who was the founder of the NIT Motorcycle Club.  From her, it passed to Tamiya and Otaki, and from them, to Keiichi (and from Keiichi to Sora, but that’s later).  Her introduction features a weird bike race between she and Keiichi, which was enjoyable and very much in the spirit of the series, even if I’m not into the motorcycle bits.  The last chapter in the volume is still one of my favorites of all time though, and re-reading it is an absolute joy.  Chihiro sends Keiichi and the others on a treasure hunt around the campus to find something that Tamiya and Otaki hid years ago.  The hunt itself is great, but what they find, and Belldandy’s little talk at the end, is another one of those things that make this series magical.  And the fact that such a great chapter is dedicated to a brand-new character also says something about the strength of the writing.  It’s weird saying that about Oh My Goddess, but it’s very true.  It’s a great series.

For the record, I like the old name of that Chihiro chapter, which I know without even checking was called “Forever Grrls.”  There’s a reason that sticks in my memory, but even so, it’s more memorable than… and this one I did have to look up, “Let’s Go Feminine.”

Keep reading the old stuff, for sure, because these teen volumes have some of the best stories.  But again, I’m only going to talk about 35+ from here on out.  A shame.

Also, don’t look at my old reviews.  They’re… old.  And terrible.  I just did, and I regret it immensely.  It’s like a different person, possibly in their teens, wrote them.

Oh My Goddess 34

Kosuke Fujishima – Dark Horse – 2009 – 40+ volumes

I was happy that this volume was better than some of the recent ones.  There’s a short story at the beginning of the volume that gets back to some of the basics of the series: motorcycles and making people happy.  Belldandy even casts a little mischief magic trying to help things, which involve Tamiya and Otaki trashing Chihiro’s shop and doing “manly” mods to customer’s bikes while she was out.  Amidst all this, there is a mod that did make a customer happy, and they gained a part that made Chihiro happy while doing the mod, so the story had a happy ending, and also a light touch.  The light touch is very, very important in this series, I think.  I do like the serious stories, especially the ones involving Heaven and the Goddesses and whatnot, but I think its stories like this that make the series as enjoyable as it is, even still.

The motorcycle parts were never my favorite thing, though.  This volume goes into an obscene amount of detail.  I’m happy to pass over it, because it’s not important, but maybe I’m in the minority and there are people that read the series for its attention to detail concerning motorcycles and engines and whatnot.

The second story ends on a cliffhanger and apparently carries over into the next volume, and stars Skuld and her beau Sentaro, from way back when.  Their romance is still on, though Sentaro is being a little evasive and Skuld can tell he is keeping something from her.  This story is so unbelievably cute I was afraid my teeth would rot out of my head, but then, it’s got one of the better stories in the series to base itself on (the Sentaro story is still probably one of Skuld’s better stories).  I don’t even like Skuld that much, and I still love this story.  When Sentaro finally tells his secret, Skuld replies with one of the most optimistic talks I’ve ever seen, and then truly opens up to him.  It was pretty great.

For the record, I was a little ashamed of myself that I couldn’t stop laughing at Urd’s “straight talk” medicine.  It wasn’t that funny, but even thinking about it now cracks me up a little.  Keiichi’s responses were just perfect.

The bonus letters columns in the back have a new edition in the form of all of Kosuke Fujishima’s commentary from Afternoon magazine over the years.  He has a little blurb that goes with every chapter where he sometimes responds to reader’s questions, and starting with this volume, we’re going to get them all from the beginning.  Predictably, they go into pornographic detail about motorcycles and engines.  Ah, well.  I still like that they’re there.

I like this series.  A lot.  Enough, in fact, that this was read immediately when I opened a big box of comics with other things I would probably like more in it.  Belldandy’s just too charming to put down.

Oh My Goddess 33

Kosuke Fujishima – Dark Horse – 2009 – 39+ volumes

I reviewed this for the weekly Manga Minis column at Popcultureshock, so you can check out my review over there.

Admittedly, I like this series, and I tend to say the same thing about it every time.  But after being vaguely disappointed with the last volume and feeling a bit out of sorts while reading it, I was pretty happy with a return to basics in this one.  We get weird vehicles, we get a not-quite-race, we get meddling, we get the characters being themselves with just a smidge more interaction betwee Keiichi and Belldandy than is usual, which is certainly a welcome change.

It’s just a nice series to read.  I like all the characters, I like Oh My Goddess, and that’s all there is to it.

Oh My Goddess 32

Kosuke Fujishima – Dark Horse – 2009 – 39+ volumes

Wow, what a weird volume.  The most notable thing about it was probably how out-of-character Belldandy seemed.  Now, normally Belldandy hides her jealousy and protectiveness of Keiichi pretty well behind a solid wall of naivete, but here… well, within the first few pages, she flat-out tells the Gate “no” when she asks Keiichi to teach her about romance, and then admits to being very narrow-hearted when it comes to Keiichi.  This was… this was just beyond weird.  It sounded very wrong coming from her.  Usually she would find some polite way to turn the Gate down, or find some way of avoiding the subject.  Here… she just says no, and then admits to being selfish.  What happened, Belldandy?  Did character development happen while I wasn’t looking?

The next story was a confrontation between the Goddesses and a species of water-dwelling creatures called Lorelai (a type of German river mermaid apparently unique to a bend in the Rhine river).  They wage war, and I thought this would turn into one of those nice, long, epic storylines that used to come up but hasn’t in a while.  It, uh… doesn’t quite pan out that way.  There is a misunderstanding.  There’s lots more of Belldandy acting strangely out-of-character about Keiichi, but to be fair, the Queen Lorelai is trying to steal him, and is being rather rude about it.  Belldandy is pretty obvious about a kiss at the end of the story, which is incredible given the fact this is Oh My Goddess, and the two of them have kissed maybe three times total.  Even more incredibly, it was given out of jealousy.  I’ll say it again: what?!

Keiichi continues to be a wimp. It’s good that some things never change.  He’s got a kind of reverse mullet going on lately, which I haven’t mentioned and probably should.  It’s the same hairstyle he’s always had, just with more detail, and quite frankly, it’s business in the back and party in the front.

The other weird thing about this volume is that Peorth is gone.  I didn’t think that would actually happen.  Maybe she’ll be back.  For as little as Urd and Skuld contributed to this volume, you wouldn’t think another Goddess would have made a difference, but I miss Peorth.  I like her a lot.

Yeah… this volume just made me feel uncomfortable.

Oh My Goddess 12

Kosuke Fujishima – Dark Horse – 2009 (2nd ed) – 40+ volumes
note: this new edition contains material from “The Fourth Goddess” (2001), unnumbered, but 12th in the original unflipped graphic novel lineup.

I reviewed this book for the Manga Minis column at Manga Recon, so you can check out my review over there.

Truthfully, I didn’t bother to check how many volumes Oh My Goddess was actually up to.  I assume it’s 40 at this point.

And yeah, I still like it, which is all I have to report outside of what I wrote in that review.  The only other thing that bears mentioning is that… wasn’t Peorth’s angel called “Le Rose Magnifique” in the original editions?  She’s called Gorgeous Rose here, and the internet seems to substantiate this, as does Oh My Goddess Colors, which usually mentions changes from edition to edition.  I prefer “Le Rose Magnifique” since I like Peorth’s French language tendencies, and I had a whole thing written up about it, but I can’t find any evidence that was what she was called and I don’t have my older editions here with me.  Maybe I just hallucinated that name.

Oh My Goddess Colors

I reviewed this for this week’s Manga Minis column at Manga Recon, you can check out my review over there. I talk about how it’s a good introduction to the series, which is very true.

I’m glad this finally came out.  I’m not sure why I bought it, I wasn’t originally planning to.  I think the delays that took two years to resolve built pressure that eventually made me feel obligated to purchase it.  I’m glad I did.  I like the idea that it collects four chapters spotlighting each of the four goddesses, but I was disappointed that Belldandy’s chapter was the very first chapter of Oh My Goddess (there are plenty of other good Belldandy chapters, though maybe they are all involved in major plotlines), and the Peorth chapter was from the volume I just read.  I like Peorth, but she was definitely a character that got better with age.  I’m not sure when this book came out in Japan, but perhaps it was before Peorth got a lot of story time.  That Urd chapter is probably one of my favorites in the series though, and the Skuld chapter is essentially just like it.

And… that introduction.  THAT INTRODUCTION.  It was short, but I was absolutely dying.  It compared the structure of the series to an old Fujiko Fujio series, talked about how Love Hina is a more interesting series, calls attention to plot holes, and uses the absolute most unflattering descriptions in the world to summarize the series (Great Moments in the Plot of OMG: Volume 8: Keiichi tells Belldandy “I love you,” except he accidentally sorta-says it to Skuld instead.  Volume 24: Keiichi looked as if he was going to kiss Belldandy on the cheek.  Volume 30: Keiichi successfully borrowed an umbrella from a love hotel.).  Plus, the opening page appropriately showed the change in Belldandy’s character design over the years.  It was awesome.

EDIT:  The review from Manga Recon, since that site went down –

Let’s let Oh My Goddess! Colors sum up the series for us: “An amusing inhuman dependent roommate moves in, the sisters come along as well, and then, together with their wacky friends in town, all sorts of wacky situations take place! One after another!” Also: “The story of Oh My Goddess! revolves around the relationship between Belldandy and Keiichi Morisato… that goes nowhere. Devoid of any actual developments between the two, it’s a romance that sort of wanders aimlessly through thirty-plus volumes, like a derelict.”

And so you have it, Oh My Goddess! is sort of the father of modern harem series, but significantly more charming than that makes it sound. This book was created to celebrate the longevity of the series in Japan—I believe the 20th anniversary was last year—but also serves as a great guide for anyone who feels daunted by the series’ length and strange US release history. After a hilarious eight-page introduction, the bulk of the book contains four colorized best-of chapters, one spotlighting each of the four goddesses. In the back, it has an encyclopedia with just about every item and person from the first 30 volumes and a guide (including summaries) for every chapter in the series. The material in the back has the benefit of the Carl Gustav Horn touch, so expect the entries to be of the same quality as the end notes in The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.

It’s everything you could possibly want to know about Oh My Goddess!. Don’t expect any new chapters if you’re an old fan, but it does work as a wonderful look at the best parts of the series, and is probably the best place to start if you wanted to know if Oh My Goddess! is for you.

Oh My Goddess! Colors is available now.

Oh My Goddess 11

Lucky!  I had been puzzling over volume 31 and why it was that Peorth was so insistent on getting Keiichi to tell Belldandy he loves her before she had to go back to Yggdrasil.  I forgot her introduction, which was in this volume.  Keiichi accidentally called her up on the Goddess Hot Line for a wish, and after seeing the sad, shy state Keiichi was in, Peorth decided her mission was to get Keiichi to admit his feelings since he didn’t have a true wish for her to grant.

And… yeah.  20 volumes later, THE MAIN CHARACTER HAS STILL NOT ADMITTED HIS FEELINGS FOR THE LOVE INTEREST.  In a way, I was pleased that Peorth’s mystery was solved.  On the other hand, it made me hate myself for liking this series so much.

And yeah, I still like it.  I like Peorth a lot, actually, even though her introduction here isn’t all that special.  I was kind of sad to re-read it after all this time, because it’s full of pretty generic laughs (Urd, Skuld, and Peorth have a contest to see who’s the most helpful Goddess, Peorth tries to grant Keiichi’s desires by taking baths with him and sleeping with him, that sort of thing).  She gets a better role later, when she’s sort of a sly friend.  I’m also pretty glad they kept her random French phrases for this edition, I know that was a point of contention, and I was worried it would be lost in favor of authenticity.

The end of the story about Urd splitting into good and evil sides is in this volume, too.  I like that story a lot, but it’s not quite as good as the Lord of Terror storyline from earlier.  It’s just not as epic.  Urd uses some powerful magic, but it’s just a battle with herself, nobody seriously tries to intervene and nobody else is really in any danger.

This was sort of a mediocre volume, but Peorth’s introduction makes it pretty notable.

Oh My Goddess 31

You know, in a series as long and episodic as Oh My Goddess, you’re going to get the volumes that suck.  There’s not a lot you can do about it.  It happens.  This is one such volume.

We get some carryover from last volume where, for whatever reason, Peorth is trying to get Keiichi to say “I love you” to Belldandy.  She is very desperate about it.  This desperation is not explained (or perhaps the explanation was not adequate and I missed it… perhaps she just wanted to see it before she left), but after awhile Urd sees what’s going on and she joins in the fun.  Belldandy sees Keiichi’s practice “I love you” to Peorth.  Hijinx ensue.

After this, Peorth is forced to go back to Heaven because… well, I guess she was just on vacation?  I was a little bummed about this since she’s a regular character now, but her plans are stopped and a new character is introduced: the gate, which takes the form of a little girl.  Now, normally the new characters are awesome.  Peorth, Hild, and Lind are all celestial characters introduced within the last… well, 15 or so volumes that are awesome.  The gate is… well not so much.

The gate is on strike because she needs to experience things in the human world, so Peorth can’t go back until she’s been satisfied.  Her stipulation?  She wants to experience love and/or a real kiss.  Right.  You can see where this goes.  She also apparently reads a lot of yuri manga (or I assume that’s what she’s holding, though on closer inspection, the one in the foreground looks kinda like two men, while there’s definitely a girl with pigtails on the one behind… maybe a mix of yaoi and yuri?  or maybe the one in front just has girls with short hair).  So Urd, Skuld, Peorth, and Belldandy are all part of this, and not just Keiichi.

No fun at all.  I like the contests, a little tension, and the sweetness of the characters.  Here, things were too direct in the “I love you” storyline, there was no contest, and the new gate character just wasn’t very fun.  I don’t know.  Maybe next time.