Overview

Folks, lemme take a little break from my usual impatient, rude, and generally pissed off nature, in favor of a side that I've been told that I don't show often enough - the fact that I am, at a certain level, something of a hopeless romantic. A little history for those of you that don't know the series - Ah! My Goddess! is one of the longest running manga series around, centering around a student of Nekomi Tech named Keichi. Our young friend is, unfortunately, something of a hapless fellow. Kind, caring, self-sacrificing and willing to put up with practically anything and just smile through it, he doesn't really have a life of his own. Living in a rock-bottom rent dorm room with the Nekomi Motor Club - a club of misfits if there ever were, K1 - shorthand for Keichi - is doing chores and answering phones for the upperclassmen one night when he gets hungry, and decides to order out.

Review

Unfortunately - or perhaps, very fortunately! - he dials the wrong number, and is connected to the Goddess Hot-line, where a woman cheerfully informs him that she'll be right over - and, true to her word, so she is... right through the mirror hanging on the wall behind him! And so we are introduced to Belldandy, Goddess First Class, Unlimited, and one of the most well known characters in all of anime and manga. Belldandy's job with the Goddess Hot-line, is to grant any one wish to those that truly need their luck to change... Keichi, who thinks that this is all a joke being played on him by the upperclassmen because he's too short - not to mention too shy - to get a date, jokingly tells her that he wishes for a goddess like her to stay with him forever...

So began, as I mentioned, one of the longest running mangas in current existence, all the way back in 1988, written and drawn by Kosuke Fujishima. In 1991, a five episode OVA series was also released, and a short, super-deformed series was done in 1998. Most recently, there was the AMG movie, produced and released in 2001. Belldandy, Keichi, and all the rest of the characters have enjoyed a very long and healthy stay in this world, a stay that now has spawned it's first real TV series, to the great joy of many long time fans, such as myself. Just this evening, I watched the last episode of the first season, and even I have to admit that I've been left with the warm'n'fuzzies, but that's only to be expected.

Like many TV series, AMG TV is a sort of reboot to the storyline, starting over from day one. It follows the manga storyline far closer than the OVA did - in no small part because there was far more time to spend on telling the story, of course. One thing I'll say up front - I got chills the first time I heard the opening theme, Open Your Mind by Yoko Ishida, but I was actually rather disappointed in the fact that it WAS sung by Yoko Ishida, and not Kikuko Inoue, the voice of Belldandy, who, up until this series, has sung ALL of the music inspired for the AMG series, along with the rest of the members of the cast, as a group named the Goddess Family Club. That's not to say that the new theme isn't good - it's excellent! Only that I missed a healthy helping of nostalgia because of that decision, heh.

Because this was a TV series, rather than a short OVA, the story was able to take it's time and explore Belldandy and Keichi's first few days together in depth, which helped to both set the tone for the series and leave me with a sort of giddy, 'I know how it began, but damn, this is how it began!' sort of feeling. The TV characters are a bit different from their Manga/OVA counterparts, I have to admit. Keichi is a lot more shy, and I was actually rather disappointed by the end of the first season with just how naive they made Bell - folks, she's always been innocent, but NEVER, never as naive as she's shown to be here... Still, the character mesh was just as perfect here as it's always been. There's just something about Bell and K1 that just feels right, and it's never been just the writing, or just the situation, or even the excellent voice acting.

Events progress with some rapidity along the manga story line, skipping a few of the slower parts as Megumi, Sayoko, Aoishima, Urd, Skuld, Banpei and Marller are all introduced - though rushed compared to the source material, the pacing ended up being just right for the TV format, and the writers chose some of the best arcs to use for the TV episodes. Also helping things along was the fact that the animation was solid. While almost completely CG, it was obvious - to me, at least - that some human touching up had been done in the important places, giving life to a form of animation that often feels plastic to me... Yes, I do miss the days of cell-shading.

As is to be always expected from the voice actors - the core characters have been voiced by the same voice actors ever since the OVA series - the voice work is excellent, and as I mentioned earlier, the songs are beautiful and suit the series well. The background music never manages to get overbearing or even overly repetitive, making for high marks for the general score of the series. My only remark is, as I mentioned... I was really looking forward to Kikuko's new theme song... not Yoko's, heh.

The series ends with the Terrible Master arc, and though I don't want to spoil anything for anybody that hasn't read the manga, I will say that they saved the best for the end of the first season. The Terrible Master arc was a turning point in the manga series as well, so it was a perfect spot to take a break before the second season - and there will be a second season. I'm relatively certain that it's already in production - or at the least, I could swear reading that it was - but beyond that, I don't think that the fans would let them end with only twenty-six episodes! Heh.

You may notice that I've only mentioned a few members of the greater cast in this review - in part, that's because for me, the series has always, and will always focus on Belldandy and Keichi. I won't deny it - I'm biased, heh. But that's also because there are such an incredible number of characters in the AMG universe now that there's a running joke that Fujishima keeps forgetting where he puts the old ones once he's used them and has to keep coming up with new ones. Rest assured, I haven't forgotten them... I just don't have enough web space to list all of them! Heh. But I have to at least mention Urd and Skuld, who both show an enormous amount of character growth in their time in the TV series, above and beyond, I'd venture to say, even their showing in the original manga. Also deserving of special mention is Marller, who makes her animated debut in the TV series.

Overall

So, let's review. We have one beautiful goddess, one shy-but-kind main character, a sizzling hot older sister goddess, a cute and childishly possessive younger sister goddess, excellent writing, beautiful music, and a cast of hundreds to draw on, all wrapped together in a proven story line that only manages to get better with each retelling... I don't know about you, but I can't wait for the second season. Like I said, I admit it... deep down, I'm a bit of a hopeless romantic. And there's just never been a single better love story told in anime than the one told in Ah! My Goddess!. Hey, guys... get your girl, curl up on the couch, wrap her up in your arms, and watch this with her... you'll thank me for the advice later.