The good news: Hild is still around.

The bad news: chibi-Hild doesn't impress. And while Mara's new Hild-assisted plot is certainly more effective than Mara's usually ploys, still, it doesn't work out.

Chibi-Hild just doesn't have the same aura of danger. She doesn't seem as formidable. And she also doesn't seem as devious.

Big Hild was terrifying. 1/1000th of Hild isn't so much.

I didn't like ep 18. It's a return to the more mediocre level of storytelling which has prevailed throughout the second series.

And I really didn't like how it began. Mara is the enemy. Mara is supposed to be comic relief. But Mara really should be more formidable than she is. And though I want her to lose, and though it's funny to see her frustrated, I didn't want to see her break down and cry. I genuinely like Mara, and that hurt. I felt sorry for her.

This is supposed to be a comedy, guys.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Ah! My Goddess! at 01:33 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 162 words, total size 1 kb.

UPDATE: Ep 17 was amazingly good. Hild is magnificent!

One of the best things about it was watching Mara. Ep commentary, involving at least some spoilers, below the fold:

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Ah! My Goddess! at 11:41 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 595 words, total size 4 kb.

Ep 14 is staying with me. That's the episode in which Noble Scarlett, Skuld's angel, shows up. It bothers me. The problem is that what happened really was in character -- but it isn't what I wanted.

It was too soon. Skuld wasn't ready. But despite what Urd had said, the problem wasn't really that Skuld's power level was too low. The real problem is that Skuld is a kid and just isn't mature enough to properly care for a pet.

I cringed when she slammed Noble Scarlet into the book. I was supposed to, of course. But I didn't like it.

The real problem is that Skuld's motivation was wrong. She had two reasons for wanting an angel: to compete with Urd, and to show off to that boy. Neither of those is the right reason, and that's why she was careless, even approaching cruel, to Noble Scarlet. Noble Scarlet was a tool, a trophy, a badge of achievement -- but not a person.

I guess what Skuld ultimate did to Noble Scarlet wasn't as bad as what Urd did to World of Elegance, but the situation is also not as difficult to retrieve. Noble Scarlet will be back, larger, more powerful, and less independent -- but not until Skuld is really ready.

Yet I hoped for more. I hoped Skuld would grow up. I hated seeing her be so careless.

Maybe part of why I'm disturbed by this is the movie. It's a glance into the future, and it isn't based on the manga. Which is to say they had the freedom to actually advance the story, to make the characters more developed. Skuld is much different in the movie.

For one thing, she really is a lot more mature. For another, she no longer is jealous of Keiichi and no longer tries to interfere. On the contrary, when at one point Beldandy seems ready to give up and go back to heaven, it's Skuld who talks her out of it, and convinces her that Keiichi really does love her.

Skuld also has gained considerable control over her own power in the movie. She still isn't anything like as strong as Urd or Beldandy, but she's no longer at the "levitate a bolt" stage. Noble Scarlet is back, and while she isn't as large as Holy Bell or World of Elegance, she's no longer barbie-doll sized either.

And in the movie, Skuld can fly. That's a big change; it means she's really gained a large measure of power by that point.

She loses her temper at one point. It was pretty impressive. (Based on what had just happened, it's entirely understandable.)

Urd was a lot different in the movie, too. She's the oldest, the most experienced, and with Beldandy having problems, and all kinds of other hell breaking loose, Urd has to be the responsible one -- and is. No sign whatever of her demonic side, her tendency to be a bit sadistic.

Keiichi isn't as much of a wimp in the movie. In fact, I'd say he isn't a wimp at all. Beldandy is still weepy, but not as bad as she has been known to be. All the characters in the movie were... how to put this?

They were more admirable. I think that's it. More sympathetic, too, but I was impressed by them, and wanted to know them. I can't help but feel contempt for the characters in the TV series, and the OVA was even worse, but I don't feel contempt for the characters in the movie. Well, I feel contempt for Otaki and Tamiya even in the movie, but that's not the same. I mean among the primary four characters.

In some ways the movie has spoiled the TV series for me. I've seen the future; I've seen what these characters will become. It isn't as much change as I would have hoped for, but it is a real change. What I would have hoped to see in the TV series is the characters changing, advancing towards that state I've seen in the movie -- and it isn't happening.

It's like the movie isn't really part of the same continuity. It's like it's an "alternate retelling". And that's a damned shame, because it was more interesting, ultimately.

And you know why? It's because Keiichi wasn't a wimp. It's because he made a difference. It's because he fought and won. He did some things that were really hard -- and he succeeded at them because his love for Beldandy had become the center of his life.

Rats. I want to love this -- and I can't.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Ah! My Goddess! at 10:10 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 601 words, total size 4 kb.

Watching the 4th DVD now. Ep 14 was about Noble Scarlett, Skuld's angel, and it wasn't at all what I was expecting.

And now, beginning of Ep 15, we get an onsen episode and Mara is in it! And she's in Keiichi's side of the bath!

Things are definitely looking up. I enjoyed every episode of the first series that Mara was featured in. And you know what? She looks good when she's bathing, too. NSFW below the fold.

UPDATE: Halfway through Ep 15. As Mara's harebrained schemes go, this seems to be one of the better ones, assuming that thing works as advertised.

Of course, since she bought it from the demonic equivalent of the Acme Corporation, it's anybody's guess what it's really going to do. My guess: It's actually going to split Mara, not Urd. Considering how incompetent Mara is as a demon, I'm beginning to wonder if she's another half-breed like Urd.

UPDATE: What do you know? It actually did work.

UPDATE: And of course, Mara loses control afterwards.

The definitive Mara sequence is that she hatches a plot, and it doesn't come out the way she wants it to. Mara is a demon first class, but it's obvious that she isn't really all that evil. Being a demon is a job for her, but not really something she's actually fully dedicated to. It's something she does because she'll be fired if she doesn't, and really that's all it is. (And because her parents were demons. It's the family business.)

Fact is, she doesn't want to be truly mean to anyone. Perhaps that's why I like her. And perhaps part of why she's so bad at her job is that she doesn't really want to succeed, deep down.

It does make you wonder how a bumbler like her made Demon First Class, though. Her power is real, and maybe that was the only requirement. It's kind of too bad she can't switch teams. I get the impression she'd be a lot happier on the other side.

Unfortunately, this story (eps 15 and 16) was largely recycled. It didn't really go quite the way the previous one that being the Lord of Terror arc in the first series went, and it doesn't really measure up -- shorter, less exciting, less terrifying. Kind of too bad.

However, it does lay groundwork for Hild to show up. I know she appears in the next DVD, though I'm not sure if it's ep 17 or ep 18. And I won't find out until January, unless I sell my soul and look for fansubs. (I don't want to be told in comments, please.)

Skuld's machine mostly reunited Divine Urd and Demonic Urd, yielding one body, but now she seems to have a split personality. Probably it's because Mara's urn was partially broken. Presumably Hild will show up and fix Urd.

Through the first four DVDs (of six), the only episodes which felt fresh were the 13 and 14, about Skuld. And now that I think about it, ep 13 (Skuld's bicycle) was a partial recycle job on ep 25 of the first season. (Urd's boy friend, that was.)

Before I started watching the second season, I had wondered why they hadn't done any more beyond this. I'm not wondering any more. I think the director and the production house also could see that the series was losing its magic. And in terms of the manga, by the end of this series we'd only have covered about a third of it, if not less.

In comments we had a discussion a couple of days ago about this, about how the mangaka would really like to advance the plot but isn't being permitted to by his publisher.

As to the anime, while there are things later in the manga I wouldn't mind seeing animated, and characters I wouldn't mind getting to know, it really seems as if what little creative fire there was in the beginning is mostly going out. I think two seasons was about the right time to end it.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Ah! My Goddess! at 07:03 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 335 words, total size 4 kb.

I think maybe the reboot of Yggdrasil hasn't gone perfectly. Isn't a wish supposed to reflect the deep desires of the wisher? How could a wish be granted when the one making the wish doesn't want the result?

I'm glad someone around here besides me knows what the problem is with this series.

UPDATE: In the first series, they usually took two episodes for each new girl that showed up, even if they weren't love interests. Megumi got two; Skuld got two. In this series I guess the pace has slowed. It took them four episodes to tell Peorth's story, and I really did think I would enjoy it more than I did.

So starting ep 11, we get Chihiro. I remember her as a bit part from the movie, and she seemed nice enough. On the other hand, the Peorth in the movie was nothing like the one I just watched, so maybe Chihiro is also going to be nuts.

I'm sad to say, I think it's extremely likely.

UPDATE: Wait a minute! Chihiro has the same seiyuu as Jinto? Yikes.

I like her voice better when she pitches it up and uses it for a female part.

UPDATE: OK, that one was good. Why? Beldandy never started sobbing, that's the biggest reason.

Seriously, Chihiro is an interesting character. I'm wondering how she fits into the continuity. In the movie she was back in the college and was head of the motor club, so I'm wondering if it's going to turn out later that she returns to school for an advanced degree, or something.

UPDATE: Ep 12

UPDATE: Re Troubadour, I'll just say this: What a creep!

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Ah! My Goddess! at 10:15 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 282 words, total size 2 kb.

There's got to be some episode here worth watching. I skipped ep 4 entirely, because I don't want to see Beldandy drunk, loose, and hot. Again. (That happened in the first series, too.)

So, ep 5, on the second DVD, and it's about my least favorite character in the entire series: Otaki. skipskipskipskip.

Well, Otaki is tied with Tamiya for the bottom, I guess I should say. I wonder if the sixth episode will be about him.

UPDATE: No, from the preview, ep 6 is about Beldandy angst. Marvie. I'll watch just enough to see if Mara, or someone like her, is behind it.

UPDATE: No, no demonic influence, but there was some fireworks. Gad, though, I'm tired of seeing and hearing Beldandy get angsty.

Fortunately, Shiho isn't going to become a recurring character.

UPDATE: Ep 7, Peorth. Will it be fun, or a trainwreck?

UPDATE:

UPDATE: That seems to have been comic relief, despite the fact that Skuld named this particular one of her inventions "Texas Murder".

Peorth sure isn't anything like she was in the movie. How in hell does a ditz like that become a Goddess First Class?

UPDATE: You know, it really says something about how much of a loser Keiichi is that he is being granted a second wish, when the usual allocation for utter losers is one.

UPDATE: End of ep 7. Yikes!

I understand why Urd is the way she is; she's half demon. But I think Peorth comes across as even more demonic than Urd, and she doesn't have any excuse.

As odd as she can become, sometimes I think Urd is the only adult in this show.

UPDATE: Final joke of ep 8: Peorth ends up "in love" with a tanuki statue. The only thing I can think is that Urd has cursed her.

Sheesh, Peorth is obnoxious. Also, I did not need to see Megumi get caught in that spell. Ick ick ick ick...

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Ah! My Goddess! at 08:05 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 289 words, total size 2 kb.

This is going to touch on things I've written before, so sorry for being redundant.

Physics tells us that velocity is relative. The only way to really see that something is moving is if there's something next to it that's standing still. (Don't write letters; I'm using this as an analogy. It's not a physics lesson. I know that "standing still" is meaningless; you don't have to tell me.) That's true dramatically as well.

In a series which is populated with characters who are unusual, eccentric, even crazy, there needs to be a rock in the middle, a stable character, against which the weirdness of the activities and other characters contrast.

And that character is vital. That character has to be strong, sympathetic, interesting -- but most important of all, that character has to cope with what's going on rather than being buffeted by it. That's the primary reason that Hanaukyo Maid Team La Verite works as a series: Taro is that rock, and he does resist the buffeting. The comedy works because the ocean waves break and crash against the rock, but never roll over it.

It's one of the reasons why Ichigo Mashimaro ultimately failed for me. Chika is the rock. The problem is that Chika is a cipher. She's boring. She's the invisible girl. Chika doesn't have any character; all we know about her is by contrast to Miu, Matsuri, and Nobue, and because those characters are complex, unusual, interesting, Chika comes up lacking. (In the first episode Nobue says as much: what's distinctive about Chika is that there's nothing distinctive about her.)

One of the big reasons why Shingu works as well as it does is because Hajime is that rock, and he is a strong and interesting and admirable character. He isn't defined by the weirdness he is plunged into; the director spent a lot of time in the series establishing Hajime as a person to us. That's the reason for all the sequences of Hajime at home with his mom and sister, e.g. painting the book shelf, putting up the bamboo frond, and so on. The director uses those to make Hajime real for us -- and it works, too.

The biggest flaw in the Ah! My Goddess! franchise is that Keiichi is much more like Chika than he is like Hajime. It's a plot point that Keiichi is a rug on which other people stomp; it's the reason why Beldandy came to him in the first place. But for the series to work, Keiichi needed to grow out of that, to find himself and start asserting himself -- and that never really happened, as far as I can tell.

The visit from Beldandy, and the wish, and its consequences obviously were, and should have been, a life-changing experience. But deep down, it wasn't. Keiichi's living circumstance changes entirely, but Keiichi himself doesn't change. He's still a wimp. Hell, even in the movie, which is chronologically three years after Beldandy showed up, he's still a wimp for the most part. (And the movie isn't even canon.)

The series tends to tell individual stories or story arcs about particular characters, and for me it is at its worst when it's telling stories about Keiichi -- who is the central character of the story. It means the entire series is built on a foundation of sand.

Weird things happen to Keiichi, and he copes. But he's always a victim, always being tossed around by events. For instance in the "Dark Urd" storyline, he's involved in events, quite a lot. But he spends most of the storyline tied up, a captive, and that only changes at the end when he's possessed. He does one and only one thing that actually makes a difference: he jumps in front of Beldandy and takes a bullet that was meant for her. That's not enough for purposes of the kind of thing I'm talking about here.

Compare that to Hajime. The defining characteristic of Hajime as a character is that he is very secure. He knows himself, he likes himself, and he isn't competing with anyone else. That comes from his amazingly happy family life. And because of that, he becomes a source of strength for several of the other characters. He is able to reach Nayuta in a way that no one else ever has. He helps Moriguchi out. Hajime has no special powers, yet his amazing spiritual strength affects events as much as Muryou's telekinetic power. Indeed, maybe even more.

Hajime isn't just a source of strength to the other characters; indirectly he is an anchor for the audience, too.

I liked the first season of the AMG TV series quite a lot, so I had been waiting semi-eagerly for the second season to arrive. Finally it did, and I ordered the first two DVDs of it. And I stopped watching after the third episode, because the first three episodes were all about Keiichi, and he is still a spineless wimp.

In Shingu Hajime isn't shaken by the things he learns about because they don't represent a threat to his self image and self-knowledge. But I don't think Keiichi really does understand himself -- and I know he doesn't really like himself the way he is. He knows he's spineless and he doesn't like it, but doesn't seem to be willing to work on changing it.

For AMG to really work, Keiichi's wish shouldn't just have given him a live-in girl friend. It should have made him a better person, and fact is, at the point where I stopped watching, he was still just the same as he was at the beginning when Beldandy first showed up.

And if he doesn't get a grip, it's going to go really badly for him when Hild shows up. Hild is scary dangerous and goes right for the jugular.

For those not familiar with the series, here's the deal with Hild. It's only a very mild spoiler but I'll tag it anyway. Hild is Urd's mother. Hild is Mara's boss. Hild is the evil counterpart to Kami-sama; she's the head of the "other team". And she isn't an incompetent clown like Mara. She's beautiful, and friendly, but also extremely devious. Like Beldandy she wears power limiters because her true full power, comparable to Kami-sama, is well beyond safe, but her devious mind remains unaffected, and she apparently knows just were to stick in the needle to cause maximum pain and agitation. Yet she loves her daughter, and isn't necessarily even emotionally hostile to Beldandy and Skuld. I guess the way to put it is that she's evil but not wicked; being evil is her role in the grand scheme of things, and she's really good at it. But it's not clear that she's sadistic.

I was at the store just now and they had #3 and #4 of the second season, so I picked them up. ADV seems to be going with a theme for cover art: each one is a goddess and her angel. So DVD 1 features Beldandy and Holy Bell. DVD 2 features Urd and World of Elegance. DVD 3 features Peorth and Gorgeous Rose. And DVD 4 is Skuld and Noble Scarlett -- which is what inspired me to buy them. Presumably Peorth shows up in DVD 3, and what I'm hoping is that Hild will appear on DVD 2.

Gods, anything to relieve me from watching Keiichi tying himself into knots trying to decide what to get Beldandy for Christmas, OK? (Anything has to be better than that. How about five minutes of Urd reading a book?)

I think I'll skip ep 4 (Beldandy gets drunk) and go to the second DVD, and hope that Hild actually does show up. (Cover art notwithstanding, it seems that Peorth shows up in DVD 2, not in DVD 3, according to the blurb on the back.)

UPDATE: Hmm... two more DVDs to go. Wonder who they'll put on them. Hild, and then Mara? Unlikely. Rind? Exceedingly unlikely. My guess is that one of them will be Beldandy with Keiichi, and maybe if we're lucky the other will be Hild and Mara together.

UPDATE: If they include the Rind story arc in the second season, then Rind and her two angels would definitely be on one of the remaining covers. But I think that may be too late in the manga to have made it into this season.

UPDATE: Wikipedia to the rescue. Alas, Hild does not appear in the four DVDs I own. She's in the fifth one. Sigh. And according to ADV's site, the fifth cover is Hild and Urd.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Ah! My Goddess! at 02:34 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
Post contains 903 words, total size 8 kb.

1 That's the other reason I haven't bothered with the AMG TV series.  I've read the manga up through about volume 20, and it just isn't going anywhere.  I like Skuld, I like Urd, I like Megumi, sometimes I even like Keiichi and Bell, but there's no story I'm interested in.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at November 10, 2007 05:44 PM (PiXy!)

2

It isn't a single story. Like a lot of series, it's a scenario. That's not the same.

There are quite a few of those, and I'm always disappointed when I run into one because the reviews never warn me of it. Tenjo Tenge is a scenario, not a story. So was Kamichu. And it's turning out that Shakugan no Shana is like that.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at November 10, 2007 06:01 PM (+rSRq)

3

Full Metal Panic was another like that. If there's any discernable overall story arc, I'll be damned if I know what it is.

Occasionally I can forgive such things. Crest/Banner of the Stars is like that, too, but the difference is that the scenario is such a good one, and the characters so vividly portrayed, that it's still worth watching. And each of the individual story arcs within the scenario actually does advance character development. Jinto and Lafiel at the beginning of Banner 1 are recognizably different than they were at the beginning of Crest.

And there really is a long term story being told; two, actually. There's the growing love between Jinto and Lafiel, and there's Lafiel's career path towards eventually becoming Empress. We know what the result will be, that's never in doubt. Lafiel will become Empress, and she and Jinto will have "children of love" with each other. So in that series, getting there is all the fun.

But most scenario-series are disappointing, because there's no feeling of progress, no reward in the end for the audience. There's a letdown, in fact, because there's an early feeling of progress being made as the scenario is being set up, and then suddenly there isn't any at all. Everything in Kamichu felt like it came to a screeching halt after the third episode. Tenjo Tenge apparently stops advancing right after the first big fight, about where I stopped watching it.

What a lot of us like about anime is that it tells stories and finishes them. But it doesn't, always; there's an attraction for a mangaka, or an anime studio, in a series which doesn't end, because it means they can keep milking it indefinitely.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at November 10, 2007 06:09 PM (+rSRq)

4 I suppose I should mention that there's also a third major story arc in Crest/Banner: the war. But that also leads to significant changes in continuity, things like the loss, and later reconquest, of the Martine system.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at November 10, 2007 06:11 PM (+rSRq)

5

AMG is actually kind of interesting, in that the manga-ka would apparently like to wrap things up, but the publisher doesn't want to let him.  There are always persistent rumors that he's finally going to wind things up "in the next few books", but so far they haven't been borne out.  However, he's apparently started working on some other projects, so maybe if he develops another cash cow he'll be allowed to put an ending on the story.

Unfortunately, in the meantime it causes AMG to fall into one of the annoying traps, where the author decides to advance things, writes a story arc that does, and then promptly ignores all the development in the next arc, because they can't really let things advance.

Posted by: David at November 11, 2007 01:03 AM (eJmmz)

6

As the poor sap who translated the first several thousand pages of the OMG manga, let me assure you the main reason it was the first book I quit after handing over production to Dark Horse was that I looked ahead and realized I literally had several volumes of Keiichi stasis and pointless racing sequences to hack though before Hild showed up to make things interesting for a while...and I simply lost heart.

I think Fujishima has done some great work on the series.  His art and storytelling have gone though several changes, and always ended up better.  There are some great stories. But at least 50% of the series is spent spinning wheels while he tries to come up with a new storyline that, y'know, actually matters.  Manga-ka ofter do this.  Most pros can come up with a meaningless bit of character-driven or action-filled fluff to fill 24 pages in just a few days, hand it off to the assistants, then spend the rest of their time before deadline working on building the next "real" story.

OMG desperately needs to end.  Fujishima needs to "man up" and write the final story arc soon.  Then, if I had my druthers, a re-edited version with all the filler excised should be released.  Many, many manga need such a version published.  (It will never, ever happen, but a fella can dream.)

The problem of manga (and more rarely, anime) going on far beyond the limits of the story is so common it barely needs explication, but the forces on even a famous and powerful artist in Japan are such that it's almost impossible to escape the trap.  Hell, if they can do it to billionaires like Takahashi and Toriyama, no one is safe.  Staggering sums are at stake.  Jump lost something like 1/3 of its sales when Dragonball ended--a loss to the publisher in wholesale income of over half a billion dollars per year in magazine sales alone...plus double in profit that for collection sales.  My wife was working for Mediaworks during the Great Azumanga Daioh years and the panic of the company in squeezing the max out of a series which was--unusually--not practical to sustain bordered on insanity. 

The only reason Takahashi ended Maison Ikkoku the way she did was she cautiously broached the idea to her editor of wrapping it up in the next few volumes, and he blew a gasket, telling her in no uncertain terms she was not to do so.  She was so peeved she instead finished it as quickly as she could, which explains the otherwise inexplicably breathless race to the finish every fan of the series is all too familiar with.  Akira, as originally and carefully plotted, was supposed to run three volumes.  "Success pressure" stretched it to six, and the ending was a notable train wreck (he ended up adding some 100+ pages to the collection in a semi-failed attempt to rescue it).  Any professional editor can spot the filler, and while we joke about it, it's really not all that funny.  More manga are taken from brilliant to mediocre via this cause than all other issues combined.   This is why less popular manga can sometimes be far superior in story quality to more famous manga--which indeed, become little more than products.

Many initially great manga have disappointing endings because in the struggle to extend the story, it degrades so badly that sales fall to the point the publisher doesn't care so much, and the manga-ka is then allowed to wrap it up.  By that time the damage is done, however, and it can be incredibly sad.

You know, one of the problems with getting involved in manga on a professional level for 20 years is that reality sets in.  I am depressingly aware of the "man behind the curtain" and, in a way, it makes it very hard to read manga in a "pure" manner ever again.  It's a sacrifice the fans are blissfully unaware every manga pro in the USA makes to bring them their stack of books.  I'm sure people like Avatar suffer in the same way.

(Sorry for the rambling and lengthy post, Steven.)

Posted by: Toren at November 11, 2007 06:47 PM (nEziu)

7 Toren, I can't speak for Steven, but I found it a very worthwhile read.  You and Avatar are very good at pulling the curtains back just a bit and letting us normal fans see inner workings. 

Posted by: ubu at November 11, 2007 08:42 PM (RBBnp)

8

I've heard that Toriyama intended the DB series to end after Goku defeated Frieza, but they simply wouldn't let him stop.

And in fact the Cell story arc is my favorite. On the other hand, the Majin Buu story arc really does feel like Toriyama was weary and was just marking time.

And even after that, they wouldn't let it end. DBGT is a continuation, and Toriyama didn't write it. By all reports, it's not as good. I haven't seen it, and I'm only mildly curious about it. (Now that Funimation has started releasing it in thinpaks, I might pick parts of it up, however.)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at November 11, 2007 09:38 PM (+rSRq)

9

Among lesser known manga, you occasionally run into one that seems absurdly short. As you all know, Someday's Dreamers is among my favorite shows. Eventually TokyoPop released the original manga here in English -- and it turns out that even though the show was only 12 episodes, the director had to invent about half of the story he told. The manga is only like 11 chapters, and a couple of those couldn't be used in the series, though they would have made a good "special" later. (They take place in Yume's home town after Yume returns from Tokyo.)

I really do think there was a lot more juice in that story than the mangaka actually squeezed out of it; I think it could have been longer without suffering any quality problems. But maybe the mangaka wanted to do something else.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at November 11, 2007 09:47 PM (+rSRq)

10

As the poor sap who translated the first several thousand pages of the OMG manga

That was you? I should have remembered that, since you're one of the few names I recognise on the American end of anime & manga publishing, dating back to your work on the Dirty Pair comics with Adam Warren. (That was my gateway drug to anime, by the way. Not sure if I should be thanking you or not. )

Posted by: Pixy Misa at November 12, 2007 03:37 AM (PiXy!)

11 I get a touch of that sort of thing, certainly - it's always bad when you're watching a show like CCS or Trigun and you hear that audio glitch and your head comes around before you realize that nobody's paying you to spot them these days. ;p

At the same time, I've always been way out on the production limb, so I don't have the same kind of insider's view of the business (not to mention not having anywhere near the kind of history that Toren has, heh heh.) So it's always been a bit more Dilbert here than anything.

But in some ways that's absolutely correct. I doubt, for example, that I'll ever watch Eva again - I've had that damned show under the microscope for so long, the warts stand out too much for me to enjoy it. Even something like RahXephon loses some of its luster when you know what the writers were thinking.

Then again, I just finished timing Nanoha S1 last night; it doesn't take an insider to figure out that a significant part of the intended audience for the show are people we'd think of as pedophiles. I guess the ability to put that sort of thing in a pigeonhole and still enjoy the series is what's allowed me to keep at it over the years; I've liked almost everything I ever worked on, more or less, even if I can look back at it and figure out that my like for things like Wedding Peach or FFU were almost entirely developed in self-defense, like a kind of callus. ;p

I eventually stopped reading AMG, 18 volumes in or so. I actually enjoyed a good bit of the pointless racing, but yeah, even after Keiichi mostly gets his life together, after a while the story's purely spinning its wheels, and after working on some truly weird stuff, Fujishima just can't trip the breaker anymore.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at November 12, 2007 05:12 AM (LMDdY)

12 Tenjo Tenge definitely continues the story after the big fight. The flashback afterwards begins to show why things are the way they are, with Maya and Aya's brother Shin, who is revealed to have been overwhelmed by his own power and secretly been killing innocent people. Later flashbacks reveal these events led to Mitsuomi going from a kind person to a tyrant to keep other power users under control. When the Juken Club returns to school, there are consequences. Maya warns Bob and Nagi that more skilled fighters will be after them because of their increased reputations. This is proven true when someone attacks them with a real metal sword. Because of all the injured school members from the bowling alley fight, Maya gets expelled. Later, Maya and Mitsuomi team up to find Aya when it's feared that she's losing control of her power too.

The mangaka of Someday Dreamers did a series set in the same world but with different characters. Tokyopop translated it as Someday Dreamers: Spellbound, with five volumes so far.

I've noticed a minor bug where mail and web information is erased after previewing a post.

Posted by: Jim Burdo at November 12, 2007 06:53 AM (USY9R)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

I wonder if it's just that I was in the wrong mood tonight.

I got half way through the third episode, lost interest, and stopped watching. I had done a lot of skipping on the second episode.

I don't think it's that I was in the wrong mood. I think it's because those episodes sucked. The second one was about Sayoko, a character I always find tedious. The third one was about Keiichi needing money so he could buy Belldandy something for Christmas.

Keiichi is actually a pretty uninteresting character, and when in the first season an episode focused on him, that was when the series was at its most angsty. The third episode promised more of the same, and that's why I stopped watching.

I found the first series to be at its most interesting when there was magic going on, and Keiichi at his best and most interesting when he's trying to cope with things that normal people never deal with. The OP promises me a lot of that. It promised me Hild, and Skuld's angel, and Peorth. It promised me someone with a harp and pointed ears. It promised me magic -- but the only magic we've seen so far was the process of renewing Keiichi's wish and restoring his contract with Belldandy in the first episode.

I'm not even sure I care enough about the third episode to finish watching it. I might take a look at the various next-episode teasers and skip ahead to the good part. I've got the first two DVDs, and surely they must start getting into something decent by then. (The back of the second DVD says Peorth shows up in that one, so there's still hope.)

By the way, please don't post any spoilers in comments.

UPDATE: Consider the inherent contradiction involved in Keiichi giving a Christmas present to Belldandy.

Of course, it's no stranger than having Belldandy polishing a statue of Buddha, as she does at the beginning of the first season.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Ah! My Goddess! at 10:12 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 337 words, total size 2 kb.

So one of the things they have to do at the beginning is to recap, at least a bit, what happened in the first series, in order to bring people up to speed. And I'm very impressed with how they do it. But of course, it's a spoiler to talk about:

First, the monk shows up, and then leaves again. Hilarious, but also necessary, because he owns that temple. Then we get a scene between Keiichi, Beldandy, and Megumi, showing Megumi's relationship with her older brother. It nicely compressed that dynamic in a short time.

We get a scene of Rind reporting to Kami-sama about the results of the big battle that happened at the end of the first series.

Then, at the 7 minute mark, we kick into new plot material. Kami-sama calls Keiichi on the phone.

Horikau!

UPDATE: And what the rest of the first episode does is to show us why Beldandy is there, by renewing the wish. In passing we also got to see the mechanisms in Heaven, and see some of Urd and Skuld showing their characters. All in all it's a nice recap that lays the groundwork for the rest of the series quite nicely.

The only mystery is why Peorth showed up in a fantasy sequence at the very beginning. Will she be appearing in the second episode?

UPDATE: No, that's not what it's about.

Is the secret going to come out? In the first episode, Beldandy flies in front of Ohtaki and Tamiya. At the beginning she tells Megumi she has a contract with Keiichi. She also uses her power to heat up a meal at the minute mart where she works. And in the second episode she tells Sayoko that she's a goddess. Sayoko doesn't believe it - at least, for now.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Ah! My Goddess! at 05:08 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 59 words, total size 2 kb.

It was shorter than the first season, alas, and I suspect we aren't going to get any more. But we do have another 24 episodes of mayhem and happiness to watch.

I just started the first DVD, and I'm watching the OP. The first season OP music was Celtic music, and I really like it. The second season OP music begins with a bagpipe, and imagery of Beldandy playing one in heaven before coming to earth. It's interesting.

The visuals so far have shown us someone mysterious standing on a phone pole, plus full-screen images of Peorth and Hild. Both of which I was hoping for. My only experience with Peorth is from the movie, and Hild has never appeared in anime at all before this series.

For those not familiar with the canon, Urd is only a half-sister to Beldandy and Skuld. The reason her angel is half white, half black, is that Urd is a god/demon cross breed. Her father is the same as that of Beldandy and Skuld. Her mother is Hild, who is the top demon. Hild is the bad guy counterpart of Kami-sama.

In other words, she's Mara's boss. Mara is a clown, and her plots and plans are so silly that even the Coyote would reject them. But from what I've read, Hild is not a clown. She has an extremely devious mind, and eventually she's going to show up to visit her daughter, and to take over the Morisato case and work to chase those three goddesses back to heaven again. I really look forward to it.

Peorth, too. She's a goddess first class with no restrictions, just like Beldandy. Beldandy's magic is primarily of air. Skuld's magic is water. Urd's magic is fire and electricity, which is why she fights with lightning bolts and fireballs. But Peorth's magic is earth. Her angel, Gorgeous Rose, is wreathed in rose vines, complete with thorns. From what I've read, Peorth is not really friends with Beldandy, so there's some friction there. I'm not sure why she's going to be coming to Earth, though my guess is that she's mad about having Skuld and Urd being gone, leaving Peorth with more work to do running the celestial computer system. Regardless, it will be interesting to see what she's like.

And the best image of all: Noble Scarlett also shows up in the credits. That's Skuld's angel. (More below the fold)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Ah! My Goddess! at 04:42 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 463 words, total size 3 kb.