Aa! Megami-sama! (2005) OVA

• episode 1: "Ah! Urd's small love story":
  Due to the events of episode 24 all goddesses are affected by Yggdrasil's malfunction. Urd (the goddess of the past) shrinks down to the size of a kid, but after hating to be limited about the use of her powers she begins to enjoy it. While going out she happens to meet a shy young boy and starts to play with him...
  A heart-warming story full of funny as well as charming scenes, wonderful music, a must-see for those who like the series. Urd shows how responsibly she can act while being carried away in the process nonetheless. Compared to the manga the boy gets more information about what actually happened in this version - again these goddesses aren't shy about their abilities.
• episode 2: "Ah! Being An Adult Is Hearth-Throbbing?"
  Yggdrasil's malfunction has the opposite effect on Skuld: The goddess of the future suddenly became an adult. But as Yggdrasil is to be restored soon she has only one day to find out what being adult means. So Skuld happens to run into Toshiyuki who invites her to a date, and later Skuld and Keichi are been invited for modeling, wearing a wedding suit...
  Finally Skuld is learning a thing or two about herself as well as about Keiichi's relation with Belldandy - so this is an episode I've been waiting for quite some time (as Skuld usually annoyed me). The episode has a number of good laughs but never becomes overly silly (despite certain embarrassing scenes for Skuld). So I consider this one a good episode although not as strong as the first one of this OVA. Note that the motor club heard Skuld being called by name (Hasegawa being the one to make the connection, I like it!) but again this doesn't destroy the scenario. Oh well.

Devil Doll is right about the heart-warming and charming aspects of the first episode. Indeed, I think that the story of Urd and Shohei is sweeter and more touching in the anime than the manga. All of the elements, including music, were done in a way that touched my heart-strings, so hat's off to the staff for that.

Skuld's story in the second episode was also heart-warming and charming. The writers greatly expanded on the manga story that covered this aspect of the Yggdrasil down mini-arc. The results are very good with Skuld discovering feelings she's never experienced before. Her "date" with Aoshima was interesting both in how it made Skuld appreciate Keiichi more and in how Urd ends up punishing Aoshima again (the only funny moment of either episode for me). Her "date" with Keiichi lead to a shopping spree which Skuld attempts to discover everything about being an adult.

That said, I'm still going to call out on a couple of items. First, is that Hollybell wasn't used during Belldandy's "repair" song. They established early on that this was the case and while Belldandy having full power doesn't need Holybell, it seems inconsistant that they show Holybell in battle against the Lord of Terror in the TV series with a full-powered Belldandy, but don't during the repair/restoration process. Also, I didn't like that everyone in town saw the effects of her magical repairs and accepted it. That aspect annoyed me in the TV series and it still annoys me.

I'm also going to call smeg on Skuld becoming an adult AFTER the cure was found that restored Urd. In the manga, that cure eventually restored them all after a trial and error on getting the moonrock disc just right. Of course, all three megami were affected by Yggdrasil's outage at the same time. Here, Belldandy and Urd are affected first, Urd gets cured with the moon-disc, but Belldandy doesn't? Further, Skuld doesn't get impacted until Urd is cured (as I stated earlier). I know they had to stretch things to get a good Skuld-Keiichi story, and that story was good. Just getting there was crappy IMO.

One final call out -- when Keiichi's senpai's, sister, and other motor club members have their cameo, they don't recognize Skuld totally, but she and Keiichi "give it up" if you will; Skuld makes no real attempt to cover the fact that she's suddenly an adult and Keiichi even calls her Skuld. I suppose this is the writers following their established continuity of making everyone stupid beyond belief, but it still annoys me.

Art and animation feel much improved here. The music is good and the stories (sans my problems above) were very good.

Bottom line: still some annoying things that shouldn't be, but maybe I'm being too critical. The stories on their own were very good, even better than the manga. As such, I'll give this a buy.

Last updated Monday, January 16 2006.