Ah My Goddess, (Aa Megami-sama) was originally written as a seinen manga serialized in 1988 in a monthly magazine called ‘Afternoon’, created by Fujishima Kosuke. Immediate popularity gave birth to no less than 4 separate anime offshoots.

This DVD – Ah! My Goddess – Always and Forever contains 5 episodes from the Ah My Goddess series released on TV in 2003

Plot Summary
***********
Keiichi Morisato was looking forward to starting his life as a student at the Nekomi Institute of Technology, but life hasn’t turned out as he planned. His small height and general good nature make him a natural target for his senpai in the dorm and his buddies in the motor club, and he spends the majority of his time troubled by he lack of luck in love, school, and – well, just about anything really.

One day, Keiichi is left keeping an eye on his all male dorm and performing a huge number of chores while his senpai are away. Exhausted after a hard days work, he makes a phone call to order some food, but due to the interference of fate, his call is misdirected to the ‘Goddess Assistance Agency’, and despite attempting to explain it’s a wrong number, a beautiful girl materializes in his room. Keiichi laughs off the girl’s explanation that she is a goddess, and when she offers him the chance to make one life-changing wish, he jokingly wishes she would stay with him forever, and is stunned when she agrees. He might think his luck is finally changing, but his troubles are very far from over.

Episode Breakdown
****************
The five episodes are as follows:

Episode 1- Ah! You’re a goddess!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

After a bad day, Keiichi dials the wrong number and is shocked when Belldandy, a lovely looking goddess, appears in his male only dorm and grants him one wish.

Episode 2- Ah! Can the one who believes be saved?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Keiichi makes his wish, and is surprised by certain acts of good fortune that begin to happen around him. However, not everything goes to plan, and he soon finds himself with more worries than he started with.

Episode 3- Ah! Studying, my family, and a goddess!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Keiichi and Belldandy search for a solution to their housing problems – fate lends a hand in an unusual way, and a series of misjudgments bring them a lucky break.

Episode 4- Ah! The Queen and the Goddess!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

In their quest to get to know each other, Belldandy spends some time with Keiichi at school, where she finds herself the unwanted object of attention from everyone, especially one girl, Sayako Mishima, who seems determined to see Belldandy as an enemy.

Episode 5- Ah! Living under one roof!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Keiichi starts to worry that the power of his wish might be holding Belldandy on earth against her will, and determines to find out how she really feels.

Main Characters
*************

Belldandy
********
Belldandy is a lovable character – kind, caring, beautiful, and very naïve (due mainly to her trust in everyone, but also to her ignorance of earth customs). She tries to do her best but her lack of understanding of earth and its customs means she occasionally causes more problems than she solves, and her attractiveness wins both her and Keiichi some enemies. She doesn’t hold a grudge, and trusts everyone implicitly.

However, she is not to be trifled with, her abilities as a goddess are so strong that she in fact has to wear an earring to cap her powers. And she is not afraid to use these powers to help out friends, or even enemies, in trouble. She has a wide range of powers – she can read peoples emotions, communicate with animals, heal wounds, and change her clothes at will. She’s also skilled in the domestic arts – cooking, cleaning, and singing are all things she is good at. Her main elemental magic is water.
Belldandy doesn’t seem to have a major role in Yggdrasil, (heaven) but rather works as a volunteer at the Goddess Relief Agency, her main job being to grant wishes for humans.
Keiichi
******
Keiichi is also a well developed character – a typical adolescent, he worries about girls, and other people’s opinions, and his nerves often get the better of him, leading to misunderstandings. He’s also very kind, and suffers from unnecessary guilt. Simply put, Keiichi is a nice guy. He treats everyone well, and even when people treat him badly, he doesn't react in kind.

However, Keiichi isn't a weakling in anyway. If someone else is in trouble, he'll speak up to defend them, and offer to help. He rarely complains, is always truthful, although he does sturggle to express himself clearly emotionally, particularly where his feelings for Belldandy are concerned.

Sayako Mishimi
*************
Sayako Mishimi is not as instantly likeable as the other characters. Since this DVD is only 5 episodes long, you only really get to see her being, well, a complete cow to be honest. She’s vain; she loves herself, has no consideration for anyone else, and will stop at nothing to get what she wants. And what she wants is the undivided attention of every single man on campus.

A spoilt little rich girl, she is popular and NIT simply because of her good looks and her fathers wealth- certainly not because of her personality. In one scene you see her being surrounded by a hoarde of admirers, all of whom she treats with disdain, and then her obvious distress when Belldandy, equally lovely to look at but with a far nicer personality, strolls onto campus.

She pretty much has everything, without having to work for it … a car ( an SLR Maclaren, her own apartment, and more money than she knows what to do with. Despite all this, she doesn’t have any real friends, and rejects the genuinely offered friendship of Belldandy out of jealousy. She’s very intelligent though, she suspects Belldandy right away of being unusual, and certain events only go to prove this belief correct.

Aside from the narcissm, Sayako doesn’t care what people think- she essentially does her own thing and to hell with the consequences. If someone gets hurt, so long as it isn’t her, she cares nothing. You see this in her many attempts to exploit Belldandy and her innocence Despite all this, she seems to have self esteem issues, and as well as displaying
intense jealousy, seems genuinely worried when the attention is taken away from her.

Graphics and Music
****************

Graphics on this anime are pretty good, although more simplistic than many anime feature movies, and the largely piano based musical score meshes well with the events on screen. The opening and ending tracks on the episodes are sung in Japanese, and are very peaceful and calming to listen to.

The intro theme Open Your Mind ~Spreading Little Wings~ sung by Yoko Ishida is beautiful, with meaningful lyrics . Its essentially a love sung, about Belldandys wish to make Keiichi happy and keep him protected. Below is an English translation of the lyrics.

Open your mind
We meet above the deep blue earth,
The wind passes by,
A snow white feather falls gently swaying,
I want to lavish my precious love with caresses,
I’m sure I have the strength to protect the one I love.

Open your mind.
Open your mind,
I’ve always dreamed,
Letting my wish drift far on the breeze
I have invisible wings,
Look! You have them too.
You can go and be free,
Anyone can.
Under blue skies.

Features
*******
The DVD contains a limited selection of extra features: Textless Opening, Japanese Voice Actor Interviews, and Japanese Voice Actor Outtakes. You can either watch is in Japanese, English dubbed, or English subtitled.

Directed by: Hiroaki Gohda
Running time: 120 minutes, plus extra features
Rating certificate: 13+ (mild violence, occasional mild bad language, mildly suggestive content)

Overall, I’d highly recommend this DVD, although I would say it would probably appeal more to girls. Ah! My Goddess is a very sweet, animated romantic comedy. It’s not brain food, its certainly not taxing on the intelligence, but it is very sweet indeed. It does have a somewhat teenage feel to the plot, and is certainly a lot less ‘adult ‘than other anime series I have watched. There’s great fun here, and some truly lovable characters – particularly the senpai, who despite their good intentions seem to get everything confused and end up making idiots of themselves.

I’d also recommend that if you like it, you follow up with the next dvds, as the series gets better the further in you go . For instance, as the series progresses you can see many influences from Norse mythology – the names of the three main goddesses later in the series for instance, Urd, Belldandy, and Skuld, are based on the Norse names for the goddesses of past, present, and future.

It’s a great DVD, and great value at £19.99 from Amazon.co.uk.

If you’re still not sure, I’d also recommend Animeviewer.net, a site that allows you to watch anime episodes for free, with no need to download, or to register!

Go watch! And thanks for reading!