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Nov 08 2005

Categories: anime, belldandy, episodic review
Tagged: belldandy

5 Comments »

When I first watched ああっ女神さまっ 2004, I noticed that it was slower than both the manga and the original OVA… I mean, in the manga, it took five pages for Bell to pop out of K1’s mirror. In the 1993 series, less than five minutes. The 2004 series? She doesn’t pop out until the last fifty seconds of the first episode. A year ago, I’m sure I was saying something like “slow,” “painfully slow,” or “when is that Elfen Lied OVA coming out?”

Fast forward one year and one Enma Ai. I was watching ああっ女神さまっ DVD 1 over the weekend, and I realized what they were trying to do with the first twenty-three Belldandy-less minutes of the first episode: build up pity for K1 and try to establish some sort of reason for the plot device that draws Bell to him (honestly, they didn’t need to do this as in “if you don’t know what happens, you probably aren’t the target audience for this series”). K1 gets rejected by Sayoko. K1 gets left behind while others party. K1 gets kidnapped from classes to perform slave labor. K1 gets to babysit a crying little girl. I started thinking, “Damn K1, if you had a computer, you could ask Hell Girl to ferry Tamiya and Otaki to hell.” That first episode would have made a pretty decent episode of Jigoku Shoujo. Can you imagine if Ms. Ai popped out from K1’s mirror instead of Ms. Belldandy? If only K1 made a wish on the red thread instead.

That’s the divergence point for both series, and they’re both interesting metaphors for life. One shows the better side of humanity and that a little compassion and luck can go a long way. The other shows the side humanity that prefers quick fixes and revenge. I guess what we can take from that is a bit of inspiration for life that no matter how bleak or unbearable things are, there’s the Belldandy way or the Ai way. A person can smile and persevere or a person can give in. Sure, they made K1 a lot more sympathic in the 2004 series, but he’s always been that kind of smile and persevere type of guy since chapter one… seventeen years ago.

Little tidbits like that are why ああっ女神さまっ is and will always be my favorite story.

Despite the fact I did complain it was slow last year, this is another year, and it’s the right pacing for the story and the series. Keep in mind it did take K1 like twelve years of manga to graduate from Nekomi Kodai, and the story started when he was a sophmore. We all want our Belldandy fix, but, like baking bread, brewing tea, or making a cake, it takes time and patience. There’s twenty-five more episodes of K1, Bell, and hawt adult Skuld to be enjoyed.