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Jun 04 2006

Categories: anime, belldandy, episodic review
Tagged: belldandy

8 Comments »

Got your attention?

Peorth is getting dating ideas from Skuld’s manga. Uh-oh. Let’s hope she’s not reading Elfen Lied, NANA, Koi Kaze, Eden, Chokotto Sister, REC, Pretty Face, Love Hina, Girlfriend, Mai Otome, Ten Ten, Negima, NHK, My Two Wings, or, uh, pretty much anything. Is there any manga that gives good dating tips that won’t land one in jail?

“I had no clue how bad Bleach manga has gotten!” *sob*

Yet more insurmountable proof that Itsuki should be targetting Morisato instead of Kyon. Who else would get a o_o;; face when a hawt, nubile goddess is draping herself over you?

Bell interrupts the two, and instead of asking her to join in an afternoon threesome, K1 tries to explain the situation. It’s Bell, not Mion! It’s horrible to watch. It’s like when I heard a friend say to me, “Sorry, I can’t come to the Warrior’s game on Friday… my wife wants to go shopping for drapes.” At what point are you still considered “male”?

Peorth copies Haruhi’s Tyson Technique, but it just isn’t the same as Haruhi x Mikuru. The fanservice tracker barely budges. Yep, the debut of yet another AoMM gimmick… graphs, charts, everything!

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(Sorry, a bit primative still… can’t label axis… just imagine the x-axis as time into the episode and the y-axis as amount of fanservice provided.)

Despite fact that Bell is making comments like, “K1 looks happy,” K1 isn’t inviting Bell to join them. I hope it doesn’t develop into a Mion-class jealous storm. What am I saying, of course I’m hoping for that. Jealous Belldandy… mmm… still, not enough to increment the fanservice tracker.

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(Oh, plot! Yes. Peorth manages to get K1 to agree to out with him thanks to the nibbage. He honestly looks pained by this series of events that most traditional males would killl for.)

On their promised day, Peorth waits patiently for K1. I never understood why they needed to meet somewhere… aren’t they living together? She’s a knockout, and all the guys are openly leering at her like how Keroro lears at a limited edition, master grade MSA-0011[Bst]. (If you know what mobile suit that is without googling it, you need to get out more. Seriously.)

She recounts her plan for the day. In other words, the exact opposite will happen. Anyway, I’m bumping up the fanservice tracker a bit due to cleavage.

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Right on cue, Peorth’s plans come crashing down as the Goddess Fantastic Club accompanies K1 on their date/possible five-way. While I am glad they are changing outfits, overly dressed Belldandy and Peorth on a summer day make the fanservice tracker sad. Wouldn’t you rather see Bell in a tight tank top or daisy dukes for Peorth? Blown opportunity. At least Urd shows some skin or else I’d be catatonic by now.

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Only Skuld is dressing to her role. I don’t know if this is her “I hate Peorth, but if I want to break up K1 and Bell, I need to help her out” face or her “I just watched some Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, and I can’t wait to try out some new ideas” face.

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Urd’s “I’m going to fuck with all of them just to have fun” face. She’s a significantly hawter and more female than Kururu, Nagi, and Kurz Webber all rolled up into one. Sadly, it doesn’t move the fanservice tracker one inch.

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Peorth wants to see some romantic movie, only neither she nor K1 have tickets. OTL. Then she chews out K1 for this fiasco. Umm… why can’t they just buy tickets there? Doesn’t Peorth have a Visa? If this really is part of her job to grant K1’s desires, shouldn’t Oharuhi-sama reimburse the cost of the tickets as a business expense?

Anyway, Bell saves the day. She seemed to have gotten movie tickets through some promotion. If I were tracking how well the date is going for Peorth, it would look like [spark] [type bar] [size 20, 5] [series 0,-1,-2,-3,-8][/spark]. I’m also getting vertigo from all the awkward camera angles. It’s like the Blair Witch Project all over again.

Peorth’s “I can’t believe how big Tom Hank’s bald spot has gotten” face. Oh wait, that was me when I was watching Da Vinci Code. My bad.

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Thinks are going very poorly for poor Peorth, so she decides to run off with K1. Of course, Belldandy finds them soon afterwards, and Bell just so happens to have won tickets to the aquarium. Brutal. [spark] [type bar] [size 40, 6] [series 0,-1,-2,-3,-8, -30][/spark]. I haven’t seen a beating this bad since Zaft tried to take on Orb. But I love Peorth’s face here… it’s like she’s sort of evil villian who keeps getting foiled, only she’s really just a sexually frustrated goddess looking for fun.

Not only does the Goddess Fantastic Club tag along, not only does Bell upstage her at every turn, the aquarium stinks. Instead of cute, romantic fishies (is there such a thing?), Peorth finds very uncute mollasks. This is bad news for the fanservice tracker, but I like her eye twitch. I had a similar one when I found out that the twins in Utawarerumono were male.

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A few years ago, I took a date to Monterey Bay Aquarium, and when we were approaching the sea otter exhibit, I heard a little kid go, “Mommy, that sea otter is hurting the other sea otter!” We turned the corner, looked up, and my date turns to me and says, “I see why we’re here now.” Good times…

Peorth gets desperate and does her best Shinku impersonation. She warps out of there with K1.

Peorth’s perfect date with K1 quickly collapses. The parallel between her date and Mai Otome is just startling. K1 wonders why Peorth why is so desperate… and the Goddess Fantastic Club eventually catches up to them.

Urd tells Peorth that it’s useless. Belldandy will always find K1. She is Oyashiro-sama. Urd, of course, is thinking that it’s fun tagging alone, plus she wants to keep an eye on Peorth.

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Peorth’s last hurrah? She has tickets to an indoor pool. Woohoo! The fanservice tracker approves! Meanwhile, the anime cuts Skulds, “You’re getting too close to nee-sama” scene short. I am dying for Skuld to break out boxcutters, or in Skuld’s case, boxcutters-kun.

Not the type of fanservice this tracker is supposed to track. Nowhere as hawt as Ginko.

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Bonzai! But OTL for lack of HD widescreen. それぞれの翼 has been absolutely brutal thus far. Even as a huge fan of the series, I still can’t muster any defense for it. The decision to stray from canon as well as the shitty animation is just indefensible. Belldandy needs to be in HD. I can’t explain it any other way.

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Best high dive scene since Zegapain‘s Shizuno. Suddenly, I feel a strange urge to write an e-mail to Kyoto Animation to beg/prod/bribe/canjole/blackmail them to toss in a Mikuru high dive scene, only Mikuru is the opposite of elegant Belldandy here. She’s terrified as Haruhi tosses her off the diving board.

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Melonpanriffic Urd is great news for the fanservice tracker. My neck is starting to ache from all the craning.

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“Stop looking at onee-sama with so much happiness!” (Up in the A-class competition, Skuld… Yuki… and Shana!)

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Peorth for the quadfecta.

Just nod if agree with me that this show needed to be in HD. Or drool.

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Too bad Urd steals the show. I’m surprised the creepy guys are keeping a distance… in Magikano, they were blackmailing Ayumi to strip for them, in Ouran, they were trying to abduct the girls, and even in Keroro, Giroro had to fight to keep the creepy guys away from Natsumi. (Up in the D-class competition, Urd… Dynamite Natsumi… and Shion!)

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Peorth plots to drown K1 then perform CPR on him. In the history of TV/anime, this tactic has never worked. Wouldn’t it be easier if she just jumps his bones?

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Belldandy tries to persuade K1 to join her in the pool, only K1 is too chicken to swim. I mean… wow. What traditional male wouldn’t say, “CANNONBALL!” as they happily jumped into the pool. Fanservice tracker is happy at least.

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Peorth overhears this and decides to force K1 into the pool (isn’t this like a kiddie indoor pool?).

Only her plans backfire as Belldandy jumps to save K1, and their magic gets out of control. Here’s her “OH SHIT I’m caught between John Madden and a buffet table” face.

When you go to an indoor public pool, you can only dream about moments like this one.

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Just to drive the point home, a few more camera angles.

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Skuld and her “I’m so happy onee-sama is bi! It gives me a chance!” face. I can only imagine the spike in l33t-raw’s server bandwidth in the coming moments.

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Peorth’s “We need to do that again so I can confirm my feelings” face. Natsuki, eat your heart out. Belldandy apologizes saying that she doesn’t know what overcame her. I bet Shizuru used the same line.

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Objection! Peorth challenges B1 to a “3 round Goddess Match.” If Peorth wins, Bell breaks her contract with K1. If Peorth loses, she’ll go back. Urd explains to Skuld, who hasn’t seen one before, it’s like an otome battle… win by plot contrivance manfacturing.

When I first read the Fourth Goddess arc, there were two things that struck me. The first, Peorth is not French. Damn you Dark Horse. Second, the only way Belldandy and Peorth’s competition could be better is if bikinis, costume raping, or killer lolis were involved. Well, at least AIC managed to squeeze in bikinis. (Bonus points for depth of field usage here…)

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Round one: tickling. Why isn’t this a pay-per-view event? (The animation quality is brutal… Peorth looks like Dr Octopus some parts.)

*speechless*

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*speechless*

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Loved Urd’s “I can fake it better than that” face, Skuld’s “So that’s what it means to be an adult face,” and K1’s “I wish I weren’t gay” face. I had on mine, “Okay, I’m going to blog about this episode” face.

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Bell wins round one. Round two is who can fit more chopsticks in between their cleavage who can win a game of mole hunt. Melonpan + bikini improves the watchability of any series. My short list for characters who need to be involved in a trip to the beach yet hasn’t? 1. Wilhelmina . 2. Mion/Shion. 3. Pre-bald Simca.

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Troy McClure, eat your heart out. Belldandy loses as she can’t harm the poor fishies. Aww. Peorth, possibly venting her anger over the aquarium incident, is in SEED mode. Needless to say, Peorth wins.

Trying furiously to concentrate on translating the dialogue instead of getting stucked in by Urd, the last event is meteor strike. If I had to come up with three events for the goddesses, I probably wouldn’t have picked a meteor strike as one of them… seems dangerous. What’s safe? Wet T-shirts.

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(Um, aren’t they indoors?)

I’ve been playing Grandia III, and it reminds me of the spell meteor strike from the game. I know that I’ve been corrupted when I was playing the game, and I kept thinking of things like, “Mmm… I wonder where would Miranda go on the Top Ten MILF ranking?” and “How come Yuki is more concerned about some silly old guardian than Dahna’s melonpan?” No one talking about Dahna’s melonpan must be the game’s biggest plot hole.

Speaking of plot holes, where there a bunch of random, creepy guys leering at Urd? Now we don’t see any of them, even though Peorth and Belldandy are putting up a show only available in certain champange rooms? And now a meteor crashes through and levels half the swiming pool? *sigh*

To wrap things up, Peorth has a flashback to their goddess-in-training days where Bell and her worked together to stop a virus. Only the virus got into Peorth, and Belldandy saved her. Peorth has been holding a grudge against Bell since then. Urd confronts Peorth about why she doesn’t like Bell, and Peorth says it’s because of her “smug happiness.” Belldandy responds with a “Ah, that’s a relief” that her grudge is over something so trivial. Bell’s the best.

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I had much higher hopes for ああっ女神さまっ ~それぞれの翼~. Very much like Mai Otome, there’s a certain level of expectation going in, and it’s been severely dropped. Unlike Otome, それぞれの翼 is trying to be uptight and serious. At least Otome dropped all pretenses (whether by design or the ridiculous plot moves) by the time Nina and Mr Wong got together. Also, the animation quality of this series stinks. There’s not enough frames, not enough details to compete against the top tier shows this season. (And with Haruhi Suzumiya being the first show to have real, naturalish blinking, it only makes comparison shopping worse for Bell.) The animation would be great if this were circa 2003 but in 2006, it’s disappointing. The troubling thing is that the art quality was one of the virtues and attractions from the manga… wouldn’t it make sense to emphasize that in an anime translation? ああっ女神さまっ ~それぞれの翼~ goes down as one of the more disappointing shows in recent memory.