Mahou Meido Meganekko

Forget the Goddesses’ parentage, Keichi’s are damned strange. His father Keima is an artisian glassblower and just as much a motorcyclist as his kids; Keichi’s never beaten him in a race (and still can’t). His ability on a motorcycle is almost inhuman, especially given that he looks about sixty. Don’t even get me started with his mechanical ability. That’s just not normal.

Keima’s also got extreme gynophobia; only Bell and Takano (his wife) don’t trigger it. And he’s amazingly spry, managing to avoid most of Sigel’s attacks and disable both her and Banpei — though it wasn’t easy, and he took a few licks doing so.

Keichi’s mother Takano is unusually like Belldandy without powers — and looks like she’s about 25 — if that! There’s no hint that she’s a second wife, plus she absolutely schools the goddesses at mahjongg despite their luck.

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And just what is Belldandy? What is it that’s special about her? Power level? Training? Empathy? Following are some probably silly speculations; I say silly because I don’t think Fujishima worries about these things or has any plans to head in this direction. But it’s fun to theorize. Or as TVTropes calls it, engage in Wild Mass Guessing. (I ought to go back and see if this one’s in the list…. maybe when I have a couple of days to lose.)

Well, Bell’s definitely empathetic, she had a special trainer just for her, and it’s remarked that she is one of their most powerful godesses. In fact, it looks like she blew straight through the classification system to First class from the very outset. It really starts to sound in the movie like there was something planned for her from the beginning. All the comments could be explained by “hey, she’s really powerful, and with great power comes great responsibil– oops, sorry, Uncle Ben. Wrong story.

Anyway, I keep having the sneaking suspicion that it’s Keichi that was planned — that it was not an accident that Belldandy got that call, and not Peorth. Why? Why is it that three major goddesses, those in charge of the past, present, and future of the mortal world are essentially being allowed to play hooky on Earth? Granted, Bell’s technically “on assignment” but I don’t think even Heaven’s so overstaffed that they can give, oh, several decades of FMLA leave to a goddess whose client made such a jacked-up wish that she became his platonic love-slave!

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Well, as I said, for a while there, I got utterly fascinated by Ah! My Goddess, and ordered the full first season, plus the movie. I also downloaded the 20th anniversary OAV’s, which are often referred to as the third season. In my not-quite-comprehensive-anymore summary (last updated in 2008, I’m overdue), I stated the following:

Ah! My Goddess (TV) DVD’s owned S1 #1-4
Keiichi Morisato mis-dials, getting a powerful goddess as a girlfriend–for life! Then her sisters move in…. I need to finish this series. I liked it; sweet and romantic, a good “couples” animé that isn’t sappy, but I really don’t have much use for such a show.

And there it sat for almost three years, until ennui with all the recent seasons drove me back to some of my early anime. Since the thin-pack of the first season isn’t here and won’t be for a bit, I popped the movie in, as it’s not formally set anywhere in the continuity. For those familiar with the manga or series, it takes place about three years after Keichi and Belldandy meet; Keiichi is in his last semester and is moderately well known in bike-racing circles; Hasegawa is the club president, and Chihiro has started her parts store in a converted cargo container. Skuld has her angel, Peorth is in charge of Yggsdrasil, and Chrono is on her staff. Even if you haven’t been a part of the AMG fandom, it’s designed so that you can be introduced to the goddesses and the various characters in the show, so don’t sweat it if you don’t know who I’m talking about.

So, how did I like it?
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I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, so despite the fact that I’ve been an anime-watching fool for the last week, and have a lot of thoughts about what I’ve seen, I haven’t done much to organize my thoughts for blogging. In the last several days, I’ve watched:

The last 7 episodes of Maburaho
Ah! My Goddess, s1 (DVD’s 1-4)
Ah! My Goddess, the movie (twice — it’s that good! Actually, even it’s better than that…)
Tenchi Muyo OVA’s, ep. 1-9 (which were quite a surprise)
Busou Renkin, DVD 6 (which generated a new heuristic)
Bakamonogatari, ep. 7.
Edit: And Yokuwakaru Gendimahou. Should that be 2 words or 4?

and a bazillion AMV’s.

So many thoughts, so much to say. So little desire to spend three or four days doing nothing but blogging.

There’s times I really, really, really hate having ADHD. Like now. For most of the last week, I’ve been having a hyperfocus “lock” centered on anime, especially Ah! My Goddess. I never liked it THAT much; it’s a romance/relationship story, and I’m a guy with no use whatsoever for such stories. Yet I haven’t been able to get my mind off of it; I’ve been reading the manga, pestering Steven with my observations (erroneous and otherwise), re-watching the DVD’s I have; I ordered the full first season and the movie, debated ordering the 2nd;finding the 3rd online (searched Youtube, but it was only in Spanish…), built a playlist of AMV’s and had it looping in the background constantly at work, rewrote scenes in my head (usually to make K1 less of a spineless, ball-less wimp)…

Argh, just STOP it already, brain!!!!

Which, of course it will break, just as the DVD’s arrive, and I won’t be able to stand AMG any more long enough to watch them.

Dammit, dammit, dammit! Why can’t I do this with USEFUL stuff? (Well, actually I do sometims, I just don’t notice it when it happens with my work, because it’s work…)

About the only thing that’s come close to distracting me has been Maburaho (I semi-locked on it) and this.

Technology is a wonderful thing. (Link safe for work, but not the video).

So, I decided to go back and read the manga of Maburaho. (Warning: mildly NSFW). It turns out that the animé was wildly divergent. The whole “dies and becomes a ghost” thing never happened. Yamase shows up somewhat earlier, but still isn’t important, IMHO. But most of all, the biggest change is Yuuna’s character.

She’s a jealous bitch the ENTIRE time. And yet she wins in the end.

Continuing to revisit some of my earlier anime, I rewatched the one DVD of Maburaho that I have, and then went looking for the manga. Shockingly, it turns out that the writers of the anime did a fantastic job with the story — at least in the beginning; it’s much funnier, less clichéd, and holds together better. In the manga, we don’t see Kazuki learn about his heritage for the same reason as in the anime. Everything still has to be explained to him though, as it starts off with Kazuki having amnesia… because Yuuna blasted him in a fit of jealous rage. That’s quickly forgotten (heh), and we get on with the story.

Rin never wants to kill him — while she’s still tsundere, she’s equally after him from the beginning. She also has lesbian stalkers from the kendo club. Kuriko is manipulating the entire school as part of her plot to expand the Kazetsubaki power base after she inherits the company. Dr Arai appears only twice in the manga, and Ms. Iba isn’t referenced by name. The dorm manager and all the other secondary characters were invented for the anime (except for the newspaper editor).

Kuriko tries several underhanded tricks to get Kazuki in the sack, all of which backfire on her — one of which makes it obvious that she’s actually fallen for him, because she gets angry that he doesn’t remember confessing to her (under the influence of a love potion, her prior attempt).

It’s also a very short manga, having only two volumes, and there’s no long-term plots. There appear to be a couple of hooks that got abandoned, and the whole thing ends rather abruptly with Yuuna winning. It turns out Kazuki was just claiming never to remember the promise throughout the manga because he was a big chicken and didn’t want to be bound by it. So when Dr. Arai points out that he could use his magic to recall the memory, he chickens out again, but finally admits it to Yuuna, then makes it snow again to show her he really remembers (it’s the only time he uses magic), and then Kazuki confesses his love to her. End story.

There was enough material in the manga for a 13-episode series, especially given the additions that the anime threw in. Had they not gotten ambitious, and thrown in the whole “ghost plot” I think it would have been a top-notch harem comedy; at least it would have been a much better series.