More AMG Manga Reflections (updated)

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.

Neither of them like to be called “mother” or “father”; they insist their children call them by their given names (-san, not even -sama). Seeing the two of them, they’re obviously Keichi’s gearhead and empathic portions, or rather, he’s the synthesis of their exaggerated traits.

It is strongly hinted that the senior Morisato figures out what the goddesses are (Peorth is present also) before leaving; he uses little more than a blowtorch to whip up glass feathers as gifts for each of them — and Takano gets a vision of them all with their angel wings extended, which freaks her slightly. (Welspar may be responsible for that.)

At least, reading the manga, Keichi isn’t completely useless, nor is his utility always contrived. When a disguised demon shows up, Keichi figures out that it’s weak against water, and uses a bucketful to break its illusion (not that it did any good in the end). Another time, when Marller had pulled another of her crazy schemes, Keichi faked her out and found the weak point of her scheme; by using a simple device of Skuld’s, he was able to nullify it.

Shortly after this arc, a mechanical race (called “the Mechanicals”…) shows up asking Bell for help, but her magic doesn’t work well with them, so Keichi helps out…and proves to have an aptitude for it. Each time, the repaired Mechanical gifts “Belldandy’s excellent retainer” with a tool that they happen to be carrying, so he ends up with a small collection of these wrenches. They seem magical; anything Keichi fixes with them is souped up, even if he only changed the oil.

Except that every one of them is in Earth metric….which the Mechs don’t use. And why did the they come to Bell for help if her magic doesn’t work well for them? Bell herself says it was actually Keichi they were coming to see. Whether Fujishima plans to go anywhere with this is anyone’s guess. I’m not even going to get into how he saved the Schrodinger’s Whales from extinction; that was just silly.

Final note about the manga: Fujishima isn’t the most consistent manga author himself. We’ve seen hints back and forth, but in an oblique discussion between Peorth and Keichi, it is strongly hinted that Belldandy is immortal… and Keichi is not. So gods can die from disease and battle, but not old age… perhaps, anyway.

About the anime: the entire first season got in from Robert today, so I was able to watch the Lord of Terror arc. Pretty decent, but Lind being a part of it was against (manga) canon. I’m not objecting; it makes sense; the Almighty would definitely have reinforced the goddesses with his top combat specialist… though you have to wonder why he waited so long.

Really though, I have to say, after watching the movie for several times in a row, the soundtrack and animation for the LoT arc was just… disappointing. BGM: meh. OP/ED: didn’t fit.

Update 1: forgot to mention, logically Hild would be involved in this somewhere, wouldn’t she? Look carefully at the shadows on the right side of the screen when Marller finds the Urn…)

Update 2: Back when I was first typing this article, I lost about 30 minutes of work to an accidental click. I tried to reconstruct it, but missed this key bit of speculation about Keichi’s parents: If the Judgement Gate isn’t canon, is it possible that somewhere in Keichi’s ancenstry, there are non-humans? Or even if it is, are there spirits that can merge with humans, to the point of passing on inheritable traits, but otherwise leaving them human enough to not trigger the Gate’s call? I mean, when you start adding up his father’s incredible ability with a motorbike, unusual abilities and quirks, and his mother’s, well, oddities… “sumthin’ jus’ ain’t right wi’ that boyh!”