Aa! Megami-sama! (2005) OVA

Title:Aa! Megami-sama! (2005) OVA
Overall:Rent
Keywords: , , , , , , , ,
Notables: Animation - Media Factory
FUJISHIMA Kosuke
After the attack by the Lord of Terror in episode 24 of Aa! Megami-sama! TV, the goddesses find themselves without their normal power supply from Yggdrasil since the Yggdrasil system is down. The three have to use alternate (and much weaker) means to resupply themselves with energy -- Urd with sake, Belldandy with sleep, and Skuld with ice cream. As such, Urd reverts to grade-school age where she meets a young boy. She teaches him the joys of taking risks and he falls for her. Belldandy sleeps but sends her chibi-form out and about with Keiichi. Skuld turns into a young woman, where she learns that Keiichi isn't all that bad.


[OVA, 2005, 2 episodes, 23 min; based on the manga of the same title (Vol. 6, Ch. 41 & 42); fansub by AnY-AonE. ]

[edit] The ↗Aa! Megami-sama franchise:

Old releases (not based on manga material): Parody spin-off: TV series remake (partially rewritten/rearranged manga stories):
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Rent 10 9 9 7 7 Ggultra2764 [series:1303#1552]
I didn't realize the later two episodes of Oh My Goddess' 2005 TV series that I rented via Netflix were OAVs until Devil Doll had pointed this out to me. These two episodes were the best content I got out of the otherwise mediocre first season of the series as they provided some additional depth into Urd and Skuld's characters. Both characters find themselves having some age issues with Yggdrasil malfunctioning as Urd interacts with a grade school student when she turns younger and Skuld spends a day with Keiichi when she turns into an adult. Urd find herself teaching the grade school kid a lesson about risk-taking and Skuld learns to better trust Keiichi. The visuals are about on par with the TV series provided. Otherwise, there isn't much I can say about these two episodes other than I got better enjoyment out of them than the majority of what I got out of the TV series.

Last updated Sunday, February 27 2011. Created Sunday, February 27 2011.
Buy 9 9 9 9 8 9 AstroNerdBoy [series:1303#436]

Devil Doll is right about the heart-warming and charming aspects of the first episode. Indeed, I think that the story of Urd and Shohei is sweeter and more touching in the anime than the manga. All of the elements, including music, were done in a way that touched my heart-strings, so hat's off to the staff for that.

Skuld's story in the second episode was also heart-warming and charming. The writers greatly expanded on the manga story that covered this aspect of the Yggdrasil down mini-arc. The results are very good with Skuld discovering feelings she's never experienced before. Her "date" with Aoshima was interesting both in how it made Skuld appreciate Keiichi more and in how Urd ends up punishing Aoshima again (the only funny moment of either episode for me). Her "date" with Keiichi lead to a shopping spree which Skuld attempts to discover everything about being an adult.

That said, I'm still going to call out on a couple of items. First, is that Hollybell wasn't used during Belldandy's "repair" song. They established early on that this was the case and while Belldandy having full power doesn't need Holybell, it seems inconsistant that they show Holybell in battle against the Lord of Terror in the TV series with a full-powered Belldandy, but don't during the repair/restoration process. Also, I didn't like that everyone in town saw the effects of her magical repairs and accepted it. That aspect annoyed me in the TV series and it still annoys me.

I'm also going to call smeg on Skuld becoming an adult AFTER the cure was found that restored Urd. In the manga, that cure eventually restored them all after a trial and error on getting the moonrock disc just right. Of course, all three megami were affected by Yggdrasil's outage at the same time. Here, Belldandy and Urd are affected first, Urd gets cured with the moon-disc, but Belldandy doesn't? Further, Skuld doesn't get impacted until Urd is cured (as I stated earlier). I know they had to stretch things to get a good Skuld-Keiichi story, and that story was good. Just getting there was crappy IMO.

One final call out -- when Keiichi's senpai's, sister, and other motor club members have their cameo, they don't recognize Skuld totally, but she and Keiichi "give it up" if you will; Skuld makes no real attempt to cover the fact that she's suddenly an adult and Keiichi even calls her Skuld. I suppose this is the writers following their established continuity of making everyone stupid beyond belief, but it still annoys me.

Art and animation feel much improved here. The music is good and the stories (sans my problems above) were very good.

Bottom line: still some annoying things that shouldn't be, but maybe I'm being too critical. The stories on their own were very good, even better than the manga. As such, I'll give this a buy.

Last updated Monday, January 16 2006. Created Monday, January 16 2006.

Rent 10 9 8 9 6 9 Devil Doll [series:1303#752]
[Score:82% = Rent+]
Two more episodes featuring Belldandy's sisters, providing a logical conclusion for the Lord Of Terror aftermath (based on manga volume 6 chapter 41&42): Urd, the adult goddess of the past, learns what it means to be a kid again, and Skuld, the filial goddess of the future learns what it means to be an adult.
  • episode 1: "Ah! Urd's small love story":
    Due to the events of episode 24 all goddesses are affected by Yggdrasil's malfunction. Urd (the goddess of the past) shrinks down to the size of a kid, but after hating to be limited about the use of her powers she begins to enjoy it. While going out she happens to meet a shy young boy and starts to play with him...
    A heart-warming story full of funny as well as charming scenes, wonderful music, a must-see for those who like the series. Urd shows how responsibly she can act while being carried away in the process nonetheless. Compared to the manga the boy gets more information about what actually happened in this version - again these goddesses aren't shy about their abilities.
  • episode 2: "Ah! Being An Adult Is Hearth-Throbbing?"
    Yggdrasil's malfunction has the opposite effect on Skuld: The goddess of the future suddenly became an adult. But as Yggdrasil is to be restored soon she has only one day to find out what being adult means. So Skuld happens to run into Toshiyuki who invites her to a date, and later Skuld and Keichi are been invited for modeling, wearing a wedding suit...
    Finally Skuld is learning a thing or two about herself as well as about Keiichi's relation with Belldandy - so this is an episode I've been waiting for quite some time (as Skuld usually annoyed me). The episode has a number of good laughs but never becomes overly silly (despite certain embarrassing scenes for Skuld). So I consider this one a good episode although not as strong as the first one of this OVA. Note that the motor club heard Skuld being called by name (Hasegawa being the one to make the connection, I like it!) but again this doesn't destroy the scenario. Oh well.
Belldandy's fixing of the damage in public was consistent with earlier applications of her power - which doesn't mean I like it this way. A big downside is the fact that these two episodes were shown as a sequence (as to be able to focus on just one character in each of these, obviously) while the effects should have been in parallel and removed after Urd's problem had been taken care of. I'm downgrading "Series Story" because of this while "Episode story" expresses the fine performance withing their respective plots; "Characters" got an upgrade relative to the series for focussing more on the thoughts of the important characters instead of silly fun.

Last updated Friday, June 25 2010. Created Friday, January 13 2006.

Community Anime Reviews

anime mikomi org