Aa! Megami-sama - Sorezore no Tsubasa OVA

1. OVA Episode 1 being the first of the various shinentai stories (manga volume 8 chapter 48) works quite well at this later stage of the saga as Belldandy can handle the situation without panicking (but still plays it safe during the final operation, hehe). And the goddesses showing their power in front of the drunk motorcycle club members actually had me giggle. More of the same megami goodness if you ask me... but still no appearance of Keiichi's parents despite them being shown in the ED scenes.
2. OVA Episode 2 is based on manga chapters 193-195 from manga volumes 30 resp. 31, about Keiichi finally saying "I love you" to Belldandy. Given that Peorth and Urd are competing for the role of the ultimate helper in this process there's more slapstick than serious romance in this part, including a number of wordplays with various kanjis.

This 2-episode OAV used to get Japanese fans to buy the DVD release is actually the best of the 2nd TV series for me. That's because the writers didn't decide to go off on their own and just randomly change things, but actually followed manga stories closely.

Episode 1 is the shinentai story from the manga (chapter 48), done pretty well save for Bell and Urd again using powers in front of a crowd. I can't tell you how much that annoys me. At least here, the senpai's and others were drunk when they saw it, but I still didn't like that. The original manga didn't provide enough material to fill the 24-mintutes, so some additional stuff was added. While it provided a bit of texture to the group outing, it was clearly filler and thus boring. But on the whole, I enjoyed the episode.

The second episode takes a MASSIVE leap forward, skipping forward to chapter 193. As such, the story is about Peorth's final mission on Earth before returning to the heavens (she having come to Earth to test Urd) and that's to get Keiichi to say "I love you" (the Japanese word "suki") to Belldandy. Of course once Urd gets involved, things get interesting. I enjoyed this episode a great deal. The writers made only minor modifications, mainly adding some additional material to the end of the episode, but again, following the manga closely is a winner for the anime. No "Baka Belldandy" here, which is so very, very sweet.

The second episode ends with the Japanese term for "The End," something that has not been done before. As such, I would suspect that there won't be another TV series. Too bad the anime writers had to jack things so much. I honestly think that had the anime writers only made changes to the two TV series that fixed plot holes and retconning (or changes needed to fit the TV format), we'd have a third series already announced. But the anime writers did all sorts of things that angered many fans.

Bottom line: This is how both TV series should have been -- following the manga stories and not making strange, unnecessary changes. As such, I give these two episodes a "Buy."

Last updated Monday, April 09 2007. Created Monday, March 26 2007.