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Oh my Goddess! Manga
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Title Info
- seen: 1-6 of 6+
- type: manga
- grade: worthy
- people: Fujishima
- Other elements of this title:
- This title is a personal favourite.
- made: unknown
- Review created: Recently, but I didn't record the date.
- mod: none
This series is very popular, although perhaps not with the purists, and in my opinion deserves every little bit of it. I was hooked from the very first story and have only become more impressed as the story has grown and the world deepend with every novel. It awes me that it is still going in Japan with something like 20 volumes at the current time. The story is similar to that of the OAV with Keiichi Morisato becoming the recipient of a wish and, touched by the innocence of the delivering goddess, jokingly wishing he had a woman like her to stay beside him forever. When this wish is not only accepted, but unchangeable, Keiichi finds his life going in all sorts of strange directions, with problems both magical, mundane keeping him busy. Of course with Belldandy at his side most readers probably consider it a worthwhile deal.
While the anime gave a good taste of OMG the manga basically has much more space and freedom to explore the characters and world. The stories are initially short but seem to grow as the manga progresses. One nice touch is that results are retained, so a character may be introduced and then re-introduced later, meaning the world and cast have grown over time. Still, no matter how serious the story, including at least one attempt at world destruction, the atmosphere tends to be heavily character based and strong on charm. Even the introduction of a demon as an opponent cannot change that much. The dialog is excellent, there is a rich sense of humor and a wonderful sensitivity to situation, which leads to memorable scenes that imprint themselves on the memory. Adding to this is the detailed world, technology and divine mythology (borrowed from all over, but also lots of norse myth's) which makes exploring the world so exciting. Being strongly character and story based the manga bears many re-readings with ease. Despite the relatively low page count I strongly recommend this manga.
The art style is strange, with a very clean and lifeless line style that somehow manages to create works of great beauty. I think the strong sense of design, and the willingness to invest great time in one image, makes this the most popular manga for generating posters from. Even the costume design's are wonderfully detailed and evolved. The art also has a great ability to bring forth gesture and character. It is unique but beautiful and continues to grow richer as the manga continues. I must admit that my only piece of anime merchandise is an OMG poster (of Skuld).
Still, brickbats and boo's to the publishers for dropping stories and not even mentioning it. Thus the first graphic novel is largely broken by the removal of 10 stories directly after the first story which creates a painful jump. And given that previous events are remembered and re-used it continues to annoy thereafter. Dark Horse recently re-printed these stories in the monthly collection Super-Manga blast which makes me wonder what they were thinking in the first place. If these stories don't come out as a Graphic Novel I, and possibly many others, will be very (language filter engaged) annoyed (language filter removed).
Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:23 WST 2009