Josh’s Anime Blog

The Essentials

Name: Ah! My Goddess: Fighting Wings, Aa Megami-sama: Tatakau Tsubasa
Genre: Fantasy
Episodes: 2
Released: December 8, 2007
Based On: Oh! My Goddess manga by Kosuke Fujishima, Ah! My Goddess TV series
Director: Hiroaki Gohda
Produced By: AIC
US Distribution By: N/A

Major Japanese Cast

Belldandy: Kikuko Inoue
Keiichi Morisato: Masami Kikuchi
Urd: Yumi Touma
Skuld: Aya Hisakawa
Peorth: Rei Sakuma
Lind: Miki Itou
Hild: Gara Takashima
Marller: Urara Takano

Major English Cast

N/A

Scores

Animation: 8/10 (x 4 = 32 pts)
Story: 8/10 (x 4 = 32 pts)
Music: 8/10 (x 4 = 32 pts)
Coherence/Story Arc: N/A
English Dubs: N/A
Gut Score: 8/10 (x 5 = 40 pts)

Total: 136/170 (80.0%)

Review

Ah! My Goddess: Fighting Wings is a story that largely centers around the Valkyrie Lind, who has been tapped to protect the four Goddesses on earth and to search for the “Angel Eater,” a mysterious being which has been eating all of the goddess’ angels, debilitating them.

This was a pretty entertaining 2-episode TV special meant to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Ah! My Goddess franchise. This special isn’t really for someone who is trying to introduce themselves to the franchise, as an understanding of the world is assumed in this special. Otherwise, however, if you are familiar with the franchise, the quality and entertainment value from this special is comparable to that of the TV series which has aired previously. This includes a good mix of drama and comedy, as is the norm in most of the action-based story arcs in the series.

If you like the Ah! My Goddess franchise and enjoyed the TV series, I’m sure that you would enjoy this short special as well.

First Watched: January 2008
Do I Own: No
Do I Recommend: Yes (if you’re familiar with the franchise)

Instead of posting a brand new review, I thought I’d put up a post about my updating the Ah! My Goddess (TV) review to include the 2nd season. I briefly thought about posting the whole thing, but then I’d have it twice in the system, so I thought I’d just link to where it already is. Not much has changed though I don’t think.

The Essentials

Name: Ah! My Goddess; Ah! My Goddess - Flights of Fancy; Ah! My Goddess - Sorezore no Tsubasa; Ah! My Goddess - Everyone Has Wings
Genre:: Fantasy, Romance
Episodes: 50 - 46 TV & 4 OVA
Released:
- Season 1 TV (24): January 6, 2005 - July 7, 2005
- Season 1 OVAs (2): December 23, 2005
- Season 2 TV (22): April 6, 2006 - September 14, 2006
- Season 2 OVAs (2): February 23, 2007
Based On: Oh! My Goddess manga by Kosuke Fujishima
Director: Hiroaki Gohda
Produced By: AIC, TBS
US Distribution By: AnimeWorks (Season 1), ADV Films (Season 2)

Major Japanese Cast

Belldandy: Kikuko Inoue
Keiichi Morisato: Masami Kikuchi
Urd: Yumi Touma
Skuld: Aya Hisakawa
Megumi Morisato: Yuriko Fuchizaki
Marller: Urara Takano
Sayoko Mishima: Mamiko Noto
Peorth: Rei Sakuma
Hild: Gara Takashima
Sora Hasegawa: Ikue Ohtani
Toshiyuki Aoshima: Nobuo Tobita
Toraichi Tamiya: Kiyoyuki Yanada
Otaki: Issei Futamata

Major English Cast

Belldandy: Eileen Stevens
Keiichi Morisato: Drew Aaron
Urd: Vibe Jones
Skuld: Annice Moriarty
Megumi Morisato: Emily Blau
Marller: Alissa Brodsky
Sayoko Mishima: Karen Nell
Peorth: Juliet Cesario
Sora Hasegawa: Zoe Martin
Toshiyuki Aoshima: Marc Diraison
Toraichi Tamiya: Marc Thompson
Otaki: Scottie Ray

Scores

Animation: 8/10 (x 4 = 32 pts)
Story: 8/10 (x 4 = 32 pts)
Music: 9/10 (x 4 = 36 pts)
Coherency/Story Arc: 7/10 (x 2 = 14 pts)
English Dubs: 8/10 (x 1 = 8 pts)
Gut Score: 8/10 (x 5 = 40 pts)

Total: 162/200 (81%)

Review

Ah! My Goddess is about a college student, Keiichi Morisato, who accidentally calls the Goddess Help Line and is granted a wish by the Goddess Belldandy. Believing that it’s a joke and thinking about the fact that he hasn’t had much girl luck, Keiichi wishes for the beautiful goddess to stay by his side forever. Belldandy responds that his wish has been granted, much to his surprise. However, Keiichi’s dorm doesn’t allow women, and this fact in combination with heaven’s ultimate force, which is a force that gets invoked if there is anything that may result in a goddess’s wish from taking effect, starts a chain of events which results in Keiichi being evicted from his dorm.

The series then follows Belldandy and Keiichi’s life and the growth in their relationship, as well as the constant addition of goddesses, including Belldandy’s two sisters, Urd and Skuld, as well as Belldandy’s rival Peorth, as well as Keiichi’s little sister Megumi and a pair of demons in Marllar and Hild.

The story, centering more around telling Belldandy’s and Keiichi’s lives, is told more with more of stories-of-the-week as opposed to having an overriding plot which drives the story. There are recurring themes that come up, such as Marller trying to get at Belldandy or Sayoko trying to lure Keiichi away, but they’re usually sub-plots that only occur every now and then and last one, and perhaps two, episodes. This leads to the feeling that the series is just kind of riding along, but not necessarily accomplishing anything, and has created an artificial ending to both seasons and the series as a whole so far.

This doesn’t mean that the series is without worth, however. Most stories told in individual episodes are well-told however, and are usually entertaining and often humorous and can sometimes lead to significant development for a character or the development of Belldandy’s and Keiichi’s relationship, and whenever we did pick up on a previously used plot-line, new episodes did at least often follow from past ones.

The thought that animation of the series was pretty good, though not mind-blowing. The music was also good and fit the series and individual scenes very well. The only other weak point may be the English dub, though it does get better as the series progresses I thought.

Overall, Ah! My Goddess will probably be enjoyed by fans of the franchise, but I think is an overall average series otherwise. I still think it is worth the watch, but there is certainly still a lot that could have been done to make it better.

First Watched: May - August 2006 (Season 1); November 2006 (Season 2)
Do I Own: No
Do I Recommend: Yes