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REVIEW: Ah! My Goddess DVD 1




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Flame-X



Joined: 06 Oct 2005
Posts: 39
PostPosted: Thu Oct 06, 2005 1:06 am Reply with quote
I disagree with this review, but since I can't express myself in a cordial or mature fashion, my post has been edited.
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Nagisa
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Joined: 19 Aug 2003
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 06, 2005 1:31 am Reply with quote
For deciding to troll and not respectfully express your disagreement (including the exact reasons you disagree), I'd argue that you deserved to be slapped first. Could you please bother to use tact and explain your side of things instead of just jumping down the reviewer's throat?
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Mohawk52



Joined: 16 Oct 2003
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 06, 2005 2:29 am Reply with quote
I haven't seen this new series yet but I have seen stills of various takes and I still perfer the OVA detail to this. But having survived the great difference in the earlier Manga drawings to today's I believe I'll survive this one too in time. I agree with the animation rating C+, but still look forward to it's UK release.
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Twage



Joined: 29 Jul 2003
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Location: North Bergen, NJ
PostPosted: Thu Oct 06, 2005 5:37 am Reply with quote
Seriously, though, the animation is just... bad. Or at least worse than I expected. The sparse backgrounds look slapped together and the digimation barely moves sometimes.

But my bigger beef with this series is how boring it gets later on. I vaguely liked the first few episodes, but past that I watched about five minutes before skipping to the next episode. At one point I stopped watching altogether and skipped straight to the final four-ep arc, and I didn't miss anything. That says something.
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theoriginalbilis





PostPosted: Thu Oct 06, 2005 9:37 pm Reply with quote
The series is supposed to be slower-paced. It fits with the tone of the manga, and it fits within the "slice-of-life" genre as well as the harem/romantic comedy genre. (At least to me.)

I bought the 1st volume at Best Buy the other day, and boy was I pleased. Far superior to the OVA (even though it was good too.)

I'm agree with the review, and I love the dubbing job on this one. I'm actually going to make an effort to buy the whole series (which I can't say for many series running nowadays.)
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ZODDGUTS



Joined: 27 Oct 2003
Posts: 600
PostPosted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 5:05 am Reply with quote
Yeah I 100% agree with the review. Great series though people may not like how it starts off a bit slow compare the OVA series but I liked it because it built character development something that the OVA series lacked.

Animation could have been a better but it's not like it was bad but you could see that animation could still be taken up a notch. But that may have been due to a limited budget since the series aired late at night after 1:00 a.m. I guess that AIC didn't expect too much of this series but it ended up getting high TV rating numbers normally each ep had a 2.0 or higher at most a few eps ended up getting a 3.0 and that's really good TV ratings for something to be aired that late. If there is indeed a 2nd season and there probably will be the budget for this series is likely to be higher.

The only thing that bothered me in this volume was when: spoiler[After Keiichi made his wish to have Belldandy to be with him Belldandy quickly went to call God and you can see her reaction that she was againsn't the wish but after she hangs up she turns around she has a yay happy face because keiich had made that wish. I found that too be contractory for her reaction that was a few secs ago. The manga did a better job because you see that she gradually accepts that she has to stay with him due to the wish and can't go agaisn't it that wasn't done in the anime.]
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Twage



Joined: 29 Jul 2003
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 08, 2005 7:58 am Reply with quote
Thanks for reminding me of my other gripe. Belldandy is a frustratingly one-dimensional character in this show. Her totally shallow treatment turned it into just another harem anime.

The slow pace didn't bother me in the beginning. It's when the show starts getting aimless and cliched and episodic and boring in the later episodes that I started skipping episodes. It's possible to do an excellent slow-paced slice-of-life show (paging Yoshitoshi Abe). This isn't one.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the show already get a second season (the second half of the complete 24-episode run)? From what I've heard a third is not likely. If so, though I'm fond of the earlier incarnations in the franchise, it'll be good for this one to die a quiet death.
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Key
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 08, 2005 1:07 pm Reply with quote
In fairness, though, Belldandy has never been much more than a one-dimensional character in any previous anime or manga incarnation. Those around her have always been much more well-rounded.
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radicaledward



Joined: 02 Mar 2003
Posts: 776
PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 8:06 am Reply with quote
Twage wrote:
And correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the show already get a second season (the second half of the complete 24-episode run)? From what I've heard a third is not likely. If so, though I'm fond of the earlier incarnations in the franchise, it'll be good for this one to die a quiet death.
I tend to agree with you - I still reserve opinion on the anime, haven't seen it yet - but the manga is started to get the worn-out feeling that long run mangas tend to have.

Does anyone know if there has been any talk of the mange drawing to a close?
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Tenchi



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 3:44 pm Reply with quote
radicaledward wrote:
the manga is started to get the worn-out feeling that long run mangas tend to have.


I switched to reading the French version of the Ah My Goddess! manga for a while, since I didn't want to wait years and years for the English version to get that far, and got up to volume 26, which was the point where the French version had more or less caught up with the Japanese tankubon release and, by the time the next volume came out, I was in the middle of getting ready to move to Ontario and I just realized writing this that I haven't actually bought a volume in either language in a year and a half or so. (They're up to 29 in French, I think. I oughta catch up...)

Anyway, I find the problem with the volumes of the manga past volume 21 or so is that Kosuke Fujishima probably got too inspired by the movie, and now he's trying to tell epic and rather convoluted stories with each single story arc, and the "small", low-key, (slightly enchanted) slice-of-life stories that made me like the manga in the first place have really fallen by the wayside. I'm just not as interested in the sorts of stories where I have to recall every single tiny detail and nuance of the inner workings of the Yggdrasil computer and the Doublet System and the like just to be able to follow what's going on.

As much as I hate to say it, if the manga continues in that direction (and I haven't read the most recent three volumes, so I don't know if it has), sooner or later its going to collapse under its own narrative weight.
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Kusanagi_Kei



Joined: 11 Dec 2004
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 6:04 pm Reply with quote
I disagree with the review too, partly because it's my personal taste.
Firstly I have to say the animation is downgraded. The animation looks vectored, contours are colored with a thick black marker and everything looks very bold. The detail isn't as sophisticated than the OVA, let alone the movie (which by the way yields the best animation and design of them all).

The music although composed by Hamaguchi (who also composed for the movie), it isn't very capturing the magic and moment like the movie did, and I really think the music is far from the quality of Yasuda's OVA composition. And considering the several variety albums and image songs from Hamaguchi Shirou, the music isn't as catchy and memorable compared to the OVA.
Of all of the opening and ending themes in the series, the most suited and closest to the Ah! My Goddess theme is "OPEN YOUR MIND" by Ishida Yoko. The rest sound folky and jazzy, not like the magic of A!MG.

The good thing is that the series is lengthy and although a bit slow, it does follow the manga closer than the rest.

On the seiyuu side, I haven't watched the English version as of yet, but I am expecting a good performance close to Cesario's Belldandy, if not better.
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Key
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 4:28 pm Reply with quote
Kusanagi-Kei wrote:
I disagree with the review too, partly because it's my personal taste.
Firstly I have to say the animation is downgraded. The animation looks vectored, contours are colored with a thick black marker and everything looks very bold. The detail isn't as sophisticated than the OVA, let alone the movie (which by the way yields the best animation and design of them all).

The music although composed by Hamaguchi (who also composed for the movie), it isn't very capturing the magic and moment like the movie did, and I really think the music is far from the quality of Yasuda's OVA composition. And considering the several variety albums and image songs from Hamaguchi Shirou, the music isn't as catchy and memorable compared to the OVA.
Of all of the opening and ending themes in the series, the most suited and closest to the Ah! My Goddess theme is "OPEN YOUR MIND" by Ishida Yoko. The rest sound folky and jazzy, not like the magic of A!MG.


I deliberately didn't compare the series to the movie on technical merits because that wouldn't have been a fair comparison; production values are almost always much higher on movies due to greater budgets and more time to work on the project. A much more fair comparison was to the OVA. I went back and watched parts of the OVA right after watching the first volume of the series on DVD, and can't agree with any comments which specify the OVA's technical merits as being better. To my eye it looks rough by comparison. The technical merits of the subtitles are also considerably improved in the TV series, incidentally.

As for the music? I always hated the opening and closing themes to the OVA (especially the god-awful lyrics), so anything is an improvement in my book. But I did genuinely like the TV series opener.
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Mohawk52



Joined: 16 Oct 2003
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Location: England, UK
PostPosted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 6:54 pm Reply with quote
Key wrote:
As for the music? I always hated the opening and closing themes to the OVA (especially the god-awful lyrics), so anything is an improvement in my book. But I did genuinely like the TV series opener.
I loved the ending music of the OVA. it is such a happy and catchy tune I was humming it for days afterwards. Wink
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dormcat
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Joined: 08 Dec 2003
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 1:11 am Reply with quote
Key wrote:
As for the music? I always hated the opening and closing themes to the OVA (especially the god-awful lyrics), so anything is an improvement in my book. But I did genuinely like the TV series opener.

Mmm, which version are you talking about? Dub, sub, or both? The original gave us a rare opportunity to hear all three Goddesses singing together -- a similar occassion didn't come until seven years later in the movie, Coro di dea (argubly the best insert song in any anime I've ever seen).

Mohawk52 wrote:
I loved the ending music of the OVA. it is such a happy and catchy tune I was humming it for days afterwards. Wink

It's even better when coupled with Skuld busy debugging (I have that mini game too Mr. Green ).

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Kusanagi_Kei



Joined: 11 Dec 2004
Posts: 230
PostPosted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 7:27 am Reply with quote
dormcast wrote:
Key wrote:
wrote:
As for the music? I always hated the opening and closing themes to the OVA (especially the god-awful lyrics), so anything is an improvement in my book. But I did genuinely like the TV series opener.


Mmm, which version are you talking about? Dub, sub, or both? The original gave us a rare opportunity to hear all three Goddesses singing together -- a similar occassion didn't come until seven years later in the movie, Coro di dea (argubly the best insert song in any anime I've ever seen).

There is no difference between the music in the Japanese and English versions of A!MG OVA. If you compare the many songs and music in the OVA of which were all composed by Yasuda Takeshi, they are more memorable and to the style of Ah! My Goddess, compared to what Hamaguchi and other composers of the TV music and image albums.

I have all of the OVA CDs (from Pony Canyon), and you can tell that the songs are derived from the BGM or vice versa.

The TV series' music is good, but only standing as average like where I place the good/average anime scores. However, the OVA (and movie) compositions were above good, they are excellent.
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