My Continued Infatuation With Oh My Goddess!

When I was a stupid teenager, I fell fast and hard in love with anime.  It wasn’t hard to see why, as American animation, save for the DC Animated Universe, was in severe decline, and still is to a certain extent, no matter the amount of effort [adult swim] tries to convince you otherwise.  There was also a huge amount of exceptional anime out when I was in my teens as well.  I had my choice between the Gundam series, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Rurouni Kenshin (the Samurai X mini-series remains my favorite bit of animation ever made), as well as any number of other quality programs.  The original Dragonball series was beginning to hit in Mexico, and was a fun program, and even it’s much darker and less plot concerned successor, Dragonball Z, was excellent with it’s Spanish voice acting.  Ranma ½ was a quality series, and two other series, Hanna Yori Dango (Boys Before Flowers, which could outdo any English teen drama in terms of plucky heroines and social issues) and Trigun, which was really the last great anime I watched.  Oh, it was fun times, and great series’, many of which were watched with my little sister, who enjoyed the heck out of these programs as well.

Then, well, everything went to hell.  Several successor programs coming out of Japan began making their way here, and really, once the focus began to shift more on merchandising, and less on content, the quality of anime making its way over just crashed.  I also grew older, and found many of the series’ coming out to be more focused on cheesecake and fights than on the story (I’m looking at you, Bleach!)  Eventually, I returned to the world of comic books, which had greatly improved since my teenage years, and abandoned the world of manga and anime altogether.

Except for one series, which remains a must follow for myself, even today.  Kosuke Fujishima’s masterpiece, Oh My Goddess!

Oh my Goddess, to put it bluntly, follows the story of a young college student, Keiichi Morisato, who accidentally calls the Goddess Relief Line, and given the opportunity to make a wish for anything he wants.  He accidentally winds up wishing for his goddess representative, Belldandy, to stay with him forever.  The wish is granted, and throughout the rest of the book, it details Keiichi and Belldandy falling in love, and their different adventures together as the years pass.  They are later joined by Belldandy’s older and younger sister, Urd and Skuld, who cause their own amount of mischief, for their own reasons.

It sounds simple, sounds so lame, and yet it’s quite engrossing.  Unlike most male protagonists, in comics from both sides of the Pacific, Morisato is an everyman, and not someone who is blessed with exceptional fortune, luck, or powers.  He simply is what he is, and that’s a good man who seeks to persevere and follow his dreams.  Belldandy is the all powerful, beautiful woman at his side, who is supportive and loving of the man she accidentally remaining with.  The supporting cast have their wacky quirks, but all at their core are fairly decent people, with the exception of the series’ few antagonists.

Like several other series creators, Fujishima pulls double duty in the series, doing both writing and illustrating.  In terms of artwork, you see the progression of Fujishima’s skills as time passes in each issue.  The beginning episodes are rather crude, when you look at them for the first time, and feel very busy.  However, as time passes, you see that constant repition and work have resulted in an ever improving style, and a steadier hand.  When you now look at the more current issues, you see that Fujishima has managed to create a beautiful, simple, but expressive style throughout his works, that feels visually pleasing, and compliments his writing well.

Fujishima’s style, so unique to him, was also one of the main reasons why I started learning how to draw.  The simple and beautiful renditions of Fujishima’s characters was so lovely and so pleasing to the eye, I wanted to see, could I try and do that.  Could I be able to draw similar to this man whose work I adored?  I look back and only say, “Foolish child.  Everyone’s work is unique.” And that was before I discovered other artists who I admired, actually received training on how to draw, and began to have conflicting schools of thought when I drew, resulting in my current hybrid style of work that is still very much in transition that you see in my artpage.

But, in the end, what continues to draw me into reading scanned and translated copies of Oh My Goddess online is that almost cheerful wholesomeness told throughout each issue.  It is, at it’s heart, a love story between two really nice people, and the surrounding people in their lives. While the story can at times trend a bit towards the dark, love does conquer all, and people at their heart are wonderful, nice, caring, and peaceful, in spite of their own little quirks.  And, in the end, it’s that lovely warm, kind little world that I’m drawn back to.  Maybe it’s too optimistic, or too simple, but in the end, it all comes down to one central reason why I continue to hold onto this series, years after I’ve by and large abandoned anime and manga as a whole:

Because I love it.