Ah! My Goddess 2: Flights Of Fancy Volume 1: Reunited, And It Feels So Good - Newsarama
- Newsarama
- Steve Fritz
- 05/14/07
- click here
"The graphic standards are high. "
It's no surprise there'd be a second season of this durable series. Since it's introduction as a manga in 1988 it manages to mix inventive magical girlfriend fantasy with grounded romantic comedy. It also took the Confucian concept of Heaven being a Divine Bureaucracy to its most extreme conclusion.
This new season starts in a surprisingly logical manner; i.e. if you saw the second Goddess movie. Our heroes Keichii and Belldandy learn the divine computer that recorded their "contract" that initially got everything started was damaged. The records of said agreement are lost. It has to be recorded again in order for the two to stay together. That's when the comedy sets in.
Like you think they're going to kill the series with the first episode?
While the first episode, in all, ends up just a tad too pat for its own good, everything else moves nicely from their. The next three episodes use Christmas as a major backdrop for all it can. It's too mannered to rival Satoshi Kon's Tokyo Godfathers, but it still has its moments. The final episode, where Belldandy gets drunk on a can of cola is particularly fun.
The only real problem here is the voice cast ADV uses for the dubbing. The actors employed for Keichii and Belldandy sound way too uninvolved compared to past English teams. Naturally, all y'all otakus will stick to the original voice cast, but there are still a lot out there who don't like subtitles (in fact, they're still the majority of anime DVD buyers), so this IS something that should be considered.
As always, the graphic standards are high. While the first episode could have been better, the other three promise the series should be back to top form soon enough.
Posted on Monday, May 14, 2007 (Archive on Thursday, June 14, 2007)