Oh My Goddess! would’ve made a great horror series. You’ve got the hapless victim Keiichi who attempts to order take-out but dials the wrong number and reaches a ”goddess helpline” instead. Then there’s the goddess Belldandy who comes out of his mirror like a scene from The Ring except instead of trying to kill him she opts for a more devious scheme to ruin his life: moving in and staying forever.
This is where the real horror begins. You see, Belldandy is perfect. She’s cheerful, kind and warm. She loves to clean and cook. Every day after school she brings Keiichi homemade cake and other snacks. She even sits in his class and hands him school supplies whenever he needs them. And the worst part? As long as he wants her around, Belldandy will never leave his side. In fact the universe itself will bend just to make sure they are never separated. Ah, how terrible! What sick and twisted individual came up with something so frightening?
Oh wait… this is supposed to be an otaku’s ultimate fantasy? Keiichi isn’t going to crack from the pressure of living with someone so perfect and hack everyone to bits with a cleaver? Oh. Damn…
Ok, so maybe Belldandy isn’t really that frightening outside of being the ultimate Yamato Nadeshiko or traditional, ideal Japanese woman; the kind of housewife who is humble and always acts in the best interest of her husband or father. It sounds terribly antiquated but I wouldn’t be surprised if this concept is still alive and kicking in Japan, although I doubt that any Yamato Nadeshiko actually exist outside the imaginations of beleaguered husbands and lonely otaku.
I figured that this kind of character would get on my nerves when I sat down to watch the 1993 Oh My Goddess! OVA – the first animated incarnation of Kousuke Fujishima’s long-running manga – but I found that she really didn’t. Perhaps it was Kikuko Inoue’s pleasant voice that won me over or the fact that Belldandy is so damn nice but I just couldn’t bring myself to dislike her even if she does set women’s roles back 50 years.
With names from Norse mythology: Belldandy and her sisters Skuld and Urd
In fact Oh My Goddess! ended up being a fun watch just as long as I turned my brain off and agreed to accept two things: 1) Keiichi is a self-insert character thus he has no defining traits outside of being a nice guy and 2) because of this Belldandy loves him for no discernible reason at all. Number two was the hardest to ignore and, let’s face it, when your girlfriend has absolutely no motivations outside of pleasing you than you might as well be in love with your hand. Except your hand doesn’t talk to you, I guess.
Then again I might be being overly harsh on Belldandy. Is Belldandy really a doormat or does she just have a different kind of power? The power to protect Keiichi when the situation demands it, to understand people’s emotions and to subtly influence them. In other words, soft power. I’d be inclined to say that this is the case except for one thing. Near the end of the OVA something occurs which threatens to separate Keiichi and Belldandy forever. So what does she do to stop it? Absolutely nothing. She spends the entire time knitting a sweater. Ah well, Belldandy might be a doormat but Oh My Goddess! is really pretty harmless. It’s what I could imagine parents calling “wholesome entertainment”… at least until Belldandy’s sexy sister Urd shows up.
If I’m going to waste time watching a magical girlfriend show this is the one I’d do it with. I’m not sure if the premise is enough to hold my interest for an entire TV series but the 5 episode OVA was just about right. Of course, I still think with the right twist this could all have been way more creepy than Higurashi ever was but hey what do I know.
Subscribe to feed
I LOL’d. Harmless is quite apt. Belldandy does more in the Angel wings OVA, but more often than not it’s the other goddesses that have more personality.
Mai waifu likes this series, but not for Belldandy. Lind is the goddess who rocks, and she really digs her. I’m fond of Belldandy myself, but well…
You know, I know people (both male and female) who actually get something personally out of basically serving others and making them happy…it becomes a cornerstone of that person’s self-image and feeling of worth. If we wanted to overanalyze things we might even put Belldandy in that category…though, of course, seen this way it’s not pure altruism, and in some cases in real life can breed long-term resentment mixed with a self-martyring messiah complex. Which, considering that Belldandy is a divine figure, might even be somewhat appropriate!
If AMG ever began to explore a dynamic like that in Belldandy–now THAT would be interesting. Alas, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t meant to be quite like that. Mai-Hime began to with its title character, but I think stopped before it really started hitting gold.
Having been privy to… 37 volumes/239 chapters of Oh! My Goddess and counting, I can safely attest to the sort-of development she gets in the manga. If you count her jealousy as one, that is.
It’s actually elaborated very slowly somewhere around the mid-point of those 37 volumes that she’s really not all that perfect–she’s prone to yandere jealousy of a rather chronic and severe kind, and the worst part of it all? She doesn’t realise that she’s jealous. This actually becomes a plot point in one of the mini-arcs, if I remember correctly.
Yes, you can argue that her being jealous actually ties in to her Yamato Nadeshiko-ness since all she’s doing is being possessive of Keiichi, but this really begs the question: Who’s gratifying whom? Is Belldandy really there to serve the needs and wants of Keiichi, or is Keiichi there to serve the needs and wants of Belldandy?
It’s a matter of perspective, surely–that there are people who obtain gratification from serving rather than being served makes her position a lot more palatable, gender roles aside. But there’s the matter of her divinity and role as equilibrium maintainer (with regards to Skuld and Urd).
As far as cultural context goes, the Belldandy-Keiichi relationship always seemed analogous to that of the arranged marriages you have in Japan–while they’re not married per se, I’d like to think that their union at the beginning of the series and their subsequent adventures in adapting to said union fits in more ways than one. Union first, love later. Something I’ve definitely noticed while reading the manga.
In other words, this series (manga-wise) is really slice-of-life romance, and the anime only offers a mere glimpse of what the manga really is.
@ghostlightning
Lind doesn’t show up in the OVA. Now I’m curious.
@Mike
That Belldandy gets gratification by making others happy is surely the most reasonable explanation for her behavior and personality, if indeed we should be taking logic into account at all. I like that you brought up Mai-Hime, it would be deviously fun to watch Belldandy have a Mai level breakdown.
@Owen
Thanks for the comment. I’m definitely surprised to hear that she exhibits a less than perfect emotion like jealously later in the manga but then again it seems that’s to being a Yamato Nadeshiko what tripping and falling is to being moe. In other words, this “flaw” only makes her more of one. Unless it gets really out of hand I guess, then she’d end up like Lum of Urusei Yatsura.
Looking at Keiichi and Belldandy’s relationship as an arranged marriage makes a lot of sense. You’ve piqued my interest, I think I may check out either the manga or television series.
I didn’t have images of lind in this post, but you may want to see how ‘dark’ Belldandy looks like ^_^
@gl
Ok you’ve given me an idea about how I can get my Anti-Spiral Belldandy fix. I’ll just re-watch Macross F and whenever Grace shows up close my eyes and imagine it’s Belldandy.
You’re welcome. The romance is… rather slice-of-lifey, as I’ve mentioned. Almost meta-romance in its essence. It might be surprising to you to hear that Belldandy and Keiichi grow more in love with each other as the series progresses, never plateauing. Almost like, y’know, real people.
The way in which her jealousy manifests itself is hilarious, considering the world-breaking consequences if she isn’t pacified, and the best part is how she remains smiling and blissfully unaware throughout–her subconscious doing the damage, obviously. A precursor to Nanoha’s White Devil, if you will.