{"id":31983,"date":"2025-02-10T09:00:31","date_gmt":"2025-02-10T09:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=31983"},"modified":"2025-02-09T15:15:08","modified_gmt":"2025-02-09T15:15:08","slug":"oh-my-goddess-volume-2-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2025\/02\/10\/oh-my-goddess-volume-2-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh My Goddess! volume 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" \"\"
\nBy Kosuke Fujishima<\/strong>, original translation by Dana Lewis<\/strong>, Alan Gleason<\/strong> & Toren Smith<\/strong> (Dark Horse Manga)
\nISBN: 978-1-59307-457-9 (tankōbon TPB) eISBN: 978-1-62115-756-4<\/p>\n

This book includes Discriminatory Content<\/strong> produced in less enlightened times and cultures.<\/em><\/p>\n

All over the world, college days offer plenty of opportunities for romance, comedy and comics creativity. Apparently manga always gets there first and explores avenues you never even realised existed….<\/p>\n

Fujishima Kosuke was born in Chiba, Japan on July 7th<\/sup> 1964, and, after completing High School, got a job as an editor. His plans to be a draughtsman had foundered after failing to secure a requisite apprenticeship, and he instead joined Puff<\/em><\/strong> magazine in that administrative role. Life started looking up after he became assistant to manga artist Tatsuya Egawa (Be Free<\/strong>, Golden Boy<\/strong>, Magical Taluluto<\/strong>). Fujishima graduated to his first solo feature in 1986: writing and illustrating police series You\u2019re Under Arrest<\/strong> until 1992. In 1988, he began a consecutive second series: a fantasy comedy that would reshape his life. Despite other series such as Paradise Residence<\/strong> and Toppu GP<\/strong> over intervening decades, Aa! Megami-sama<\/em> <\/strong>– alternatively translated as Ah! My Goddess<\/strong> and Oh My Goddess!<\/strong> became his signature work and one that has made him a household name in Japan.<\/p>\n

The saga began in the September 1988 issue of Kodansha\u2019s seinen (\u201cteen boys\/young males\u201d) periodical Monthly Afternoon<\/strong> and ran until April 2014, generating enough material for 48 tankōbon volumes and a supplementary series whilst spawning anime, special editions, TV series, musical albums, games and all the attendant spin-offs and merchandise mega-popularity brings. In 2020 there were 25 million physical copies of the books in circulation and an unguessable number of digital sales. It has won awards, been translated across the globe in print and on screens and has a confirmed place in comics history\u2026<\/p>\n

Oh My Goddess!<\/strong> is a particularly fine example of a peculiarly Japanese genre of storytelling combining fantasy with loss of conformity and maxed out embarrassment. In this case, and as seen in volume 1\u2019s opening chapter \u2018The Number You Have Dialled is Incorrect\u2019<\/em>, when nerdy engineering sophomore Keiichi Morisato<\/em> dials a wrong number one night, he inadvertently connects to the Goddess Technical Help Line.<\/p>\n

When captivatingly beautiful and cosmically powerful minor administrative deity Belldandy<\/em> materialises in his room offering him one wish, he snidely asks that she never leave him. That rash response traps her on Earth, unable even to move very far beyond his physical proximity. Her powers are mighty, but come with many provisos and restrictions. The most immediate and terrible repercussion manifests quickly as he is ejected from his student residence for having a girl in his room\u2026<\/p>\n

In a structured society like Japan there\u2019s plenty of scope for comedy when a powerful and beautiful female seemingly dotes on a barely average male, especially as Keiichi\u2019s new girlfriend seems to all observers unwilling to ever leave his side. Captivating Belldandy\u2019s profligate use of divine powers, utter naivety and tendency to attract chaos and calamity make the bonded pair\u2019s search for a new home a fraught exercise, but after a few foredoomed forays the odd couple settle in a temple gifted them by a Buddhist priest. The proximity quandary is settled by Belldandy using her powers to enrol at his school, the Nekomi Institute of Technology. However, the clearly \u201cEuropean\u201d newcomer can\u2019t help but draw unwelcome attention, particularly from Keiichi\u2019s macho, petrolhead fellow students and creepy lecturer Dr. Ozawa<\/em>. The lifelong rival of Morisato\u2019s favourite teacher \u201cDoc\u201d Kakuta<\/em> is suspicious when all his students switch to the classes Belldandy audits and he commences a covert campaign to get rid of her\u2026<\/p>\n

College is a series of crucial interconnections and – other than Belldandy – Morisato is inexplicably closest to his colleagues in the Nekomi Institute of Technology Motor Club: a gang of overbearing, exploitative, bullying gearhead maniacs who gleefully spend his money, eat his food and get him into trouble. However, the earthbound divinity\/clingy girlfriend\u2019s hardwired role is to aid those in need and whenever she detects a problem she addresses it, dragging her poor partner along for the ride…<\/p>\n

More trouble materialises as campus queen Sayoko Mishima<\/em> realises the lovely new lass threatens her social supremacy and so the predatory Mean Girl sets her destructive sights and wealth on stealing Belldandy\u2019s hapless chump of a \u201cboyfriend\u201d. The goddess is fully aware of the interloper\u2019s mystical bad mojo and takes kind, gentle but firm retaliatory action when necessary. Sadly, Sayoko is determined, inspired and relentless.<\/p>\n

With chaos following him everywhere, increased angst occurs after Morisato finally finds the nerve to move beyond the painfully platonic life sentence he\u2019s locked into. Of course, books like Going Steady for Dummies get him no closer to even kissing his goddess, and their first stab at an intimate dinner date is a disaster. It\u2019s further compounded when constant financial shortfalls force him to accept his little sister Megumi<\/em> into his secrets and inner circle. Miss Morisato is a gossip spreader and imaginative tale teller. What family furore she will make of him living with a gorgeous exotic foreigner cannot be imagined. She causes chaos from the start: bearing enough cash to tide them over – but only if Keiichi boards her for a week while she takes some important entrance exams. There\u2019s no way the kid won\u2019t expose Belldandy\u2019s supernatural nature to the world, but what big brother should have fretted over was the actual tests, as Megumi aces her exams and is admitted to Nekomi Tech, right beside him… and his goddess.<\/p>\n

This second volume gathers Chapters 10-16 where, having adapted to being inextricably linked to a na\u00efve, beautiful goddess, you\u2019d think life would settle down for our socially inadequate misfit student. However,\u00a0 things keep getting more complicated for Keiichi. His college society are determined to prove them their dominance: swiping his cash and getting him into trouble. In \u2018An Honest Match\u2019<\/em> they arbitrarily settle his money woes by signing him up to an art class: one run by scheming Sayoko, who seeks to crush his spirit by making him and Belldandy nude models, exposed to everyone\u2019s judging gaze. The goddess has other ideas…
\n\"\"
\nThe impossible romance of that first kiss edges closer to reality on a gentle day out together in \u2018This Life is Wonderful\u2019<\/em> before manic mundanity returns in \u2018Love is the Prize\u2019<\/em> as the Nekomi cycle club pressgang Morisato into competing in a dangerous race with rivals of the Ushikubo University Motorcycle Club – with Belldandy as an unofficial prize! – before events precipitate a \u2018System Force Down\u2019<\/em> on a 4-day Nekomi beach retreat as Belldandy\u2019s powers run amok. Unbeknownst to her, the fault has been divinely manufactured by her wayward, oft-demoted, even more powerful older sister Urd<\/em>, who uses the crisis to visit Earth and scope out Morisato. Intrigued by what she finds the salacious, sex-obsessed\u00a0 meddler makes him her pet project, but the scheme backfires and she too ends up stuck in the world of mortals with oh-so-lucky Keiichi in \u2018Oh My Older Sister!\u2019<\/em>
\n\"\"
\nHer bombastic nature erupts to the fore during the Nekomi Campus festival where Urd manipulates events and people to star a war to confirm \u2018I\u2019m the Campus Queen\u2019<\/em>, but she\u2019s met her match in Sayoko, who participates in a cheesy beauty\/talent contest and drags poor Belldandy unto the line of fire too. By the time the furore ends it\u2019s the anniversary of Morisato\u2019s careless wish and \u2018What Belldandy Wants Most\u2019<\/em> finds him – and her – in contemplative mood. Eager as always to advance the relationship he wants to get her a ring, but must first earn enough to buy one. The result is almost constant humiliation and many near-death experiences as he takes a number of jobs to fund the gift, but at least the reward is worth the effort…
\n\"\"
\nTo Be Continued…
\nThis mainly monochrome compendium is peppered with brief full colour sections and – as is also traditional – the main story is augmented by mini features. Goddess Side Story<\/strong> \u2018Oh My Manga Artist!\u2019<\/em> offers 4-panel gag strips \u2018The Shield\u2019<\/em>, \u2018The Trap\u2019<\/em> and \u2018The Paper\u2019<\/em>, a selection of \u2018Letters to the Enchantress\u2019 <\/em>from the US series\u2019 original comic book incarnation and \u2018Editor\u2019s Commentary on Vol. 2<\/em>\u2019: another expansive collection of factoids detailing significant cultural clues that might bypass most readers.<\/p>\n

Decades after it began Oh My Goddess!<\/strong> remains a beguiling, engaging and eminently re-readable confection, at once frothy fun and entrancing drama. Think of it as a Eastern take on Bewitched<\/strong> or I Dream of Genie<\/strong>, especially as the painfully awkward forbidden romance develops: one that both mortal and immortal protagonists are incapable of admitting to. Throw in the required supporting cast of friends, rivals, insaniacs, petrol-heads, weird teachers and interfering entities, and there\u2019s almost too much light-hearted fun to be found in this bright and breezy manga classic.
\n\u00a9 2006 by Kosuke Fujishima. All rights reserved. This English language edition \u00a9 2006 Dark Horse Comics, Inc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kosuke Fujishima, original translation by Dana Lewis, Alan Gleason & Toren Smith (Dark Horse Manga) ISBN: 978-1-59307-457-9 (tankōbon TPB) eISBN: 978-1-62115-756-4 This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times and cultures. All over the world, college days offer plenty of opportunities for romance, comedy and comics creativity. Apparently manga always gets there … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Oh My Goddess! volume 2”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[113,102,125,148,296,260,210],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comedy","category-fantasy","category-humour","category-romance","category-school-stories","category-seinen-manga","category-sport"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-8jR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31983"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31990,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31983\/revisions\/31990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}