September 25th, 2010 
AstroNerdBoy Belldandy: Her Changing Appearance Over Time
All comic, comic strip, and manga artists evolve their character designs for a series they created over time. I am reminded of this whenever I reread my various comic strip collections like Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County, Foxtrot, etc. as the early strips look different from the later strips, sometimes quite a bit different. For Negima!, the character designs in volume one are somewhat different than what they are today, though I wouldn’t call it radically so since the current character designs would reflect the passage of time better (in my opinion).
For Ah! My Goddess, Fujishima-sensei is constantly tweaking his character designs, far more so than what would normally happen through the course of a comic’s/comic strip’s/manga’s lifespan. Take a look at this collage of Belldandy as she has changed over the course of 41 volumes of manga (nearly 22-years).
The character designs never stay the same but are constantly shifting (discounting that one image of “Belldandy” above for obvious reasons *lol*). I thought that around volume 8 is when the character designs were looking quite good but they became less appealing many volumes later (which is not to say that Fujishima-sensei can’t draw, but the changes in eyes and other tweaks made Belldandy not as appealing to me visually as she had been). Today, I still think Keiichi’s ears are wrong but I no longer find the look of Belldandy and the others to be disappointing due to the continued tweaking by Fujishima-sensei.
Anyway, I thought this was a pretty interesting look at how Belldandy’s look has changed over time. Thanks to Ah! My Goddess fan ‘CuSO4’ Yung for the image share. ^_^
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belldandy <3<3
sadly the change of marking cuz of the change of emotion are no longer exist….
Oh…. *realization*
Ya know, when I was in high school, I bought this set of Ah! My Goddess playing cards. Belldandy and the rest looked different in some of the cards (it’s the same with some of those images in your post). I just thought maybe they’re from fanarts or something? wahaha! Thanks for sharing. I didn’t know this. ^^
Yeah. It’s something I’ve been aware of when reading volumes of Ah! My Goddess as they come up from Dark Horse.
Sadly, I thought her best designs came around the 90’s, just about the time when the OVAs came out. By the mid-2000’s, she started to look a big vacant and glassy eyed for my comfort.
Of course, Urd and Skuld look fine regardless. ^_^
@ivanov — I think the characters still emote, but I think I know what you mean here.
@Sidney — You’re welcome. ^_^
@Tim — Skuld looked her best about the time that Sentarou was introduced, which I believe was in the mid-90’s.
It is funny that while I may think that the current character designs aren’t as good as they once were, I have no problems with the character designs of Paradise Residence. I think that’s because the characters in PR are new whereas AMG has around 22-years.
Fujishima san is the man responsible for most of my favourite mangas, especially “AMG” and “You’re Under Arrest!” His art styles are always evolving, like drastically, lol!
When it comes to Bell, I must say she didn’t just evolve aesthetically throughout the manga, but also as a character. I mean, she even admits it in some later chapters that she feels glad to have met Keiichi since she was able to grow up as a goddess, and feel the warmth love has. Now, we know she doesn’t need anyone to teach her how to love, but I think we get what she meant there…
She is perhaps my top-tier favourite anime/manga girl ever, given how emotionally mature she gets as chapters progress, and how caring, graceful, thoughtful and smart she is! I must say, a little dose of Belldandy everyday can make you a very happy person! 😀
Fujishima had a very Shonen inspired art style in his 80s works, take “You’re Under Arrest” as an example, right? But truth be told, I don’t think anyone could get as great as Shuichi Shigeno and Kosuke Fujishima at drawing automotive images, lol!
If you look at it, Bell may have had several different artistic approaches, but by the end, she still emoted the same personality, just like Mickey Mouse evolved, don’t you agree? My personal favs are her forms ever since the 8th volume, but yeah, I love all her forms tbh.
I may sound off topic here, but I really must talk about the OVAs and anime. The OVA was… more of a spin-off for the manga I guess? But no denying the fact that it was perhaps one of the most beautifully written anime, period! It portrays Keiichi and Bell’s relationship and commitment so wonderfully, though it was loosely based on the manga. The hand drawn art style prevalent in the 90s was a cherry on top!
Coming to the three seasons of the anime (and those specials too) no denying the fact it was made by pure fans of AMG, no kidding! They were fairly true to the manga, kept the magic of the OVA alive, had wonderful voice actors, especially for the English dub, beautiful BGMs, opening and closing songs by my favourite Yoko Ishida (well, most part). It was great fan service for us lovers of the manga.
All in all, she is a wonderfully developed character, and perhaps the only girl in the animeverse who would refer to a potato and a roller coaster as “potato-san” or “Mr Roller Coaster “, lol! She’s the best!
Loads of love to her! 😉
First, thanks for writing! I appreciate it.
Regarding Belldandy, I don’t disagree with your takes. My only problem with Belldandy wasn’t with her as a character, but the fact that Fujishima-sensei wouldn’t advance the romance between Belldandy and Keiichi until the very end.
The original OVA was used as an advertisement for the manga. With five episodes, the anime production team just decided to make their own story. But its purpose was to drive folks to the manga, and it worked with me. 😂
I hate to say it, but I wasn’t a fan of the TV series. I felt that Belldandy became a low IQ version of her manga self. And then the change to the Angel Eater ticked me off. 😅 But more power to you if you liked them! 😁
Totally true that Bell seemed a bit naive compared to her manga self in the TV anime, but the reason why I loved it is the team managed to cover most of the important incidents from the manga while staying true to the plot, like, some episodes were even direct recreations of some entire chapters, just as they were. I could feel their devotion towards it, like in how they gave thought to the direction such that it stays true to the manga scenes, the great bgms… (may not be up there, but sure was good) and how they were able to transition into the modern anime verse.
However, the OVA, as you said, was what made me mad about this title. It was the first thing I watched, n it was a great first impression! It was perhaps the most beautiful anime I’ve ever seen, even better than a few studio ghibli works… The OVA, though loosely based on the manga, was a complete story in itself, incapsulating the essence of the manga, even if it was just 5 episodes long. It is top tier to this day, at least for me. The anime, was maybe a good way to reach newer audiences, and I’m glad that it had 2 actual seasons, where we get to see all the comedy, mishaps, errors, ‘romance’ (dunno whether I can even call it that, Urd would get furious if I did, lol) and lovely moments we witnessed in the manga.
The thing about Keiichi and Bell’s relationship throughout the series though, yeah, it hurts that it remained to be that “kindergarten romance” till the very end, but what I appreciate is the true and genuine understanding and trust that they share, which I wish to have in a relationship I’d love to be a part of in the future.
I wish there had been an aftermath chapter or two, but oh well. Fujishima-sensei seems to have moved on though. Unlike some artists, he doesn’t seem to do art for his series on his Twitter/X account.
Yeah, id love to see some extra artwork, it’s been a while since the manga ended tho… Yet, Fujishima san did make a special chapter for YUA out of nowhere in 2019 if im not wrong, so, just maybe, he might come up with atleast some art work for AMG? Lets hope so.
Yeah, anything is possible.