Ah! My Goddess Manga/Oh My Goddess! Manga
ああっ女神さまっ Chapter 278

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Hagall is amazed that Keiichi was able to dispel her magic as he desperately tries to wake Belldandy. Belldandy wakes just in time to warn Keiichi of the danger from Hagall attacking, allowing them to get away just in time. However, Hagall isn’t worried because Belldandy no longer has any power.

Belldandy asks Keiichi to believe in her as she pulls her final card. He readily agrees to do whatever she wants, so she wants him to affirm everything she’s about to say. With that, Belldandy has Keiichi agree to dissolve the contract between the two of them, as Hagall stands off to the side, wondering what they are trying to accomplish.

With that, Belldandy proposes a new, true contract with Keiichi, vowing to face any and all trials together and should this condition not be fulfilled, Keiichi would be barred from having any more contact with Belldandy for the remainder of his life. He is puzzled, but says yes just the same, even though she reminds him there’s an option to say no. He gently scolds her for not believing in him when she asked him to believe in her.

As an impatient Hagall waits for them to get done, Belldandy says they have to seal the deal with a kiss, and kisses him on the lips. The kiss is unlike anything Keiichi has ever experienced, and to Hagall’s amazement, flowers begin blooming everywhere, threatening to overrun the place with flowers.

Thoughts/Review:

*lol*  Well, based on you guy’s reaction back when this chapter came out, I was pretty sure a kiss was involved. ^_^  I had expected something more along the lines of what happened in chapter 54, where Keiichi performed a mouth-to-mouth transfer of medicine to sick Belldandy, who had passed out. This time, I thought it would be more like Sleeping Beauty with Keiichi waking Belldandy up. However, she woke herself up so that goes to show why I shouldn’t try to predict too closely what’s going on with the immediate story.

That said, Belldandy’s new contract does sound like wedding vows of a sort, with the kiss being a “you may kiss the groom” moment. *lol*  So, does this mean that we can expect Fujishima-sensei to allow Belldandy and Keiichi become a romantic couple?  Frankly, I don’t trust the man in this regard. How many years has it been since they last properly kissed?  It was EARLY in the manga’s life (I think I wrote extensively on this years ago for some now defunct website, but I’m too lazy to go look up my papers).

The thing is, for many, many years now, I’ve maintained that if we ever saw Keiichi and Belldandy properly kiss (flowers weren’t mentioned, but they are part of the deal), then we’d know that Fujishima-sensei is getting ready to end the manga series.  I still feel that is the case.

Since Ah! My Goddess is a monthly manga, it isn’t like bringing the series to a graceful conclusion will happen as fast as it could for a weekly series. So, for quite some time now, I feel that Fujishima-sensei is bringing the manga to a close, possibly with chapter 300.  Since I think chapter 280 is already out in Japan, that would be 20-months from now, assuming I’m correct in my theory.  Fujishima-sensei has gone back to the beginning by bringing back characters from early on in the manga (Sayoko, her cousin who’s name eludes me, teachers, etc.) as well as certain elements, as seen in this chapter with this kiss and subsequent flower eruption.

As I see it, twenty chapters allows for a conclusion to be brought to the current story-arc, followed by a general announcement of the new contract, and maybe an Earth wedding, possibly combining Western and Shinto aspects.  (There’s been a few, good, manga series with romantic aspects which have properly ended in similar fashion.)  Of course, I could be completely off base, but this feels about right to me.  If this doesn’t happen and Fujishima-sensei returns to boring stories with Keiichi and Belldandy never being romantic (including kissing), I’m not sure I could continue reading the manga. I’d be too angry.

While the kiss was obviously long overdue and the highlight of the chapter, who didn’t roll their eyes as Hagall standing around waiting for Belldandy and Keiichi to do their thing?  Seriously, Hagall is going to kill Keiichi and get her plan rolling, but then she’s going to twiddle her thumbs while Belldandy has her contract with Keiichi trashed, then writes up a new contract, sealed with a kiss.  Don’t get me wrong, I can roll my eyes and move on just because we got the kiss.  However, from a story perspective, it makes Hagall look incredibly stupid.

So, it will be interesting to see what Fujishima-sensei does from here.