Ah! My Goddess Ch. 285 Manga Review

Ah! My Goddess Manga/Oh My Goddess! Manga
ああっ女神さまっ Chapter 285

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Ah! My Goddess Ch. 285Hild tells Belldandy that the “true kiss” she gave Keiichi was a reckless way to break the spell, causing Skuld to get angry at what Keiichi had done with her “oneesama.” Hild isn’t done though, accusing Belldandy of deceiving Keiichi, causing Keiichi to defend her by reminding Hild that Belldandy can’t lie. Hild acknowledges this fact, but tells Keiichi that one can deceive by purposefully omitting things.

Hild then asks Keiichi if he desires Belldandy sexually. He says he does, but then realizes that since Keiichi and Belldandy kissed, he’s been looking at her differently — sexually. Hild explains that Belldandy’s kiss removed a seal that kept Keiichi’s lust in check. Since there is a restriction placed on sexual contact between humans and deities, Keiichi’s contract with Belldandy required this seal to be put in place.

Thus Hild gleefully shatters Keiichi’s notion by revealing how the gods manipulate humans for their own purposes.  Keiichi’s mind reels from this information as Belldandy ponders how she didn’t really deceive Keiichi, but she did know the seal was in place.

She starts to speak to Keiichi, but the sound of music interrupts her. Hild smirks, saying that the Inter-species Intimacy Inquisitor is coming. Urd is shocked that one of the gods could make a transfer point into the mazoku realm and Skuld wonders who has the power to do this. The person gets stuck coming through the transfer point, leading Hild to wonder if it was impossible for this god to enter Hild’s realm. However, this goddess forces her way through, causing Hild to state her surprise at who came, and the goddess to give greeting to the now-freed Hild.

Thoughts/Review:

Egad!  Somehow this got released and thanks to the long hours I work these days, I totally missed it until I saw the next chapter was out (well, technically, it has been long out in Japan, but you know what I’m saying).

Anyway, this chapter made me laugh, but not for reasons of comedy within the chapter.  You see, I’m thinking WAY back to the 80’s when this manga started.  Back then, the relationship between Belldandy and Keiichi was portrayed in a more normal boyfriend-girlfriend scenario, only with the girlfriend being a deity.  There was the element of the two not “getting busy” (as we used to say), which is why Urd came down in the first place to try to spice things up. However, Keiichi and Belldandy did kiss a few times, and once, Belldandy won Urd’s rigged board game in order to help Keiichi and to plant a big kiss on his lips.

Then for whatever reason, Fujishima-sensei backed down on the boyfriend-girlfriend aspect and turned Keiichi and Belldandy into something akin to an old married couple who no longer have a sex drive, but who do love each other.  Sure, from time to time, Fujishima-sensei would show that Keiichi looked at Belldandy sexually, but for the most part, he made Keiichi the ultimate nice guy.

Then, Peorth came down with the express intent of forcing Belldandy and Keiichi to get it on.  While Urd had previously attempted to seduce Keiichi and even force him to copulate with her, that was nothing compared to the efforts Peorth put on to get Keiichi to try to sleep with her.  The fact that Keiichi was able to resist her is what made him even more desirable to Peorth, who apparently wasn’t used to men resiting her. Back then, Belldandy’s thoughts on the matter were that she was willing, but she knew Keiichi wasn’t truly ready, so Belldandy was simply just going to wait for his lead.

Now, we have this new goddess showing up and the revelation that in fact all this time, Keiichi’s lust has been sealed up, Belldandy knew about it, Hild knew about it, but apparently Urd, Skuld, and Peorth knew nothing, otherwise why would Urd and Peorth have come down to try to force the sexual issue with Belldandy and Keiichi (meaning the lack of sex or even kissing).

Obviously, this is the latest retconning move by Fujishima-sensei, hence the laughter I mentioned four paragraphs earlier.  As is typical of Fujishima-sensei, plot holes are not something he really worries about. He just writes whatever he wants and moves on.  After this many years, we fans just roll with him.

So, interesting revelations aside, I wonder about this new goddess and how she’ll play into things. I won’t speculate now since I have the next chapter waiting.

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13 Responses to “Ah! My Goddess Ch. 285 Manga Review”

  1. Lan says:

    retconning indeed. However, hopefully it means that we will be seeing a proper relationship between the two sometime soon.

    • AstroNerdBoy says:

      Agreed! However, I feel that will be the end of the manga.

    • Anonymous says:

      Actually that’s incorrect, it was Belldandy who wasn’t ready before

      Here’s we can see that Keiichi was completely ready

      http://www.mangahere.com/manga/ah_my_goddess/c054/22.html
      http://z.mhcdn.net/store/manga/15/191.0/compressed/AMG_v30_c191_063.jpg?v=11192122474
      http://z.mhcdn.net/store/manga/15/191.0/compressed/AMG_v30_c191_064.jpg?v=11192122474
      http://z.mhcdn.net/store/manga/15/191.0/compressed/AMG_v30_c191_065.jpg?v=11192122474

      If you read the earlier chapters, you see that Keiichi was more willing than Belldandy, like when they were outside the love motel and Keiichi was waiting on a go signal from Belldandy.

      So the idea that Belldandy was more willing is completely wrong, in fact as early as the Miss Keiichi arc, its shown that Keiichi is completely willing as long as Belldandy is ready.

      In fact it was Belldandy who wasn’t ready, as shown here:

      http://www.mangahere.com/manga/ah_my_goddess/c069/23.html
      http://www.mangahere.com/manga/ah_my_goddess/c069/24.html

      As you can see its Belldandy who is saying she’s not ready, not that Keiichi isn’t ready, she’s talking about herself.

      (If she meant Keiichi, she would have just told Peorth that Keiichi isn’t ready, her angst indicates its her who was wrestling with it)

      So in fact the retcon isn’t as bad as you seem to think, rather than Belldandy desiring it and Keiichi not wanting it as you seem to be mistaken thinking, Keiichi did want it, but the ultimate system force was suppressing his desires, so only a little got through, while Belldandy knew she couldn’t give it to him because of the edict against them procreating (and perhaps she wasn’t ready herself, we can’t be sure that some of it wasn’t her own desire to wait).

      As you can see here Keiichi is talking about something holding him back:

      http://www.mangahere.com/manga/ah_my_goddess/c073/30.html

      In hindsight we can see that the thing holding him back was the ultimate system force.

      So yeah, you’re wrong that Belldandy wanted it and Keiichi didn’t and you’re incorrect about it being such a big retcon, in fact as we can see, the groundwork for such a reveal was present a long time ago.

    • AstroNerdBoy says:

      I would point out that it was Belldandy, not Keiichi, who initiated the early kissing that happened. ^_~

      As to that moment of Belldandy saying “It is too soon,” I always read that as “Keiichi isn’t ready, so I’m not going to push it.”

    • Anonymous says:

      Two problems, first off a kiss is not anything like Sex, so Bell wanting a kiss doesn’t indicate she was ready for Sex, also we don’t know what Keiichi would have wanted had he won, he might have wanted sex.

      Secondly, if Belldandy meant “Keiichi isn’t ready, so I’m not going to push it.”, she would have said so to Peorth

      Instead she wasn’t able to reply and got all angsty.

      That indicates she was referring to herself thinking it was too soon, not Keiichi.

      Also Keiichi already had shown in the Miss Keiichi arc he was waiting on her (so she never broached the topic with him, meaning she would not know whether Keiichi is ready or not, she isn’t clairvoyant, as proven by the fact that she had to ask him whether he wanted her to stay with him, so the argument that she would know that he wasn’t ready is flawed, not only was he waiting on her, but she would not know what his view on the issue is, because she never asked him)

    • AstroNerdBoy says:

      Well, I wasn’t just referring to sex, but stepping their relationship up from “I’m a goddess living with this guy who made a wish, whom I love and whom I’m loved by” to “I’m a goddess, living with a guy, whom I now consider to be my human boyfriend and he considers me to be his goddess girlfriend.”

      It is still retconning because Fujishima-sensei, for whatever reason years ago, decided that he wasn’t going to allow their relationship to advance and even throttled it back so that they no longer kissed. Now that the manga appears to be ending, he’s trying to explain things, even though Urd and Peorth apparently had no clue about this “no relations” rule since both tried to push Belldandy and Keiichi together (and Peorth attempted to seduce Keiichi).

    • AstroNerdBoy says:

      Actually, so did Urd, now that I remember it.

    • Anonymous says:

      Except Bell never referred to keiichi as her boyfriend, or some other relationship moniker (after all its clear goddesses do date and get married).

      She always noted she was tied to him by the wish, so clearly she wasn’t ready for such a level either.

      More that it was Skuld that put the Kibosh on the progress, notice that Bell became more motherly after Skuld showed up, the added responsibility helped her to mature.

    • AstroNerdBoy says:

      Skuld also interfered at every opportunity. At her introduction, she was the then popular concept of the little sister who adored her oneesama way too much, and got jealous (in a non-sexual way) of anyone who got in-between. So I always saw her another way for Fujishima-sensei to keep the romance between Belldandy and Keiichi from progressing as it had been doing in the very early parts. After all, many things introduced in the first several years were designed to keep Belldandy and Keiichi apart.

    • Anonymous says:

      I question if Skuld’s jealousy over Belldandy is completely nonsexual, some of the things she says and does makes me think there is an undercurrent of sexual desire in Skuld.

    • AstroNerdBoy says:

      Well, you have a point here. Sadly, thanks to Dark Horse’s rewrites ans such, my memories of the earlier volumes are heavily colored. 🙁

      I went with non-sexual due to the fact that Belldandy is Skuld’s sister, thus Skuld using the moniker “oneesama” does not automatically evoke a sexual aspect, as it does when Kuroko addresses her roommate Mikoto (A Certain Scientific Railgun) in the same fashion. So, there could be an element of that there, but if so, I wouldn’t say it is major.

  2. O-chan says:

    The thing about the new goddess, from what was implied in the next chapter it’s really a BAD idea for her and Hild to be in the same room.

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