October 25th, 2012 
AstroNerdBoy Ah! My Goddess Manga/Oh My Goddess! Manga
ああっ女神さまっ Chapter 287
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Ansuz uses her magic to summon a massive doorway, which Hild notes is the barrier she could not pass. Ansuz says it is the Judgement Gate, which is used as a tool for testing a interspecies relationships like the one Belldandy and Keiichi have. Ansuz asks if Keiichi wants to pass the Judgement Gate. Keiichi asks what happens if he doesn’t pass the test. Ansuz’s response is that Belldandy and Keiichi will be separated and will be unable to meet each other ever again, no matter what they do. When Keiichi asks what happens if he declines the opportunity to take the test, Ansuz replies that Belldandy and Keiichi will be together, however, should they do something as simple as hold hands, Keiichi will die.
Ansuz tells Belldandy that this is the price for the true kiss, thus Ansuz again asks Keiichi what his choice is. He says he’ll take the test. Ansuz warns him that his mind may be damaged by the experience, but Keiichi is determined to go forward.
Ansuz asks Belldandy what her decision is. Belldandy wonders if she should since she believes she deceived Keiichi, but seeing Keiichi give her a thumb’s up, Belldandy is reminded that she wants to protect Keiichi, thus she knows what to do and informs her mother that she’ll enter the gate.
Ansuz opens the massive doors, but before they go, Ansuz asks Keiichi if it is OK to proceed with his confidence lost in Belldandy. Keiichi responds that what happened between them was a misunderstanding, and the two proceed through the doors. Ansuz is confused by Keiichi’s remark, but when she asks Hild, Hild has no answer.
Belldandy and Keiichi proceed to what appears to be a keyhole, where they find a Gate Spirit waiting for them.
Thoughts/Review:
It has been many a year since I saw the Ah! My Goddess movie, but I’m pretty sure I remember Keiichi and Belldandy going through a similar doorway there to test their love. I remember the awesome song at the end with Belldandy, Urd, Skuld, and their angels singing the World Tree back to life. I don’t remember the trip being any big thing in the movie, but the manga would appear to possibly make something of the trip, starting with the Gate Spirit, whom they’d previously met.
As to Ansuz, I know she has to be an impartial judge, but I guess I thought that maybe she’d have a motherly moment with Belldandy before Belldandy left. After all, she did have a final word for Keiichi.
I did get a laugh out of Ansuz using English to emphasize that Keiichi would die if he didn’t take the test and held Belldandy’s hand.
As to the return of the Gate Spirit, I don’t know what it means other than we are getting some continuity. Fujishima-sensei doesn’t always remember the spirit creatures he creates. ^_^;
Otherwise, not much else to say. Things are still moving slow, but I am interested in seeing how things go.
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Its slow all right.
Heh!heh!
The whole gate thing was in the OMG! movie including the whole being separated for all eternity, the Keichii dying if they refuse and stay together is new. Still, everything definitely has a “wrapping up” feel because the dynamics of the Belldandy and Keichii have changed for good.
Well, I’ve been saying for quite a while now that the manga has felt like it was on a farewell tour before the current arc.
I utterly hate, despise, loathe, detest, deplore and object to the “Judgment Gate” concept. For me it basically f**ked up Ah My Goddess – good thing I didn’t see the OVA movie until after I watched the series.
I mean really, doesn’t it reveal Heaven and “God” (okay so God in AMG is probably more akin to Zeus than actually being God with a capital G) in Ah My Goddess as being pure spite-filled evil? Not to mention Belldandy’s adoptive father Celestin being imprisoned on the Moon – ostensibly for eternity without physical form.
It doesn’t just irritate me, it actually saddens me that the author of what should be a wonderful story every now and again chooses to pull down his pants and crap all over his own work.
God I’ve got a bug up my butt about AMG today. I can’t help it, but I feel a need to rant!
To expand on my first comment, I guess what I really mean is that the Gods and Goddesses of AMG are in essence MONSTERS posing as angels:
While the demons of Hell are destructive and interfering, the denizens of Heaven are subtly cruel, much crueler if you ask me; their jobs seem to revolve around a theme of “okay what’s the cruelest meanest thing we can possibly do? Let’s do that!”
Even Belldandy is guilty. Yes she grants Keiichi a wish, but at what price? Seems to me that she doesn’t give him anything that would not have been much easier to achieve on his own because despite his wish for Belldandy to be with him forever being granted, Heaven contradicts the wish by placing impossible obstacles in the way. It reminds of the stories of Djinns who grant three wishes but the wishes are always cursed to turn sour. The wish was worthless; more than that it was basically a scam; if Keiichi had never made the wish he’d have had an easier time fighting Heaven for the right to love Belldandy. And while I think of it, can anyone think of anything more cold-hearted and unheavenly than erasing a person’s most cherished memories? Like I said.. monsters.
Belldandy does not really love Keiichi. How so? Because the only way anyone can pass through the Judgment Gate is if their relationship is perfect; not perfect by the lovers’ own standards, but perfect by Heaven’s impossible standards; any relationship that goes against the rules and laws of Heaven is cursed or banned. Belldandy passes the test because ultimately her first loyalty remains to Heaven; she would sacrifice Keiichi before she would disobey Heaven. That’s cold.
With the exception of Celestine – and he isn’t really a God anymore – (btw, I haven’t read much of the manga but it seems like half the Gods & Demons have their genders involuntarily switched.. kind of creepy) can anyone name a God or Goddess in the story who doesn’t have a darker-than dark dark side? I can’t think of a one.
I know it sounds like I am hating on AMG, but it’s only because I care about it. It would be SO nice if someone came along and said “you’ve got it all wrong, if you look at THIS chapter right here everything makes sense”.. if only.
>…good thing I didn’t see the OVA movie until after I watched the series.
I never cared for the movie, and it is non-canon, so I don’t worry about it. The only thing I liked about the movie was the song the three goddesses sang near the end of the movie.
>God I’ve got a bug up my butt about AMG today. I can’t help it, but I feel a need to rant!
Sometimes, you just got to let it out. ^_^
>I know it sounds like I am hating on AMG, but it’s only because I care about it. It would be SO nice if someone came along and said “you’ve got it all wrong, if you look at THIS chapter right here everything makes sense”.. if only.
Well, the manga story with the Judgement Gate isn’t hideous like the one in the movie. I don’t sense the denizens of the heavens to be evil. I think the anime has polluted things a lot. Urd was always mischievous but never evil. Peorth had an agenda, but nothing evil. Skuld is the bratty little sister. Lind was a victim of possession, so her actions are excused.
In the manga, there is no Celestine. There’s no gender switching. The denizens of the heavens and the denizens of the underworld (mazoku) have an arrangement to prevent them from killing each other, and it works quite well.
But bottom line is that Belldandy and Keiichi do their gate journey and it isn’t anything like the movie. Further, Belldandy’s father takes possession of the Judgement Gate entity to throw down a final challenge to Keiichi. Now there, he’s being rather cruel, but he is being protective of his daughter.
[…] my review of the last chapter, the whole notion of a Judgement Gate was one covered in the Ah! My Goddess Movie. As I said […]