Ah! My Goddess Manga/Oh My Goddess! Manga
ああっ女神さまっ Chapter 289

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

The goddess in the lake offers the bard, who’d dropped his harp in the lake, a choice of either a gold harp or a silver one. He is so enraptured by her beauty that he can’t speak, leading her to think he couldn’t hear her. Thus, she repeats the choices very loudly. He wants his harp back, so to reward him for his honestly, she gives him both harps. However, the weight of these metal harps causes him to fall off the tree branch he’d been on and into the lake.

After saving him and apologizing, she shows him how she’d been controlling gravity by causing the two harps and plants from the lake to rise up. The blushing man still wants his original harp in order to sing of the goddess’s beauty. She wants to hear him say that again, so when he finally does, she is pleased and produces a whole host of harps. The bard begins playing and singing, causing the goddess to say that both the gold and silver harps were pleased.

Keiichi, within the body of the bard, feels the bard falling in love with the goddess but when the goddess reaches out to take the bard’s hand, the image is shattered and Keiichi finds himself holding Belldandy’s hand as she faces him. Belldandy states that when the goddess used her magic, she synchronized with her and thus was able to break through the barrier between them for a time.  Keiichi asks where they are, so Belldandy tells him that since she can’t interfere with anything in this world, she believes that they are in the past.

Thoughts/Review:

You know, I gotta say that I’m rather enjoying this sweet, romantic tale of this lake goddess and the bard. I’m not sure why having Keiichi experience things through the eyes of the bard and Belldandy experiencing things through the eyes of the goddess has to do with their trial.  I have this terrible feeling that while the goddess and the bard will fall in love, something terrible will happen, probably to the human, causing the goddess to go nuts and do terrible things.  Thus, it would be a warning to both Keiichi and Belldandy of what could happen should they be allowed to be together.

Still, does that theory jive with Hild and Kami-sama attempting to be a couple and failing the test? Or did they even experience the same vision?  It is possible that the visions are different, based on the entities involved, or that the test itself varies from potential couple to potential couple.

Regardless, I’m rather hoping that we get to see the goddess and the bard live a happy life together. I still feel uneasy that this won’t happen. Since I just reread the xxxHOLiC chapter where the immortal yaobikuni and her lover didn’t have a good ending to their romance, I may be being influenced by that. ^_^;

Still, the goddess in this story is rather adorable, which is not surprising since Fujishima-sensei knows how to draw beautiful women. The bard is a dork, much like Keiichi, but then there has to be parallels to Belldandy and Keiichi, right?

Well, we’ll see what Fujishima-sensei ultimately does. I still think that the manga will end on chapter 300.