A Farewell to “Ah! My Goddess” Manga

With the recent news that Fujishima-sensei is ending the long-running manga series Ah! My Goddess (aka: Oh My Goddess) after over 25 years, I thought I’d take a moment to say farewell to a manga title that has a very special place in my heart.

As many of you know, the original, 5 episode Ah! My Goddess OVA series was one of the first anime titles I watched back in 2002 when I first got into anime.  Naturally, I found I enjoyed this anime quite a lot, so I went online to find out more since five episodes weren’t enough.  Since there were no other Ah! My Goddess anime series and none on the horizon at the time, folks suggested I read the manga, which received a lot of praise.  Further, these people informed me that the OVA series was just a very general adaptation of said manga, and that if I wanted the whole and true story, the manga was the only way to go.

As soon as I was financially able, I immediately purchased every “graphic novel” that Dark Horse had out at the time. Back then, Dark Horse did not bother with sticking to the volume system that they employee now (along with every other manga publisher), and they “flipped” the artwork so that their graphic novels would be printed American style. Since I was a noob to the whole anime and manga fandom, I had no idea that this was not the way things were done (as hardcore fans would say).

When the books came in, I marathoned them immediately. The first things the manga did was lessen my enthusiasm for the OVA series on a story level, since the manga’s stories and introductions of characters came off as superior. Plus, there wasn’t that whole, manufactured, melodramatic wrap up to the OVA series in the manga.  Ah! My Goddess was just a lot of fun to not only read, but to reread as well.

My hunger for more of the manga’s story eventually lead me to the fan efforts to bring the current manga chapters to America.  It was here that I learned about the artwork flipping, but I also got an eye-opener in terms of adaptation. Since fan translations were making full use of Japanese honorifics, I discovered that the nature of the characters changed somewhat, leading me to realize that the Japanese use honorifics as a literary device to fine tune characters and how they relate to others and the world around them in general.

The biggest surprise for me came from the discovery that at times, these Ah! My Goddess “scanlations” had speech bubbles or the like which were radically different from the official adaptation. Indeed, when reading the fan works, certain scenes made more sense than the official English ones. It was then that I was educated on how official adaptations would rewrite things to suit their own purposes.

It was here that I “met” Toren Smith, the man instrumental in bringing Ah! My Goddess to America.  How he learned about me, who can say since back in 2003, I wasn’t blogging, but I was active on forums and did write reviews on other sites.  Regardless, he was kind enough to e-mail me out of the blue and explain why the artwork was flipped, why the graphic novels did not match the Japanese tankoubon system (which Dark Horse now uses), why he didn’t use Japanese honorifics, and why he made the decision to rewrite some things within the manga. Sadly, of all our e-mail correspondence, I only have one left, where he told me why Dark Horse/Studio Protus had to use lyrics from Mathew Sweet instead of the lyrics from the Carpenters that Fujishima-sensei used (the Carpenters were charging an outrageous amount to license the lyrics).

Throughout the years, I’ve stuck by this manga, even when its stories were sometimes boring and there was never any progress between Keiichi and Belldandy in terms of the romance angle that was at the heart of the manga’s origin. When I started blogging in late 2006, I started blogging the current (or fairly current) chapters coming out of Japan and have done so ever since. When Dark Horse switched to the proper volume format that matched the Japanese tankoubons, complete with unflipped art, I gladly double-dipped (even though the new adaptations didn’t go 100% on the Japanese honorifics).

Still, I’ve been expecting Ah! My Goddess to end for quite a few years now. I first sensed it in 2007, when I mentioned it in my review for chapter 223.

Fujishima-sensei has been going down memory lane a lot recently, enough to make me think that maybe he’s going to be allowed to end it in the next couple of years or so.

I voiced this opinion in different places, but everyone kept saying something like, “He’s not going to end it. The memory lane stuff is just for the 20th Anniversary.” As such, I started having second thoughts, which I mentioned in my review of chapter 224.

I was reminded that we are approaching the 20th anniversary of the manga. I had been thinking that Fujishima-sensei was bringing back all these faces from the past because he could be taking a “goodbye” tour of characters before ending the series. He still could be doing that, but more likely, he’s preparing for the big 2-0.

I didn’t really talk about it much after that, but as time went on, I realized that Fujishima-sensei was not doing stuff for the 20th anniversary, but was in all likelihood doing a farewell tour by bringing back so many forgotten old characters. In 2009, I made this response to a commenter of my review of chapter 244.

I still think this is Fujishima-sensei’s farewell tour though. He’s been bringing characters out of the closet for some time now, enough to make one think that this might be the end. Who knows for sure though.

Finally, and this is a MASSIVE SPOILER if you are not current with the Japanese chapter releases, the joking prediction made by fans whereby we’d know that Fujishima-sensei was ending the manga came about in chapter 278. That led me to this remark.

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.

I ended up being off by a few chapters, but I think that was more about Fujishima-sensei deciding write this final story properly, even if it meant going into another volume of material.

Regardless of my predicting the manga’s end nearly seven years ago, I have mixed emotions on the Ah! My Goddess manga ending. On one hand, Fujishima-sensei seemed to be phoning it it for a number of years until this final arc, which he allows himself to go out with a bang. So the manga’s end is a relief in that way.

On the other hand, having been a fan of the manga since 2002, I’m going to miss reading new monthly adventures of Keiichi, Belldandy, Urd, Skuld, and whomever else they have along for the ride.

To Fujishima-sensei, I’d like to say “thanks” for making my first manga series such an enjoyable (on the whole) and memorable one. To all of the many Ah! My Goddess fans I’ve met over the years, thanks for the many fine discussions we’ve had in various places.

Here’s hoping that Fujishima-sensei turns Paradise Residence into a full-time manga next. ^_^