Ah! My Goddess Manga/Oh My Goddess! Manga
ああっ女神さまっ Chapter 281

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Skuld activates her anti-proton bomb, which announces that the blast radius is 3000KM and that it will go off in three minutes. Mokkurkalfi and Ehwaz are shocked by this, but then Ehwaz points out that if Skuld destroys the “demon” realm, the “gods” will die as well thanks to the Doublet System. Skuld isn’t worried about that, and activates a device called the Aegis Shell, which creates a barrier around them all that will withstand an anti-proton blast.

Urd’s power continues to rise, causing lightning to discharge all over. Ehwaz tells Skuld to let them out, but Skuld can’t since the barrier is active for 3.5-minutes. Despite Urd’s apparent sanity loss, Skuld is confident that her sister will do something about the situation. Urd sees Skuld but doesn’t recognize her.  She does wonder to herself why Skuld is there and not running.

With the clock on the bomb running down, Ehwaz remembers what Skuld said about having faith in her older sister, so Ehwaz raises a second barrier around Mokkurkalfi, to allow Mokkurkalfi to outlive her older sister.

Meanwhile, Urd still puzzles over Skuld as holds the mini bomb out, telling Urd she believes.  The bomb goes off, but the explosive power is contained by Urd, who continues to contain it with her demon powers.

Thoughts/Review:

Hmmmm…so, Skuld is getting Urd to go back to normal by forcing her to use all of her mazoku (demon) powers to contain the explosion?  I’m reminded of  another time when Urd went bad WAY long ago, but I don’t recall exactly how Urd was returned to normal.

I laughed at the notion of Skuld installing a volume control on her bomb. *lol* Leave it to Skuld. ^_~

It was a nice touch to have Ehwaz attempt to shield Mokkurkalfi. ^_^

Speaking of nice touches, I liked how Skuld believed in Urd.  Skuld has always adored Belldandy, which is why she has always addressed Belldandy with the very respectful Japanese term for an older sister, “oneesama.”  However, even though Urd is the oldest of the three sisters, Skuld has always just addressed her by name, to say nothing about the sisterly, antagonistic relationship the two have. That made Skuld’s actions have greater impact.

The old Doublet System is remembered here.  I sometimes wonder what prompts Fujishima-sensei to remember things like that, especially since his writing style doesn’t heavily rely on continuity.

Hopefully, Urd returns to normal soon, but knowing Fujishima-sensei, he could have Urd stay bad and try to take over the mazoku realm herself. We’ll see.