Review of Adventures Of Mini Goddess: Vol. 2

Introduction

When college student Keiichi called out for a takeaway and got the wrong number, he wound up calling the Goddess Belldandy, who granted him one wish. Down on his luck, he wished for a girlfriend just like the Goddess, but Belldandy took it too literally and moved in. Pretty soon the goddesses Urd and Skuld joined them, and Keiichi`s life took a strange turn indeed. That was the premise for the manga and 1993 anime Ah My Goddess! which proved to be phenomenally successful and would go on to spawn a feature film as well.

1998 saw the spin-off series The Adventures of Mini Goddess released. This show was to answer the question, just what three goddesses would get up to when Keiichi was hard at work in college. Naturally, they`d shrink down to a few inches high and have adventures in Keiichi`s now massive room, as well as taking some time out to torment their friend Gan-chan, the rat. This, The Belldandy Files is the second disc in the Mini Goddess series, and contains twelve more 7-minute episodes of mirth and mayhem.

13. Urd`s Babysitting Journal
Urd has to look after three mischievous rats, who manage to run her ragged.

14. The Proposal Scheme
Gan-Chan is smitten with a certain lady rat, but finds that his nerves keep getting in the way of any courtship. Urd comes up with a magic rose that is bound to succeed.

15. Welcome Newlyweds
Urd`s foolproof scheme didn`t take Gan-Chan into account. Skuld and Belldandy are surprised to see Gan-Chan and Urd living in marital bliss.

16. Phone Me Darling
Cleaning up Keiichi`s mess proves painful for Gan-Chan, so he asks the goddesses for help. But can they be too helpful?

17. SOS In The Snowfield Part 1
18. SOS In The Snowfield Part 2
The endless heat was taking its toll on the tiny residents of Keiichi`s room, so Skuld used her mechanical skills to enhance the air conditioner. Now the three must traverse a treacherous Arctic wasteland to get to the air conditioner and turn it off.

19. Kitchen Fighters
It`s a contest to find the ultimate rat boxing champion, and Urd has trained Gan-chan to take on all comers, meanwhile Skuld has devised a robot boxer that decimates all in its path, but with Belldandy as referee, anyone could win.

20. Gan-chan`s Magnificent Days
Urd learns just how hard a rat`s life actually is.

21. Ah! My Buddha
Skuld is a little too fascinated with a statue of the Buddha, so Urd brings the Buddha to life. The Buddha decides it`s time for the goddesses to have a spiritual refresher course.

22. The Story of Gan-chan: Love Me To The Bone
The goddesses are surprised to learn that Gan-chan has a girlfriend. He`s smitten with a rat called Kohara, especially her odd eating habits.

23. Let`s Form A Band: Side A
24. Let`s Form A Band: Side B
The goddesses decide to form a rock band, but it`s hard deciding who plays what instrument, and Gan-chan is desperate to play the drums. But forming the band is one thing, advertising is yet another, and when it comes down to the crunch and it`s time for the big concert, someone gets stage fright.

Video

The picture is presented in a 4:3 ratio, and the transfer is perfectly fine. I didn`t notice any artefacts or flaws in the image and the picture remains sharp and colourful throughout. The animation is simplistic and stylised, with the mini goddesses looking particularly doll like. It serves the purpose well, and is suited to the target audience.

Audio

You get a choice of Japanese and English DD 2.0 tracks, and both are adequately presented on this disc. As a matter of preference I chose as always the original language track and the translated subtitles. But for reference I checked the English dub, and found it to be surprisingly good. The voices suit the characters well, and the translations are free of the usual circumlocutions that affect dubbed Japanese entertainment. Mini Goddess also comes with one of the most charming theme tunes that I have heard recently, and I found that I was looking forward to the end of each episode.

Features

There are some brief extras on this disc to accompany the episodes. There are two pages of text describing Gan-chan`s character, with a gallery containing 8 images of the rat in various poses. You can see that wonderful end sequence minus the credits. There are also trailers for Sailor Moon and Love Hina as well as the disc credits. The language select screen was a tad confusing, with the selected language appearing dimmed and bracketed, as opposed to highlighted.

Conclusion

Delightful! That`s how best I can describe The Adventures Of Mini Goddess. You don`t have to have seen the original Ah! My Goddess to appreciate these episodes, indeed I haven`t, and I get the feeling that the target audiences are completely different. Mini Goddess seems more suited to the younger demographic, although I found the adventures of the doll sized goddesses and their eternal foil Gan-chan to be charming, despite my age.

The episodes are short and sweet, with one of the goddesses finding a way to torment Gan-chan, usually the outspoken and aggressive Urd. The gentler Skuld can be relied upon to invent some device that will cause chaos, while the wiser Belldandy usually observes the chaos and only gets involved if the situation really requires. As a result, most of the episodes revolve around the volatile Urd and her perennial target Gan-chan. The stories take place in a giant world. When the main characters are shrunk down to the size of a rat, then the commonplace takes on imaginative possibilities.

While the animation is simplistic, it flows well and the character designs are distinctive. Each episode contains a distinct and individual story. All of the adventures are different, and there are plenty of in-jokes and movie references to entertain older viewers. There`s no reason why younger viewers won`t enjoy these episodes too. When the usual Saturday morning anime consists of shows that end in -mon, with monsters of the week defeated regularly in identical shows time and again, the imaginative, fun and varied storylines of Mini Goddess make a welcome change. Volume 2 contains 12 more short and sweet episodes of Mini Goddess, but there are another 24 episodes to look forward to. Good fun.