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| Image taken from feed92.photobucket.com |
For Thanksgiving break, the feature film was the movie adaptation of Ah! My Goddess. The title had seemed oddly familiar to me yet I never watched the anime series this film is adapted from. I may actually look into though once I get some free time to do so. The film is very enjoyable and makes women feel important, while having men respect that rather than feeling like the weaker gender in comparison to strong women.
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| Image taken from myreviewer.com |
The relationship of a power woman with an ordinary man is shown thoroughly in this film. Keiichi is an ordinary college student and the goddess Belldandy came to him one day granting him one wish. Ever since then, the two have been together, presumably inseparable just from the way their friends would speak of the two and the photographs shown in the album Belldandy stumbled upon. Regardless, most men would feel weak in his situation. Keiichi instead embraces his relationship with Belldandy with everything BUT negativity. He only has positive attitudes toward her, and she does the same in return to him. They have a strong bond together and he feels completely at ease with her. He trusts her fully. This is easily displayed when he lets the “amnesia” Belldandy do a test race with him. They succeed of course and more of her memories return. Their trust and love for each other is also tested at the end of the movie when they walk through the Gate of Judgment and pass through unharmed, something no other couple has been able to do prior to them. It shows they have a bond unknown by most, but pure at heart.
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| Image taken from karmaburn.com |
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| Image taken from mania.com |
With all relationships, jealousy does occur. Keiichi is not a bad guy, he was just set up and the situation looked bad because only pieces of the information where gathered. He discovered Morgan wounded at the Motor Club house and insisted he help take care of the injury. After patching her up she comes onto him and forcibly kisses him. Belldandy oversees this and runs off upset. Obviously this hurts her because she cares so deeply about him even after all the trouble she caused. Because of how she felt upon viewing the kiss she agrees without much hesitation to go through with the risky vaccine that may wipe her memories completely of Keiichi and all her friends. The two overcome this issue and reassured of Keiichi’s love despite the risk of her becoming a “blank slate” she goes through with the vaccine. It all goes haywire and both become pawns in this crazy virus scheme but they make it through in the end.
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| Image taken from ioffer.com |
The movie was rather hard to follow and the book didn’t really help other than pointing out how women are in most anime. It explains the bond between the goddesses and the relationship between Belldandy and Keiichi but I do not get much else from it. The chapter in Samurai from Outer Space did give me insight as to why women are so prominent in anime, which was something I had wondered about for a while, but it did not help me understand the film better.
Overall, Ah! My Goddess: The Movie was enjoyable to watch, in fact I watched it with my boyfriend which made it even more enjoyable considering we usually comment about what’s going on during the movies/films. These comments usually help me come up with questions I may have about the films. The film was nicely done and conveys a strong message about trust and love. It is definitely a film that ends on a POSITIVE NOTE! Not all Japanese anime ends badly ya know. This isn’t the first time I came across this, but it lets me know not all things end badly.
