Aa! Megami-sama! (TV)

Overall Impression: Aa! Megami-sama is a romance about a college student, Keiichi Morisato, that is visited by the goddess Belldandy and granted one wish to balance out a run of misfortune, and so he wishes for Belldandy to stay with him forever, thus beginning their life together. It's a slice of life series with occasional multi-episode arcs, and is mostly light-hearted save for a few bits of drama here and there. Overall, while the series isn't without its merits, I was unimpressed by the romance and the main characters. This is one that can be skipped unless you're a big fan of the manga.

+ Positives: ... Belldandy's goddess sisters Urd and Skuld (but especially Urd) are very entertaining. The strongest episodes in both seasons tend to be the ones that ditch the main duo and focus on one of these two. The side characters in general are one of the strongest elements of the show, though they could stand to be given a little more to do, as many disappear for long stretches. Character designs are also quite good, and are both distinctive and attractive. The music is a frequent highlight, in particular the OPs for both seasons. Solid voice acting.

- Negatives: Embarrassingly chaste romance for a series with college-aged characters. Keiichi and Belldandy have zero chemistry together and make little discernible progress as a couple over the course of 26 episodes (including the two special episodes). Keiichi is dumb as a brick and has half the charisma, while Belldandy is an utterly vacuous mother-wife with no interior life beyond doing chores and loving Keiichi. They are constantly overshadowed in their own show by the supporting cast and their relationship is so bland and devoid of passion that I had no desire to see them get together as a couple. Their elementary school-tier courtship is outright cringeworthy at times, with characters in their 20s going red in the face over the mildest possible stimulation like holding hands. Skuld, an actual elementary school aged character, makes more romantic progress with the kid that teaches her how to ride a bike over the course of two episodes in the 2nd season than Keiichi and Belldandy, who are adults, do in the entire series. The animation is also quite poor. It doesn't look "bad", but it's pretty lazy and unambitious. There isn't much action in this series, and the few scenes that are dynamic are usually rendered as glorified slideshows, while lower key scenes tend to turn into close-up shots where only mouths and eyes are moving for significant stretches of time. Technically, this is a comedy, but it won't really make you laugh. The humor is pretty lame and uninspired.

I really wanted to give this one a chance. The plot seemed really promising, a different kind of slice of life or romance anime... But after 7 hard-to-watch episodes, I decided to drop it.

Here is why: The protagonists show zero character development to this point, it is just a very wrong and boring and standard slice of life. Nothing surprising, everything bad they have to deal with is purely based on luck or "oh how great you were coincidentally around too", every time they meet the same characters and when a new one was introduced she was suddenly everywhere again. Belldandy seems like an ... interesting character at first, but instead of a Goddess with at least some knowledge of the world she is Goddess of, she is like a toddler and has to be treated like one by Keiichi. Therefore, apart from her "innocence" and cute face there should be zero reason for him to love her unless he is into being her daddy. Which is just wrong. Seriously, I know this is an older show but this doesn't fit in our era anymore.

I really loved the opening track and the art style is very typical for it's release time, but nevertheless very well done. Sadly the story is just absolutely not worth the time for me.