Oh My Goddess! began publication from Dark Horse in 1994, and it will end this year in 2015; as Dark Horse series go, only Hellboy has been published continuously for longer. This week the second-to-last volume of Oh My Goddess!, vol. 47, hits the stores.
Oddly enough, the hero (together with the heroine) of Oh My Goddess! has also spent much time recently in Hell, battling its infernal forces. But, if I may be so bold as to compare, Belldandy’s ultimate confrontation is the inverse of Hellboy’s, for she is not a child of Hell that has sought to defy her origin and live as a friend and protector among humans, but a child of Heaven that has done the same. In the end, therefore, she and her human companion, Keiichi, must ascend, and confront her father; not a duke of Hell, but the ruler of Heaven—the Almighty, the Most High, Tyr.
Tyr has concealed his true appearance by speaking through Gate; a cute conceit of the writer and artist, Kosuke Fujishima—but also Tyr’s ploy to put himself at a distance from events for a reason that might have already occurred to longtime Oh My Goddess! readers, and which is made explicit in vol. 47. But there is nothing cute about Tyr’s determination to break Belldandy and Keiichi apart. To be a god is to be beautiful, powerful and immortal, whereas to be a human is to have a short life full of weaknesses, and, even if beautiful, to see that beauty wither. To Tyr, to be a human is to suffer, and in vol. 46 he made Keiichi and Belldandy suffer, by re-experiencing the lives of a couple like them from the distant past¬, the goddess of the Lake and the human minstrel—and their tragic ending.
The vicarious pain that Tyr had Keiichi and Belldandy feel in the last volume takes on a new brutality in vol. 47, as they are made to contemplate not only the emotional but the physical damage that can be inflicted upon Keiichi, for no other reason than he is a man, and not a god. I was surprised to see such bluntness in Oh My Goddess!, an often light-hearted epic (and don’t worry, there are also light-hearted moments in vol. 47), but I found myself admiring Fujishima as well—as I admired Keiichi and Belldandy—for confronting the difference between righteousness and the right thing. Unlike her father, Belldandy would never regard human weakness as evidence gods are superior.
Real virtue lies in acting better than your nature, whether that nature is weak or powerful. Humans endure, and perhaps transcend, their weakness through courage. Belldandy too, though powerful, has real virtue, for she has the courage to suffer weakness as humans do; I mean, as humans really do—to come into this world, and one day to lose everything. We are often told of a divine love for humanity, but Oh My Goddess! understands that true love has to be a meeting and a walk together, not a declaration from on high. It has been a long walk for Keiichi and Belldandy since they met in vol. 1, but then, this is a story of true love.
—Carl Horn
Manga Editor
Oh My Goddess! began publication from Dark Horse in 1994, and it will end this year in 2015; as Dark Horse series go, only Hellboy has been published continuously for longer. This week the second-to-last volume of Oh My Goddess!, vol. 47, hits the stores.
Oddly enough, the hero (together with the heroine) of Oh My Goddess! has also spent much time recently in Hell, battling its infernal forces. But, if I may be so bold as to compare, Belldandy’s ultimate confrontation is the inverse of Hellboy’s, for she is not a child of Hell that has sought to defy her origin and live as a friend and protector among humans, but a child of Heaven that has done the same. In the end, therefore, she and her human companion, Keiichi, must ascend, and confront her father; not a duke of Hell, but the ruler of Heaven—the Almighty, the Most High, Tyr.
Tyr has concealed his true appearance by speaking through Gate; a cute conceit of the writer and artist, Kosuke Fujishima—but also Tyr’s ploy to put himself at a distance from events for a reason that might have already occurred to longtime Oh My Goddess! readers, and which is made explicit in vol. 47. But there is nothing cute about Tyr’s determination to break Belldandy and Keiichi apart. To be a god is to be beautiful, powerful and immortal, whereas to be a human is to have a short life full of weaknesses, and, even if beautiful, to see that beauty wither. To Tyr, to be a human is to suffer, and in vol. 46 he made Keiichi and Belldandy suffer, by re-experiencing the lives of a couple like them from the distant past¬, the goddess of the Lake and the human minstrel—and their tragic ending.
The vicarious pain that Tyr had Keiichi and Belldandy feel in the last volume takes on a new brutality in vol. 47, as they are made to contemplate not only the emotional but the physical damage that can be inflicted upon Keiichi, for no other reason than he is a man, and not a god. I was surprised to see such bluntness in Oh My Goddess!, an often light-hearted epic (and don’t worry, there are also light-hearted moments in vol. 47), but I found myself admiring Fujishima as well—as I admired Keiichi and Belldandy—for confronting the difference between righteousness and the right thing. Unlike her father, Belldandy would never regard human weakness as evidence gods are superior.
Real virtue lies in acting better than your nature, whether that nature is weak or powerful. Humans endure, and perhaps transcend, their weakness through courage. Belldandy too, though powerful, has real virtue, for she has the courage to suffer weakness as humans do; I mean, as humans really do—to come into this world, and one day to lose everything. We are often told of a divine love for humanity, but Oh My Goddess! understands that true love has to be a meeting and a walk together, not a declaration from on high. It has been a long walk for Keiichi and Belldandy since they met in vol. 1, but then, this is a story of true love.
—Carl Horn
Manga Editor