Adventures of Mini-Goddess Volume 1

A light-hearted spin-off series to the Oh! My Goddess series and feature-length film, Adventures of Mini Goddess tells the story of what happens to goddesses Belldandy, Urd and Skuld while Keichi is away. Befriending a resident rat by the name of Gan-Chan, they shrink themselves to a few inches in height and proceed to have, quite literally, mini adventures.

For those who have not yet seen anything of Oh! My Goddess (myself included), it is good to know that the short episodes of Adventures of Mini Goddess can be viewed perfectly well as a stand-alone series. Fans of Belldandy in particular may be a little disappointed that she does not have the main focus of most of the storylines but Gan-Chan steals many a scene with his comedic misadventures, often due to the mischief of the goddesses themselves. The best way of describing the twelve episodes (the high number makes up for the short running time of the individual episodes) is “cute’: the mini versions of Urd, Skuld and Belldandy are endearing and there are numerous laughs, all of which being innocent and harmless. The storylines are also surprisingly imaginative, including the marriage between Gan and a kettle, an amusing baseball match goddess-style and three witty parodies of the classic Godzilla films, in which Gan mutates into a mould-monster after eating something he shouldn’t have.

Those of us who are into more serious anime may find their adventures a little tame, but existing O!MG fans are a lot more likely to enjoy the escapades of the hapless rat Gan and his heaven-sent friends. The extras give some MVM trailers, a Belldandy background biography (another bonus for those of us unfamiliar with the characters) and picture gallery. The end theme tune is also very catchy, again in an innocent and cutesy J-pop kind of way.

In Summary

A fun little series for Oh! My Goddess fans, but self contained enough for casual viewers to enjoy. It’s also perfect family viewing material, for those who need to consider such things.