Adventures of the Mini-Goddess Vol. #4

By Kim Wolstenholme     March 16, 2006
Release Date: February 06, 2006



What They Say
Whenever Keiichi leaves the house, Belldandy, Urd and Skuld shrink themselves to play with the other residents of the area – including their clueless rat sidekick, Gan. Whether it’s life trapped in a jar of miso paste or the revolt of Urd’s clones, the goddess adventures are dangerously funny! Based on the characters from Ah! My Goddess the Movie and the Oh! My Goddess Manga!

The Review!
The last 12 episodes of Mini Goddess adventures, unfortunately seemed to lack something, but it’s still worth giving this disk a spin, if only to complete the series.

Audio:

MVM have provided a choice of either the original Japanese or the English dubbed soundtrack for this release. For the fourth volume I switched between the English and Japanese tracks with each episode and didn’t notice any problems with either of them.

Video:

Adventures of Mini Goddess is a very brightly coloured show and the transfer deals with the colours well. I noticed no artefacts, colour bleeding or other problems with the transfer. On the whole it’s a solid transfer for a show that is reasonably old.

Subtitles are in an easy to read yellow font and I noticed no spelling or grammatical errors.

Packaging:

No packaging was available as only a review disk was supplied.

B>Menu:

A fairly unspectacular but functional static menu is used for the fourth volume. The main menu displays nice artwork for the 4 main characters with the menu options located in the centre of the screen. All the menus are silent and access times are quick.

Extras:

For the final volume of Mini Goddess we have an additional extra, which is the Textless ending for the show. Following this we have a character profile for Skuld that is accompanied by a number of stills of this very inventive goddess. Finally there are trailers for ROD TV and Haibane Renmei.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review will contain spoilers)

The final volume of Mini Goddess finally arrives, after quite a long hiatus. As with the previous volumes this disk contains another 12 episodes, which are subtitled The Skuld files, although it must be said that this secondary title is a bit misleading as once again Urd and Gan-Chan take most of the limelight.

The final disk continues with the formula that was established in the previous three volumes. Each episode is around 8 minutes long (including the credits), and tells a self-contained story concerning Urd, Skuld, Belldandy and Gan-Chan. Occasionally the format is drawn out a little with a two (and sometimes even three) part story, which expands the formulae to let it tackle slightly more meaty stories. Unfortunately this volume appears to be a bit more hit and miss in terms of episode quality than the previous volumes. Although there are a couple of quite good episodes none of them really standout, unlike in previous volumes, which always boasted at least one excellent episode.

The opening episode on this volume is one of the better ones, when Urd loses an earring and instead of looking for it herself, decides to have a nap and let her clones do the hard work. Unfortunately for Urd, some of her clones have other ideas and she winds up battling herself. The next episode is a 2 parter which follows the exploits of Gan-Chan as he runs for rat council. Gan-Chan seems to be the clear winner of the election until Marla decides to play dirty and launches a smear campaign with the help of her ninja servants.

The next episode is one of the weaker ones, with Urd deciding that she’s put on a little weight and so tries to find the ultimate diet. In Happy Birthday Gan-Chan, Skuld has created a Goddess wish maker that will grant Gan-Chan 3 wishes, but only on the day of his birthday. Will Gan-Chan manage to get his 3 wishes before the Goddesses use them up? Ah! My Average College Student is probably the weakest on the disk, with Gan-Chan wondering just what an average college student is.

In Space Cruiser Usushio the Goddesses think they have the day off, only to turn up and find the cameras rolling. The result is a story that they write themselves, but in usual Goddess style things don’t go as smoothly as they should. In Gan-Chan the locomotive Gan-Chan gets turned into a train. The Miso Jar is another good episode where Gan-Chan gets stuck in the miso jar in the kitchen. This has an element of a B-movie vibe especially when Urd decides to cook one of her infrequent meals.

The Deluxe Game of Life is an episode that had the potential to be a really good two-parter, but is instead just a mediocre single episode, where everyone plays a board game where the forfeits and rewards are only too real. In fact at the end of this episode I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t decide to continue with the story as it seemed to end too abruptly and there really didn’t seem to be any kind of pay off. In Mekimeki High School Memorial, Gan-Chan gets transported into a dating sim, but all he seems to do is sleep and eat – until Skuld decides to take charge. The final episode also has a touch of a B-movie about it, with everyone trying to decide what to do for the last episode. It’s a shame that the series ends on something of a down note, but then not every episode can be a winner.

After the introduction of Marla in the last disk, I was expecting to see more of her diabolical schemes, and I was a bit disappointed when she only appeared in two of the episodes on this disk. Marla brought a new dynamic to the episodes in which she appeared, and she could easily have been included in a couple of the final episodes without seeming to be repetitive.

It’s a real shame that this final volume didn’t quite live up to the standards set in the previous two volumes, but it’s definitely the sort of thing that you won’t mind your kids watching. The overall concept is one that is hard not to like, and while there may be gaping holes in the logic of the series (like why Belldandy does the laundry in super deformed mode), it’s not something that really detracts.

In Summary:

Adventures of Mini Goddess is a cute concept, that manages to get away with not being too sweet and cloying. Over the 4 disks (48 episodes), there have been some exceedingly good episodes (such as the broken air conditioner, Urd and Gan-Chan’s marriage, and Urd’s Rainy Day), and surprisingly the episodes never really seemed to get repetitive - apart from the Goddesses tormenting poor Gan-Chan for quite a lot of the time. If you liked the Ah! My Goddess OVA then it’s pretty much a given that you’ll enjoy this series as well. Finally if you’re looking to buy something for the younger anime fans in your family then this is an easy recommendation.

Features
Japanese Language 2.0,English Language 2.0,English Subtitles,Art Gallery,Character Profile,Bonus Textless Ending

Review Equipment
Panasonic 42” Plasma, Arcam 88+ Prog Scan DVD Player, Kef Egg 7.1 Speaker system with a Ruark log sub. Denon 3802 amplifier.