Oh! My Goddess (Aa! Megamisama!)-Volume 2 (1993) (NTSC)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Anime	Main Menu Audio & Animation Gallery-slideshow Isolated Musical Score-music and effects Audio Commentary DVD Credits Music Highlights-clean opening and closing themes
Rating
Year Of Production	1993
Running Time	67:15 (Case: 69)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,4	Directed By	Hiroaki Gooda
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	None Given
Case	Click
RPI	$34.95	Music	Yasuda Takeshi

    This is the second volume of the short series Oh My Goddess. You'll find my review of Volume 1 important to understanding this review.

    Keiichi and Belldandy have been together nine months now, and everything seems really quite wonderful. So why is Keiichi suffering nightmares of Belldandy leaving? The answer is something of a surprise, and I'm not going to say anything more about it. To make things even more complicated, System Bugs are escaping from the heavens and manifesting here on Earth — that's unheard of, and the effects are rather nasty.

    The two episodes on this disc are more of a double-episode than stand-alone episodes; Episode 4 ends with some untranslated Kanji characters that I assume mean something like "To be continued...". The episodes are:

4. Evergreen Holy Night (28:26) — what is going on with localised snow falls, and bad dreams for Keiichi?
5. For the Love of Goddess (38:49) — as Christmas Eve approaches, so does an ominous deadline

    Even with the added length of episode 5, this is still a fairly short disc. Unfortunately, there are no more episodes to put on here — this is all there is of this series.

    As a programmer, I'm rather amused by the depiction of the System Bugs: they look like a goofy rabbit with spider legs. I wonder where I can get a bug-bashing mallet like Skuld's? But the device I'd really like is the combination crock-pot / vacuum cleaner that sucks bugs out of the environment — I could use that daily!

    This disc completes the series, and the only comfort is that the movie comes afterwards.

Video

    This is an NTSC transfer, so you won't be able to watch it unless your setup will handle NTSC.

    This DVD transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. It is not 16x9 enhanced. That's the original and intended aspect ratio.

    The image on this disc is noticeably sharper than the first disc, which is good, but doesn't help the other issues. Film grain is no problem. There is no low-level noise.

    Colour is nice and bright, and the smear and colour bleed has been reduced (it's still there, but isn't a real problem). There's far less cross-colouration, too, and I didn't notice any "rainbow" effect. Some scenes seem deliberately a touch over-bright, creating a white wash over the entire frame — if you're familiar with anime you'll recognise the effect.

    There are still no film artefacts worth mentioning — what few there are are tiny and momentary.

    We still get aliasing and dot crawl on every frame, though. This is no better than the first disc, but at least it is no worse, and it seems less annoying on the sharper image — perhaps because it feels like we're getting the sharpness at the cost of the aliasing? Anyway, the aliasing creates areas of shimmer at times, and that's somewhat annoying.

    Just as on the first disc, there are two subtitle tracks. The one coded as English is full subtitling. The one coded as Others is subtitling of signs and the occasional cultural reference. I watched all of the full English subtitles. They seem quite accurate, well-timed, and easy to read in an attractive font. They are a little unusual, in that they use multiple colours: most of the language is yellow, with green (and even orange) used to distinguish when multiple characters are talking at once, and white is used for signs.

    The disc is single-sided (attractive picture label), single layer. No layer change, but there isn't really enough material here to demand one.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are four soundtracks here, every one of them Dolby Digital 2.0 (not surround-encoded) at 192 kbps. I listened to all of the Japanese and English dialogue soundtracks, and the commentary soundtrack. The fourth soundtrack is a music and sound effects only track — once I'd confirmed that was what it was, I didn't bother listening to all of it.

    The English dialogue is clear and readily comprehensible. The Japanese dialogue sounds clear. There are no obvious mismatches between the sound and the mouth movements, but the Japanese feels slightly out on occasion.

    The score, from Yasuda Takeshi, is excellent, both in the light moments, and in the drama.

    The surrounds and subwoofer are given nothing to do by this straight stereo soundtrack.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    This disc has mostly the same extras as the first disc, with the same creative menus.

Menu

    The menu is animated with music — rather attractive. The main menu's music is quite sweet, almost a music-box feeling to it

Gallery (2:17)

    Still images of the main characters, some from the show and some that may have been promotional material. Set to music and presented as a slide show.

Dub Your Own

    This is the music / sound effects soundtrack — you can supply the voices. Anime karaoke, of sorts? Or is that the next one, where the dialogue subtitles are supplied?

Silent Movie Mode

    The music / sound effects soundtrack again, this time with subtitles.

In the Studio 1 — Audio Commentary

    The same contributors as the commentary on the first disc: voice actors Juliet Cesario, Scott Simpson, and Pamela Weidner, and voice director Scott Houle — among those responsible for the English dub. They are getting increasingly silly, and providing less information of interest, unfortunately. Not the greatest commentary ever made.

In the Studio 2 — Audio Commentary

    The same commentary track, but this time with subtitles (for the dialogue, not the commentary).

DVD Credits

    A two-page listing of the team who made this disc.

Clean opening and closing themes (7:33)

    This is the only new extra: it's listed under the Episode menu as OMG Songs, but it is really the opening and closings without credits.

    This disc is awfully similar to the Region 1. Not a surprise, really, seeing it's exactly the same content, with a different label and different cover — I prefer the Region 1 artwork, because it's less crowded. Both the Region 1 and Region 4 discs are actually coded as Regions 1, 2, and 4 — you can play either, even on a region-coded player, with no problem.

    The end of a beautiful show on an imperfect DVD.

    The video quality is considerably better than the first disc, but still has a lot more aliasing than I'd like.

    The audio quality is fine.

    The extras are not thrilling, especially the commentary.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall