Note: I originally finished this on June 5th, but am now posting this from my Letterboxd review w/ minor edits both for posterity, and also cause I noticed no one else had written one beforehand.

When I first heard about Oh My Goddess (or Ah My Goddess as its sometimes called, or the Japanese title Aa Megami-Sama), there were only two things I knew about it: it was the second manga series Kosuke Fujishima penned and drew following the success of his then on-going work You're Under Arrest - with this one becoming even more popular if the volume and sales count are anything to go by - and that this was another stepping stone for him to become the character illustrator for video game franchises Tales and Sakura Wars. Everything else about what it could be about was a blur to me, so the only thing I had to go off of was summaries on both Anilist and Wikipedia, which made me think this was gonna be like Tenchi Muyo; a comedic and energetic harem thing but instead of incorporating sci-fi and other spacial elements, this was about religious allegories and shit like that. Also contributing to the comparison is that both of these properties were, at this point in time, animated by the same studio, AIC, so it was pretty surprising to witness that this 5-episode romp is actually... down to earth. Way more chill than I expected, for better and worse.

To make a correction about my knee-jerk "harem" label, it very much isn't that at all. Keiichi Morisato and Belldandy are locked in as a pairing as soon as they meet in the first encounter, so the series revolves around the former's shy yet understanding nature with the latter's high-status of being, well, a kind and caring Goddess, being used as a way for both to bond together and slowly get closer and closer with each day passing. The rest of the cast, ranging from Keiichi's buddies to Bell's family, are more so there to add more dynamics to the core story, either by lightening the mood or nudging them and/or the plot of the current episode along, and it makes for a pretty comfy and compelling watch. Like, shit man, it's just sweet to see how one of the two reacts or say something to the other through thick and thin, so despite the short length it was a nice sell on making me root for these two to work it out and appreciate each other more as a result. It also helps that it balances the serious aspect of these tangled obstacles with the wacky hijinks is solid, like seeing Urd's minx nature trying (and usually failing) to push Keiichi further along on the "relationship level" with Bell, or Skuld being the technical mind yet getting on people's nerves due to her stubborn, bratty nature. No one here ever truly becomes annoying, which is was a surprise since again, I was expecting something pretty different. I'm also super into the presentation as well. The aforementioned AIC already have plenty of works made by talented people to help sell a great-looking anime - see Riding Bean, Metal Skin Panic MADOX-01, or perhaps a relatively more recent Humanity Has Declined for some examples - and this one's no different. Hiroaki Gouda does a great job at leading the team to apply a rural and easygoing look to the affair with any magical elements having a contrasting look from the surface world, with Hidenori Matsubara greatly transitioning Fujishima's character designs onto the screen, matching the ceremonious attire for our three Goddesses as well as the more casual and school vibe for every human member here. It was also nice to see some more sakuga goodness from this time that hasn't been overshared to death like so many other moments on Twitter, as Yelling At Clouds as that sounds.

I did say it can be for the worst though, and it's usually from how these episodes are structured. Now, I don't mind the slow-paced vibe - in fact I consider it one of its greatest strengths - but near the end you can tell it's haphazardly juggling between adapting elements of the manga while being more of a standalone story tying aspects of it in here, and it gets rather muddled as a result. Not awful mind you, especially since the ending did get me teary-eyed, but just enough to feel like something's missing from the element. They throw in one of the students in episode 4 without any sort of proper introduction, and there's a character that appears in the OP but not AT ALL in the show proper, which makes it pretty bizarre. With the last episode being 40 minutes instead of the usual 30, I feel like this OVA could've benefited from either another episode, or more distinct time lengths of what's available to make the juxtapositions feel less jarring. That's all I can think of for negatives thankfully, otherwise it's a smooth ride, and a great sell in checking out the manga or perhaps its more faithful TV adaptation. There is that movie though, so maybe I'll give that a look at some point...