Trivia / Ah! My Goddess

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• Acting for Two:
  • Besides being the regular voice of Urd, Yumi Touma voiced Belldandy's younger self in the OVA.
  • In the OVA, Junko Asami voices Sayoko Mishima and also had a minor role as a jeweler in the fifth episode.
• Channel Hop: Almost every US company releasing anime during the DVD bubble released some part of this franchise at some point: AnimEigo released the original OVA series, Pioneer (later Geneon) released the movie and Mini Goddess shorts, Media Blasters released Season 1 of the TV series, ADV Films originally released Season 2, and Funimation reissued Season 2 after ADV's deal with Sojitz collapsed.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: In the OVA's fifth episode, the younger Keiichi Morisato is voiced by the female Megumi Ogata.
• The Danza: The late Chieko Honda as Chieko Honda, whom she was named after.
• Directed by Cast Member:
  • Scott Houle directed the English dub of the OVA, in addition to voicing Toshiyuki Aoshima.
  • For the English dubs of the film and Mini-Goddess, Bridget Hoffman was the ADR director and Belldandy's voice actor.
• Extremely Lengthy Creation: The manga started in 1988 and finally finished up in 2014, spanning 26 years before its ultimate conclusion.
• Franchise Killer: The anime's second season Flights of Fancy was ill-received enough despite closely following the source material that the franchise was never quite the same after that. The manga series was finished up in 2014 but the second season of the TV series put the franchise in media format on its last legs. By the end of 2007, a two part special with Lind called Fighting Wings premiered. And after a few years hiatus, the franchise managed to limp forward just a few more steps and churn out three OVA episodes from 2011 to 2013 with much less fanfare and even those weren't enough to rekindle much interest in Ah My Goddess! Since then, there haven't been any reboots or attempts to rekindle the franchise in any anime or OVA format despite the fact that the manga has now finished up and there's presumably enough material now to create a new AMG! series that can have a more definitive end than during the TV series' run where the manga was going on forever.
• Hey, It's That Sound!: Many of the first OVA's sound effects, including the Kabuki Sounds, were reused from AIC's other hit series Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki. Makes sense since Junichi Sasaki provided the sound effects for both series during his tenure at Anime Sound Production.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • Despite the popularity of the various bits of the anime over the years, pretty much every part of it is now out-of-print in the U.S., thanks to licenses expiring and companies shutting down. The Movie in particular is nearly impossible to find even on the secondhand market (it was, perhaps not coincidentally, the first part of the franchise to go OOP as a result of Geneon's closure). AnimEigo lost the license for the OVA in 2011 – their 2001 DVD release of it is easy to find secondhand but the technically-superior 2006 rerelease is not. Availability of the first TV season depends on the episodes – later DVD's are harder to find.
  • Meanwhile, Dark Horse is still publishing the manga in e-book form, since their original print run finally wrapped with the printing of Vol.48 at the end of 2015. They started reprinting the whole series in omnibus form, but put that project on hold in 2017 after only six collected volumes. They have since announced that omnibus Volume 7 will be released in 2023 after a six-year hiatus. Meanwhile, the individual volumes are increasingly difficult to find new.
• Market-Based Title: You might have noticed that the name on the main page is Ah! My Goddess. But the franchise wasn't called that in the West until Pioneer brought over the movie in 2001. Prior to that, it was called Oh My Goddess!. The former has always been its official English title according to Kodansha. So why the discrepancy? Because when Studio Proteus licensed the manga in 1994, the translator asked Kosuke Fujishima if the title was meant to be a pun on the English phrase "Oh my God". Fujishima said it was, so the English manga translated the pun using "Oh". AnimEigo, which had rights to the OVA, coordinated with Studio Proteus to ensure continuity between the two parts of the franchise (they did the same for You're Under Arrest!), and thus also used "Oh". Later on, either Fujishima changed his mind or Kodansha had a heavier hand in localization, so things changed.
  • Dark Horse to this day still releases the manga as "Oh My Goddess!", apparently under some sort of Grandfather Clause. After all, when you've been publishing something under the same title for twenty years, it's best to not change things and risk confusing your customers. They had a difficult enough time explaining where Volume 20 went during the switch from flipped to unflipped books (it was combined with Volume 19 to make one extra-thick book, because "Sora Unchained" was a long arc).
  • The name discrepancy is actually useful as far as anime is concerned. Both the OVA series and the TV series's first season are known simply as Aa! Megami-sama in Japan, but thanks to the translation issues described above, they go by different names in English – OVA uses "Oh" and TV series (and movie) use "Ah" – making them easier to differentiate when discussing them.
• No Export for You: Every piece of animated material produced after Flights of Fancy ended, most notably the "Fighting Wings" anniversary special. Not a big loss since it's a Broad Strokes adaptation of the "Angel Eater" arc (but still a loss).
  • The Latin American Spanish dub of the OVA's and Mini-Goddess never aired in Chile due to Locomotion, the channel that had the exclusive broadcast rights of both, never being available on any cable operator on the country due to political issues. (Television on Chile at the time was very conservative, and the anime and adult animated shows that the channel aired was considerate "too liberal" so no cable operator wanted anything to do with the channel.)
• One-Book Author: Urd is Lanelle Markgraf's only anime role.
• The Other Darrin: Happens in all languages.
  • In the Japanese dub:
    • The first drama CD featured Kappei Yamaguchi as Keiichi, Noriko Hidaka as Belldandy, Naoko Matsui as Urd, Kōzō Shioya as Tamiya and Chisa Yokoyama as Megumi. For their OVA debut, Keiichi was voiced by Masami Kikuchi, Belldandy by Kikuko Inoue, Urd by Yumi Touma, Tamiya by Kiyoyuki Yanada and Megumi by Yuriko Fuchizaki.
    • Kikuko Inoue was replaced by Akemi Okamura as Belldandy during the first quarter of Adventures of Mini-Goddess while she was on maternity leave.
    • During Flights of Fancy, Ikue Otani (Sora's VA) went on maternity leave and was replaced by Satomi Koorogi.
    • God was played by Shinji Ogawa in the OVA and the late Hidetoshi Nakamura in the TV series.
    • Sayoko was played by Mamiko Noto from the TV series onwards, but by Junko Asami in the earlier OVA.
    • Chrono, Ere, and Ex were all recast between the movie and TV series – originally Yui Horie, Rumi Kasahara, and Akiko Yajima respectively; then Masako Jo, Chiemi Chiba, and Yoko Honna, also respectively.
  • There have been multiple English dub casts (with little to no overlap), due to the various parts of the franchise being handled by different companies in different places at different times.
    • The OVA was licensed by AnimEigo and recorded in 1996 at Coastal Studios in Wilmington, N.C., with Scott Simpson as Keiichi and Juliet Cesario as Belldandy.
    • The Movie and Mini-Goddess were licensed by Pioneer and recorded in 2001 at Animaze in Los Angeles with Tony Oliver as Keiichi and Bridget Hoffman as Belldandy. This era of the franchise has an internal cast change, with Mary Elizabeth McGlynn playing Urd in the movie but Wendee Lee playing Urd in Mini-Goddess.
    • The TV series was licensed by Media Blasters (1st season) and ADV Films (2nd Season) and recorded between 2005 & 2007 at NYAV Post in New York City.^note  Some parts of Flights of Fancy were dubbed in L.A., namely most of the new secondary characters. It has Matt Caplan as Keiichi and Eileen Stevens as Belldandy.
    • Within the 2005 series, while mostly consistent, some minor characters' voices would change. Hijiri, the little girl, was initially voiced by Michelle Medlin in her first two appearances but is voiced by Eileen Stevens (Belldandy's actress) for all others. Her friend, Junpei, would first be voiced by Alissa Brodsky (voice of Mara) in the first season but is voiced by Zoe Martin (voice of Hasegawa) in Flights of Fancy.
    • The third class earth spirit that resides in Megumi's apartment was voiced by Sean Schemmel in his first appearance but was unavailable to reprise the part in his second appearance, where Kevin T. Collins (already the voice of Senbei) filled in.
    • Ex, Ere, and Chrono were voiced by Emily Blau, Alissa Brodsky, and Karen Neill respectively in episode 8 of Season 1. When they reappear in episode 22, however, Neill would take over for Ex and Brodsky would take over for Chrono, while Elizabeth Cartier would take over the part of Ere. Later on in Season 2, Brodsky would become the new voice for Ex, where the goddess plays a fairly important role.
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub of Adventures of Mini-Goddess, Skuld is replaced with Gaby Beltrán, as her original actress Mónica Estrada retired from voice acting.
• Out of Order: Events in the TV series do not happen in the same order as in the manga. This is mostly because the first season was meant to be self-contained, so it cut out and/or pushed back nearly everything that didn't directly advance Keiichi and Belldandy's romance. It also shifted and combined disparate chapters/arcs to make a more cohesive narrative. ^Example Using Urd's angel as a lead-in to the Lord Of Terror arc, even though the former happened much later in the manga.
  • Lind appears in the TV series before Peorth... who actually debuted in the manga 7½ years earlier, and had already featured in three arcs by the time Lind is introduced.
  • Flights Of Fancy is all over the place compared to the source material. This doesn't really matter for the episodic stories (which is most of them), but it's still confusing for anyone familiar with the manga. ^{A Rundown} The timing of the Peorth and "Devil In Miss Urd" arcs are flipped between the manga and TV series – Peorth's arc followed the latter arc in the manga. Episode 29, the one about the ring, originally occurred very early in the manga (its chapter falling in between Episodes 9 and 10 of the TV series). Shiho, Chihiro, and Sentaro all have their spotlight episodes before Kodama (who actually appeared first). In the manga, Chihiro's introduction is in between those of Sentaro and Noble Scarlet, but she appears before either in the TV series… which allows Skuld's meeting Sentaro to segue directly into her angel fiasco. The final episode uses material from then-recent chapters, even though every other story adapted to animation (Lind's and Hild's appearances aside) was from years earlier.
• Real-Life Relative: The OVA's ADR director Scott Houle (who is also Aoshima's VA) is married to Pamela Weidner, who happens to voice Skuld.
• Role Reprise: In Flights of Fancy, Rei Sakuma voiced Peorth over five years after her last appearance in Ah! My Goddess: The Movie.
• Romance on the Set: Keiichi and Belldandy's voice actors for the OVA, Scott Simpson and Juliet Cesario, would marry soon after the dub's production. They have since divorced.
• Self-Adaptation: Kosuke Fujishima himself was a supervisor for the OVA as well as the movie.
• Star-Making Role: This series, along with Ranma ½, is what brought Kikuko Inoue to mainstream audience as well as codifying her Typecasting as the go-to voice actress for Yamato Nadeshiko characters (despite the Irony that Belldandy is based on the Nordic culture).
• Those Two Actors: Keiichi and Belldandy's respective drama CD actors, Kappei Yamaguchi and Noriko Hidaka, previously worked on Ranma ½.
• Voices in One Room: The OVA has an extremely rare instance of this being done in the English dub. In Episode 1, during the scene where Bell and K1 are driving through Nekomi City on the way to the Temple, the two recorded together to make the part where they talk over each other feel more genuine. It happens again in Episode 3 during the cheesecake scene, when Kei, Bell, and Skuld all record together so the banter sounds better.
• You Sound Familiar: In the English dub of Flights of Fancy, Peorth is voiced by Juliet Cesario, who voiced Belldandy in AnimEigo's dub of the OVA. Additionally, Hild is voiced by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, who voiced Urd in Pioneer's dub of the movie while Chieko Honda was dubbed by Wendee Lee, who voiced Urd in Mini Goddess.

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