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| picture from HERE |
Ah! My Goddess is a film about the supernatural, divine world and the human’s world intertwining, bringing about new problems for both humans and gods. In the movie, Belldandy, a first class goddess trained by Celastine comes to earth to grant Keiichi a wish, and ends up falling in love with him. Because of their love, Belldandy has stayed on earth for the past two springs, and she plans on staying for another spring. Her sisters Urd and Skuld came down to earth to live with her since she has stayed here for so long.
Belldandy and Keiichi share a bond that is special and cannot be taken away so easily. Celestine takes away Belldandy’s memory of Keiichi with a virus, and this virus has infected both her and the whole Heaven’s computer system. With this virus, Celestin plans to destroy the Judgment Gate as well as the current earth, so that a new one will be created that has no suffering. Celestine’s intentions are not bad ones; he wants equality between Gods and humans, and to remove all suffering from humans- he wants happiness for the humans. However, by destroying earth with his methods he is taking away humans’ free-will and their right to choice. Humans should be able to make choices on their own and decide for themselves whether or not they want to love and be a part of suffering.
Celestine’s definition of happiness may not be the same for everyone. Ah! My Goddess in comparison to the movie we watched in class with prisoner Alex has some similarities, in which Celestine from the anime and the doctors from the movie both want to achieve a “better” state for the victims, but are using the wrong methods to achieve the results. By brainwashing Alex and forcing him to be sick whenever he watches television or hears Beethoven’s music, they are taking away his free-will and decision-making, just like Celestin is taking away the human’s rights for free-will.
Memory plays a role in this film, as seen in Cowboy Bebop as well, where when one loses their memory, they have trouble determining who they really are and what their purpose is. When Belldandy loses her memory, she loses the part of herself and her happiness that she shared with Keiichi, causing her conflict when she sees Keiichi is no longer as happy as he used to be.
Dear Tracy,
ReplyDeleteYour commentary on Ah! My Goddess was fantastic. You shared a lot of the same views that I had on the film. Your thoughts on the super natural aspects of the film were very interesting and the relating of the film to Japanese culture and American culture was very insightful and awes inspiring. The description of the plot that you laid out was very interesting because there were times where I thought that it could’ve been cut down but I also thought that for someone who has never seen the film or read the manga, this could be an extremely helpful way for them to get into the film and possibly be inspired by it or relate it to other pieces of art. I also really enjoyed the artwork in this film. You could tell it was a little bit more modern than the other films we had watched. Great commentary, keep it up!