Kōsuke Fujishima (藤島康介, born July 7, 1964) is a Japanese manga artist.
Born in Chiba, Japan, he first came to public attention as an editor of Puff magazine, his first job after completing high school. Fujishima originally intended to be a draftsman, but took the editorial role after failing to get a drafting apprenticeship. He later became assistant to manga artist Tatsuya Egawa in the production of the Making Be Free! manga, and in 1986 began his first original manga series You're Under Arrest. His second manga series Oh My Goddess!, also translated as Ah! My Goddess, is extremely popular and has made Fujishima a household name in Japan. In addition, he is also well known as the character designer for several games in the Tales RPG video game series and Sakura Wars.
He is known for his love of automobiles and motorcycles, and several of his series and their characters reflect this, such as in éX-Driver and Oh My Goddess!.
World: So much had been said about how gorgeous the art is but it still needs to be said. The sender of motion for the race is fantastic. The would building is once again small and contained to character moments and it makes the story so much not emotionally resonating.
Story: This is a long story arc for a single event but at it's core it's a story about Hasegawa and also get funding her place in. It's all done very well and paced slowly like the series. The emotions are earned and the small little victories are savored.
Characters: Spending so much time with Hasegawa is good. Much like the last book we spend more time on other characters to give more depth and also a sense of growth in the world. Kei and Bell are constants and putting others as a focus makes it interesting.
This volume actually focuses most on Sora Hasegawa and the future of the motor club, while still continuing the antics of the three goddesses we've come to know and love. And, of course, the fighting between Urd and Skuld that has become typical continues with Belldandy fixing things when they get out of hand almost on accident.
Better than vol. 19. I first started reading OMG/AMG years ago. Was cruising the teen section at the library and saw the front cover of the first volume. When it comes to cartoons/comics I am very particular about the quality of the drawings, so the clean, super-detailed images caught me straight away. When I read the blurb, it was 100% my kind of story. So I got hooked pretty quickly and even ended up buying some of the DVDS.
Keiichi and Belldandy are just the greatest characters. K1 (Kei-Ichi, get it?) Is how Hornblower should have been - he has normal male desires, but his moral standards prevent him from taking a) what is offered by people he doesn't love and b) what isn't offered from the person he DOES love. And his relationship with Belldandy is just beautiful. They are so in tune with each other. *sigh*
Urd and Skuld provide comic relief with their respective desires to push B & K together/keep them apart. All the human characters are mainly centered around the Nekomi Institute of Technology, but that changes a little as K1 leaves and gets a job etc.
It's a great series and the only Manga I bother with as it's probably as close to g-rated with a decent story that I'm going to get.
For anyone who cares, there is more of my OMG "life story" below.
For whatever reason, I stopped enjoying it so much and moved on to other things. I'm not sure how many volumes I read, although I'm pretty sure I've read vol. 20 before. I think it may just have been that I caught up to the English publishing run and the library had no more to read.
Recently (after learning a few time management skills from my toddler), I've had enough time on my hands to start re-playing Final Fantasy VII on the Playstation (getting super-excited about the remake). Anyway, all those hours of exposure to 80s Japanese pop-culture got me all nostalgic for OMG and, here I am reading it again.
The library appears to have almost every volume (no 21-23 though), so I can settle in for a long run. (And I can read them while racing chocobos on auto!)