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!.
I was very impressed with how the story in this 33rd volume stood independant of the other volumes, and made sense alone. I have never read the other volumes, and did not have access to them, when I bought this one cheaply yesterday.
The motorcycle-building contest was a fun plot to read about, and the story was very fast-paced. I would love to read more of this series.
While this volume is certainly fun, it's not exactly the most compelling story. It's kind of the same old same old. Keiichi blushing at Belldandy, Belldandy protecting Keiichi from her sisters' antics, motorcycles, and more. I did enjoy getting to meet some of Chihiro's friends, but you don't really learn much about them.
This installment takes the time to explore the B-plot of the series. The B-plot, or Keiichi and his exploration of all things motorized is displayed here as he and his boss each work on their own customized bikes. It's a fun element more than it is dynamic but it results in some hijinks and Belldandy having to step in to save the man she loves from her sisters. In other words, a tuesday.
While Oh My Goddess doesn't really require much of an introduction, however, fans of the series might find volume 33 to be somewhat on the bland side. Overall, the volume contained a self-contained story arc of Keichi, Belldandy, and Chihiro, on their quest to build the bikes of their dreams.
Unfortunately, the majority of the arc seems to focus on either Belldandy and Keichi's never-ending relationship or about bikes in general, neither of which makes of a compelling or interesting volume. Lately, it feels like AMG has lost the spark that originally made it compelling and enjoyable to read. Instead, we keep retreading old ground revolving around the weakest part of the series, Keichi & Belldandy's relationship.
It's times like this that I sometimes wish that Fujishima retire AMG and maybe restart/reboot You're Under Arrest, a more entertaining series (IMHO).