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!.
This volume actually kicks off my favorite arc in the series that I remember reading. It delves more deeply into the societies of heaven and hell. I won'e spoil it for those who haven't read it, but I really love the boy who shows up who clearly knows Belldandy despite Bell not knowing him. Banpei's love interest is also super cute, on another note.
World: The art is amazing and the cover is sublime. The world building is solid actually. We get some new pieces and new characters and even some status quo changes which is nice.
Story: Keiichi working is great and the moments are quiet and rewarding. The slow creeping of tension is new and not common in the book but well done. The time mystery and the man is interesting and I'm actually intrigued.
Characters: The new character is a mystery and he seems off and it's done well. Keiichi and Bell are about the same but I love them like that.
Things get a bit emtional in this book. From Banpei the robot falling in love to a new mysterious boy appearing things have a way of getting intense for a guy who just wants to be with his
The Boy Who Could See Goddesses: Urd and Skuld get recalled to Heaven to fix a problem with the Time Management Program. Something has also happened to Peorth. Some evil-looking young kid shows up and claims to know Belldandy.
The Beginning of the End: The evil kid follows them to work. He's cut off Belldandy's communication with Heaven.
Memories of a Youth: The kid sleeps with Belldandy and the next day she's totally worn out and he's already at the repair shop. The kid collapses at work.
Return of the Goddess: Belldandy passes out. The thing was a demon all along. Fortunately Peorth shows up in time to save Keiichi.
Light and Shadow: The kid plans to cause all time to stop and everything to stay eternally frozen in one time.
The Trouble with Doublets: There's something called the doublet system, a sharing of lives between gods and demons.
Time Without End, Hope Without End: The brat's program to stop all time doesn't work.
Turn Back, Oh Time: Exactly how Belldandy and Velsper came to be doublets is shown. Velsper's plan to stop time is itself stopped, and he's punished by a demonic court to reincarnate as a cat.
This was a fun little read, though not that memorable. It does pretty well at standing on its own: you don't need to have read the first 15 books in the series to get what's going on, and it won't leave you with a cliffhanger. I must admit, the explanation of why the world was going to end (this time) wasn't all that clear, but you know perfectly well this isn't the sort of story where anyone is seriously in any danger.
I'm not really into Manga"," but this one didn't require too much familiarity with what has gone before. The nice thing about this kind of story: when you're dealing with gods and demons interacting with mere mortals"," you get domestic strife and threats to the universe all on the same day!
Even more complications for the OMG! crew - especially poor Belldandy, who gets an unexpected, very cute, VERY EVIL little visitor... I shall say no more. Another excellent volume!