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I am writing this review of my overall impressions of Ah! My Goddess Seasons 1 & 2, mainly because it felt like one long drawn out series to me. The show was very cute and enjoyable for a bit more than half of the first season, sadly I purchased both the complete first and second seasons before watching any episodes at all, based purely on the outstanding recommendations of others. Having bought all of the episodes (along with the OVA series and movie - neither of which I ever plan on watching) I forced myself to sit through the second half of season 1 and ... all of season 2.

Ah! My Goddess is of the cute romantic comedy variety with great character development that is enjoyable regardless of how ridiculous or unrealistic the plot or individual story arcs seem to be. This story revolves around Keiichi Morisato, a "university" student (keep in mind that he is a university student when reading the rest of the review) who seems to have no luck with the ladies, nor much of a social life, and lives in a dorm-like co-op with his fellow members of the mechanic club (which for some reason doesn't allow girls). As the summary suggests Keiichi makes a phone call one day and somehow gets a hold of the "goddess helpline" by accident. "A beautiful Goddess named Belldandy appears," before Keiichi and allows him one wish...

The reason why i disliked this anime was that it is aimed primarily for middle or elementary school kids. I generally like this type of romantic comedy (series like Lovely Complex, Toradora, etc.). While a show like Lovely Complex might have been enjoyed by a younger audience as well, it nonetheless was able to hold up to an adult crowd. The protagonists in Lovely Complex acted their age (for the most part). In Ah! My Goddess, on the other hand, Keiichi, who was attending university, acted like prude teenage girl. Unless Keiichi was secretly hiding in the closet, his actions towards Belldandy throughout the series were inconceivable and terribly frustrating. Likewise, at one point in the series, Keiichi's mechanic club actually gets angry at him for bringing a girl back to his room. WTF? These unrealistic situations and interactions often made the show painful to watch. Sure stuff happened, and the characters developed, it just seemed that as the show progressed, the maturity levels of the characters regressed. (see next paragraph for further reasons why I hated this stupid anime - contains a spoiler, but if you are a male over the age of 15 you shouldn't be watching this series anyways so read ahead).

Making a phone call and having a Goddess appear in front of you? sure, why not. The Goddess granting you a wish? I'll believe it. You wishing for the Goddess to be exclusively your possession? sounds conceivable. Keiichi (being in college) and Belldandy (being a Goddess who has been around indefinitely) going through 46 episodes, while living together, loving each other, and Belldandy doing everything that Keiichi asks of her, only kissing twice and never once having sex? RIDICULOUS.

I ended up giving this anime an overall rating of a 7 for the same reason why people give similarly well-written and entertaining, albeit outdated anime, such high ratings, for the pure enjoyment it brought to audiences who watched it when it first come out. Had I rated this "series" in the early-90's I would have easily given it a 9. Without going into details of the plot synopsis (just read the MAL summary) or character development (read the other guy's review), this anime is worth watching if you like story lines revolving around epic fantasy battles and knight-errantry, and don't mind watching an anime ... purely for the quality of its story. The artwork is horridly out-dated and sometimes seemingly lazily drawn. While the English dubbers for this series were outstandingly professional and surprisingly convincing in their roles, the actual sound quality (at least on the DVD version that I currently own) is down right terrible. That being said, if you happen to come across this series for a cheap price (I believe I paid $4 for my current copy of all 6 episodes) or feel compelled to watch it for some other reason, save it for a rainy day when you have absolutely no other anime in your possession to watch. This is coming from someone who actually liked this series :)