Oh! My Goddess

Well, it's time to get this jitney moving. 1st anime up to bat is probably my favorite.

Title: OH! My Goddess!
Genre: Romance
Length: 2 Seasons (26 and 24 episodes, respectively), 1 Movie

Story:
The story is perfect. Nothing super wacky or wild, just plain great story. The concept for the whole thing was original and automatically a classic from the very first episode, which is where so many shows mess up horribly. Very first episode- a simple setting, a solid event, and well defined characters; simple, effective, and successful. Keiichii Morisato, a student at a university, dials out for food on a lonely evening all by his lonesome and accidentally makes a call to the "Goddess Helpline"- Heaven's helping hand for those poor bastards with good hearts and shit luck- where our beloved Belldandy receives his call and appears in the room to grant him one wish. Keiichii (after a short conversation with Belldandy), in his infinite low self esteem, only wishes from the bottom of his pure and honest heart that he could have "a Goddess like you (Belldandy) stay by my side (Keiichii's) forever." With those few words, his wish was made and granted, starting a romance unlike any other.

Animation:
The animation was really great and the character designs were perfect- the characters matched their looks and personalities, each character is recognizable in an instant (especially the main characters), and none of them get boring. There are very few recycled frames and everything flows very amazingly, which just adds to the level of greatness of this anime.


Depth:
Great depth for a romance. The show has full and sturdy background concepts and ideas, fleshing out a Heaven and Hell that intertwines with the story to hold it all together, adding a really nice depth that makes each episode kind of pop (good pop like fireworks, not like a dislocated shoulder). The situation that starts this romance also gives the anime a some points to debate, seeing as Keiichii did wish for Belldandy to stay there, raising the question of the validity of the love in the relationship (which, btw, is covered in the anime, but you need to watch it to find out.)

Other Factors: The whole show is just damn cute. I could watch this over and over again and not get tired of crying at how great this show is. I have YET to find a romance anime as perfect as this one. Every episode is cute and funny, but at the same time well engineered. Each situation the characters are put in are the classical romance plots- main character gets deceived by a girl, some confusion or misunderstanding brings up a fight, main character sneaks around in a way that makes the girl think he is cheating- but they are carried out perfectly with the right amount of humor which is balanced by the end of each situation, which is where a lot of the magic is for this series. When a problem is solved, it is a milestone in the series and the characters develop noticeably, giving it a sense of a timeline and not just jumbled up days like in some series where you can skip and miss episodes and it doesn't matter because only the first 5 and last 3 episodes matter. You watch it and can think, "Hey, Keiichii has really matured since then."
I watched the sub, the Japanese voices were great, and I demoed the English, which were pretty good as well. Some of the English voices are kind of odd, but I guess they fit.

FINAL GRADE: A+
This is a show that everyone needs to watch. It will make the world a better place if everyone does.
Seriously, after watching this, I had the Doki~Doki sickness BAD. I was pissin *LOVE~LOVE* rainbow beams for like a week.