Adventures of the Mini-Goddesses

Japanese Title: Aa! Megami-sama: Chicchaitte Koto wa Benri Dane
Also Known As: Oh My Goddess! Small is Useful
Genre: Comedy
Format: 48 Episodes
Allegiance: Oriental Light and Magic/WOWOW
Director: Kazui Hiroko, Matsumura Yasuhiro
Vintage: 1998
Intelligence Agency Report by: Lady Sage
When Keiichi’s away, the goddesses will play! In their spare time, goddesses Urd and Skuld (occasionally joined by Belldandy) shrink down to super-deformed size to play with and torment their friend Gan-chan the rat.

Field Agent Report by: Lady Sage
Plot
Characters
Impact
Visual
Audio
7.00
8.50
5.00
9.00
8.25
Overall 7.50
(not an average)
When the Oh My Goddess! OVA drew to a close, many fans commented that though Belldandy and Keiichi were fairly boring and stereotypical as protagonists, Urd and Skuld were the best part of the series and deserved far more screen time.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you all the Urd and Skuld you can handle. This entire series is centered on miniature Urd and Skuld playing pranks on their unfortunate rat friend Gan-chan and having general misadventures, all within the six minutes and fifteen seconds allotted each episode. As is obvious from its premise, Adventures of the Mini-Goddesses is episodic in nature; there are a few multi-part episodes, but there is little to no carryover or plot spanning the series. The entire point of the series is to get laughs.

The characters unfortunately go the way of the plot. Urd and Skuld are fun and quirky all right, but not much more, and Gan-chan is simply annoying, from his voice to his personality. Belldandy, when she shows up, is as pleasantly bland as ever, her rather boring personality thrown into sharp relief by her sisters’ over-the-top silliness. Some fans who have never read the manga may be a bit puzzled when Mara shows up, since the goddesses’ arch-nemesis never made the OVA or the movie.

So, the plot is nonexistent, and the characters are fun but stereotypical. So, the humor must be genius, right? Well, yes and no, but mostly yes fortunately. Many episodes had me rolling on the floor howling with laughter; a few had me groaning at the terrible jokes and cheesy puns. Among the don’t-miss episodes is a kaijuu parody. The occasional weak episodes are luckily overwhelmed by the more amusing ones.

Adventures of the Mini Goddesses isn’t anything deep or thought provoking, or even anything more than mildly diverting. That’s fine, because that’s all it really wants to be. If you’re looking for a quick, cheap laugh, call Urd and Skuld!