Oh My Goddess! Volume 17: Traveler (Oh My Goddess! (Numbered))
Love and friendship conquer all in these two stories from the long-running, perennially popular manga series about Keiichi, a young man who winds up dating a goddess named Belldandy. In the first story, brainy goddess Skuld animates an automaton girl companion for Banpei, her robot bodyguard, but the new creation loves only her mistress. In the second story, frothy romantic comedy weaves through musings on the nature of space and time with lessons in quantum physics. There's a crunch when Keiichi's friends from the motorcycle club need storage for their junk while their dorm room's being renovated. Skuld devises a computer device that allows infinite expansion of space, and Keiichi and Belldandy get lost in the now-endless Tea Room. But there's a catch: Belldandy's powers have been suspended after she forgets to renew her license, so she and Keiichi must wait out the week, trapped together in infinity. Keiichi befriends a Schröedinger's whale with Matthew Sweet lyrics, and all's well that ends well when the space expander's batteries finally run out. Fujishima presents this work in left-to-right format and occasionally uses an embellished lettering style to fit the plot twists. He pays attention to detail: each panel has pretty, delicate lines, and every character's wardrobe is elaborately conceived and changes often. The artwork is airy and elegant, typical of manga but better than most, and the tone is playfully benign and upbeat.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.