The Adventures of Mini-Goddess - Limited Edition Boxed Set
When Keiichi goes to class each morning, the Norse goddesses Urd, Skuld, and  Belldandy who live with him shrink themselves down for brief, comic adventures  with a wall-eyed rat named Gan. The cleverest episodes parody familiar genres  and anime series. In "Gabira," Gan turns into a monster-rat in a spoof of theGodzillamovies of the '50s. Skuld zaps the air conditioner into  overdrive in "Snowfield," and soon the room is covered with snow. Skuld, Urd, and  Gan use pushpins as climbing spikes to reach the crazed appliance in a send-up  of outdoor adventure films. "Gan-Chan the Locomotive" begins with a funny  parody ofGalaxy Express 999, with Gan as Tetsuro and Belldandy as Maetel,  but the comedy degenerates into a weird variation onStarlight Expresswith  the characters as locomotives. When Urd, Skuld, Belldandy, and Gan-Chan find  themselves on camera without a script in "This Happens Once in a While," they  stage a sci-fi romanceSpace Cruiser Uzushinothat satirizes the space operas  of theStar Blazersera. Occasional villainy is provided by the  voluptuous blonde sorceress-demon Marla, who sometimes sounds like wannabe Naga  fromSlayers.  The miniature versions of Urd, Skuld, and Belldandy have  little of the charm that made theOh My GoddessOAVs so popular. The  series is clearly aimed at much younger viewers, with slapstick humor replacing  the mixture of romance and mythology. (Rated 13 and older, but appropriate for  children two years younger: minor slapstick violence, brief nudity)--Charles Solomon