I went to Kinokuniya for the second (SECOND!!) time this week with some friends and fell in to temptation again, buying myself the 20th Anniversary artbook of Ah! My Goddess, with a 20% discount (saving me RM 32,which is quite a substantial amount).

My wallet despairs, but my heart rejoices though, since the book is quite worth the RM 130 I paid for it, as it’s really thick. It also contains just about every damn Ah! My Goddess color illustrations over the past 20 years.

There’s even an entire section dedicated to all of the tankouban covers where you get to see how much the art of A!MG has changed over the years from the “oh my god wtfugly” style back when it first started to the current “Belldandy’s eyes look so hollow” style. (I still think the best Belldandy is during the mid 90’s by the way.)

A long interview with Kosuke Fujishima is at the back of the book…

… and an index of all the illustrations and where it was sourced from.

The inside back of the book.

The artbook is really a worthwhile buy for fans of the series and I am glad to own it myself. This is really what artbooks should be like, :D.

If you want the original photos I used for this post, they are all nicely zipped up for download.

P.S. Right after publishing this post, I get an SMS from Kino: “Dear customer. Your order for Negima Vol. 25 Limited Edition has arrived at the store. Please proceed to….”.

…..WTF Kino? I just bloody came back from there!
…… and they said the book’s gonna arrive NEXT week when I placed the order orz.

©2009 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Making her mad has gotta rank as one of the stupidest things to do, ever.

As usual with me on the end of a season and the eve of a new one, I find myself craving for old classics, while others expound on the loveliness of the new shows. Don’t ask me why.

On a sidenote, so many deadlines to catch up on @_@.

©2009 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Two extra episodes that weren’t aired during the TV run of the series and only released in DVD format.

Episode 25 and 26 covers events in the manga right after the **Terrible Master Urd** arc, where the goddesses have trouble getting energy to retain their forms due to the **Yggdrasil** crash caused earlier on. The results in **Belldandy** having to morph into *chibi* form (a.k.a ***CHOU KAWAII!!!***), **Urd** regressing into her child stage and **Skuld** having a growth spurt resulting in adulthood.

In Episode 25, **Urd** is the first victim as she turns into loli mode and flirts around with a *hikikomori*-ish boy while Episode 26 focuses on **Skuld**, as she turns into an adult, a darn sexy one at that too, so she takes the chance to have some fun as an adult, like wearing sexy evening gowns, high heels and taking wedding pictures with **K1**.

Both episodes are nicely made and in tune with current times, check out the **PDP** that **Urd’s** playing ;). Should’ve updated the dialouge though, the kid was still referring to “A” and “B” buttons :P. The production values just really blow you away and even with the LQ raw, I still managed to enjoy myself. I really should get the DVD versions of the Aa! Megami-sama TV.

The best part of both episodes for me was how both Urd and Skuld’s *seiyuu’s* managed to fit their voices into their character changes. Both **Yumi Touma** and **Aya Hisakawa** did a fine job changing their voices to loli mode and adult mode respectively. Especially **Aya Hisakawa** doing the adult **Skuld** voice of which added in +25 Sekushii. I’m starting to become an **Aya Hisakawa** junkie too T_T.

Continue on for some screencaps.

©2009 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.