Oh My Goddess!, Volume 19/20: Sora Unchained

by Kosuke Fujishima

Do you know that cute little girl with the glasses? The shy one who always seems to be blushing? Well, it looks like her time in the spotlight is about to come. The rough-and-ready crew at the Nakomi Tech motor club needs a new director, and meek-and-mild Sora Hasegawa's drawn the winning lot, a tall order in the midst of such macho machine-heads for someone who can barely drive a car! And she'll have to prove her mettle on the racecourse to remain director - or to have the right to opt out! Luckily, she has the expert advice of top club racer Keiichi Morisato and the supernatural assistance of his dyed-in-the-wool goddess girlfriend, Belldandy, to help her over the rough spots to prepare for the race. Too bad she'll have to race against Keiichi, who's honor-bound and determined to take the checkered flag!

Genres: Manga, Graphic Novels, Magic, Humor

312 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2005

About the author

Kōsuke Fujishima (藤島康介, born July 7, 1964) is a Japanese manga artist.

Born in Chiba, Japan, he first came to public attention as an editor of Puff magazine, his first job after completing high school. Fujishima originally intended to be a draftsman, but took the editorial role after failing to get a drafting apprenticeship. He later became assistant to manga artist Tatsuya Egawa in the production of the Making Be Free! manga, and in 1986 began his first original manga series You're Under Arrest. His second manga series Oh My Goddess!, also translated as Ah! My Goddess, is extremely popular and has made Fujishima a household name in Japan. In addition, he is also well known as the character designer for several games in the Tales RPG video game series and Sakura Wars.

He is known for his love of automobiles and motorcycles, and several of his series and their characters reflect this, such as in éX-Driver and Oh My Goddess!.

Reviews

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The club directorship passes to Sora, who is universally endorsed (eventually!)

[James Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title for this set of volumes is Sora Unchained. Sora has the annual financial report of the Motor Club. Sora gets picked as the new director of the club. Sora doesn't want to be director, though, so she'll have to win a certain race to get out of the job. Sora explains why she doesn't want to be director; she seems to destroy anything she takes control of.

Belldandy helps train Sora, and finally it's the day of the race. Keiichi and Sora have to drive a race with a couple of checkpoints and that's not on a set track. Keiichi crashes but converts his go-cart into something like motorized roller blades.

The next story concerns Urd and Skuld competing for use of the TV. It's a really funny story.

[Selena Pigoni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe because this was the last of the "Westernized" translations of Oh My Goddess, but I can't tell much difference between the new translations and this translation in terms of quality. Yeah, there was a lot more "K-1" thrown around in this volume, but otherwise I didn't notice besides reading the opposite direction from the others.

This contains all of volume 20 as well as a few of volume 19's chapters. I skipped the volume 19 chapters, as I already read those in the new translation.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved Sora's cute story!!