This review is for the second printing of Oh My Goddess! Volume Five.

Oh My Goddess! Volume Five
Written by: Kosuke Fujishima
Publisher: Kodansha
English Publisher: Dark Horse Manga
Release Date: June 26, 2007

This volume opens with Valentine’s Day, and Urd trying to get Belldandy and Keiichi together through putting a poison in the chocolates that Belldandy is making for Keiichi. Mara also has a scheme of her own that uses chocolate and poison. The resulting storyline is actually rather amusing.

The first major story arc in this volume sees Belldandy’s younger sister, Skuld, finally coming to Earth and becoming an important part of the story. As Skuld is trying to convince Belldandy to return home, bugs from the Yggdrasil system meta-program make their way to Earth and wreak havoc. At first, it’s thought that the bugs are coming because the three goddesses are together and creating a singularity. It turns out that something else is actually the singularity.

The other major story arc has Mara trying to summon the Lord of Terror with an urn. At the same time Urd’s goddess license is suspended for 50 years. Urd tries to become human, but it doesn’t work out very well. Urd hears a voice telling her to look inside herself and assume her rightful form. It turns out Urd has a secret that is tied in with the Lord of Terror.

Something that really caught my attention in this volume is the fact that Sayoko, a character who had been so prominent in earlier volumes of the series, is essentially relegated to one panel in Volume Five. With the particular stories being told, she really wouldn’t have served a real purpose. To be honest, I was rather relieved to not have to see Sayoko very much. Personally, I find her to be rather annoying, and not truly adding anything to the series at this point. Hopefully we’ll see less of her as the series goes on, and I also hope to see less of Toshiyuki as well.

The end of this volume includes another “Letters to the Enchantress” section. The first letter is very heavy on scientific explanations, and will only hold the interest of readers who have an interest the various scientific principles the letter writer is talking about. The second letter is a bit more interesting. However, there really isn’t much text from Carl Horn included in this volume. There’s also no editor’s commentary in this volume. I missed having this in the volume, because I enjoy Horn’s writing. Instead, there is some fan art drawn by a reader from Greece included. It’s actually some pretty decent fan art.

If you’ve read the first four volumes of Oh My Goddess! and enjoyed them, then I suspect you’ll also enjoy reading Volume Five as well.

Additional posts about Oh My Goddess!:

Advertisement