The ‘Ah! My Goddess!’ comedy spin-off returns for its second instalment with more mischievous antics of goddesses Belldandy, Urd and Skuld when left to their own devices in Keiichi’s absence. As with the first volume, the Gan-Chan Files, they are short 7-8 minute episodes featuring tiny super-cute versions of the three helper goddesses and the friendly rat Gan. Starting with Urd babysitting three of Gan’s nephews and nieces and including stories in which the goddesses form a band, take on a haywire air conditioner and play matchmaker for their love struck rodent companion, the result is always comical and endearing mayhem.

Although the episode length and inoffensive nature of the stories make the stories particularly suitable for younger viewers, there are plenty of parodies of well-used anime clichés that fans of all ages can appreciate. The goddesses’ personalities are individual and likeable and Gan-Chan makes a hilarious foil for their adventures and schemes; as indicated by the title, Belldandy fortunately gets more screen time than before. The low budget animation quality is not quite at the standards set by some of MVM’s main releases but it is colourful and in keeping with the feel of the show in general and the dubbing is of surprisingly good quality.

In addition to the standard extras of trailers and credit-free closing animation sequence, there is a Gan-Chan character info page and picture gallery; nothing outstanding but there are ten individual stories in the course of the twelve episodes and there is choice between both the Japanese dialogue with subtitles or the English dub.

In Summary

These new adventures of the mini-goddesses may not be to the taste of fans of more serious and mature anime but there is plenty of unpredictable humour and it rarely takes itself seriously. Like the previous volume, the brief and imaginative episodes of the Belldandy Files are perfect for a bit of animated light relief, especially for long-term fans of the ‘Ah! My Goddess!’ characters.