That's true that there are some personality changes within the story, and I agree that at times Bell seemed out of character. However though, after the time reset, and Urd gave Bell and Skuld their memories back, Bell suddenly was hit with the memory of K1's death. So in hopes of counteracting K1 from becoming a singularity within the universe, she felt that avoidance was necessary. And even so, Tohma Yumi did show the pain that Bell was feeling (if rather lightly) and showed that Bell still held a great amount of feeling for K1. The ending, where she entered the parallel universe, I think what happened was that she realized that fate didn't bind K1 to a path of sorrow, and was torn on whether or not she was really necessary in his life. Yes, she wishes to see K1 happy, and she too wishes for happiness. However, in the other world, she saw that K1 was truly special, even without goddesses (the Machiners meeting) and was beginning to doubt her own worth. Though I will agree that the bit about her feeling that K1 meeting the Machiners was because she was with him was a little strange, overall the loose ends seemed to tie themselves back together, and the world restarts back at volume 1 of the Manga.... We'll see what happens. But anyway, in terms of a 1-10 scale, I'd give the book a 8.5/10. Not the best thing since sliced bread, but can definitely stand as a well written story, and definitely worth reading.

Quote

Originally posted by Xiaoyung (view)
That's true that there are some personality changes within the story, and I agree that at times Bell seemed out of character. However though, after the time reset, and Urd gave Bell and Skuld their memories back, Bell suddenly was hit with the memory of K1's death. So in hopes of counteracting K1 from becoming a singularity within the universe, she felt that avoidance was necessary. And even so, Tohma Yumi did show the pain that Bell was feeling (if rather lightly) and showed that Bell still held a great amount of feeling for K1. The ending, where she entered the parallel universe, I think what happened was that she realized that fate didn't bind K1 to a path of sorrow, and was torn on whether or not she was really necessary in his life. Yes, she wishes to see K1 happy, and she too wishes for happiness. However, in the other world, she saw that K1 was truly special, even without goddesses (the Machiners meeting) and was beginning to doubt her own worth. Though I will agree that the bit about her feeling that K1 meeting the Machiners was because she was with him was a little strange, overall the loose ends seemed to tie themselves back together, and the world restarts back at volume 1 of the Manga.... We'll see what happens. But anyway, in terms of a 1-10 scale, I'd give the book a 8.5/10. Not the best thing since sliced bread, but can definitely stand as a well written story, and definitely worth reading.

yeah but I think all of that is contrived, Avoidance would cause him pain just as much as it would cause her, this is why she glued their hands together when he got his job at Whirlwind, to prevent her pain, in addition she already stated she wouldn't do anything that would bring him pain even to save everyone else, the whole Idea of her avoiding him would be agains ther nature.

In addition while she found that he was special even without her, she already knew that, in the Whale arc she admitted as much, in addiition she quite often talks about how wonderful he is, she knows that he would be fine without her already, she tries instead to make it easier for him, the whole Idea that she would need to go to find that out is weak. In truth the reason she gets jealous is becuase she knows he could find happiness without her, its her who doesn't want to give up the happiness she has with him, selfish yes, but that's love, she knows he'd achieve great thing swith or without her, she just wants to be the one beside him when he does, its him who feels that he can't achieve them unless she is by his side.

In addition the ending just sets up a time loop, Bell has no reason not to indulge her own desire to be with him, because worst case scenario everything rewinds and no one is harmed, so why would she choose to sacrifice her own happiness? It doesn't make sense, so ther is no reason she would.

overall I gave this story a C-, readable, but way too unrealistic for the characters or the universe, basically its fanfiction and like most fanfiction it isn't very good.

Yeah, I see your point, and it is a bit ironic when she avoids him. But you're right, it IS just fan fiction (even if the fan is Urd's seiyuu) but Fujishima-sensei did approve Tohma-san to write the story. It's a never-ending cycle.... Who knows, for all we know, Fujishima-sensei can play off of this on later volumes of the manga, or even end it here. (Hopefully not the latter.) We'll just have to wait and see. Shoot, there might even be another novel from Tohma-san.

if he tired to end it with that, I would fly to Japan, find him and force him to write a happy ending to the series , lol

Hahaha. But you have to realize that in all technicality, there can really be no happy ending.... Once Keiichi dies, (not like he did in the book, but of old age) Belldandy will return to heaven. But that's the thing with stories like this.... Can you really have an ending? If Fujishima were to make this book the ending, then we'd be in an infinite cycle. However, if he was to further the story, what way is there for him to make a rational conclusion?

Quote

Originally posted by Xiaoyung (view)
Hahaha. But you have to realize that in all technicality, there can really be no happy ending.... Once Keiichi dies, (not like he did in the book, but of old age) Belldandy will return to heaven. But that's the thing with stories like this.... Can you really have an ending? If Fujishima were to make this book the ending, then we'd be in an infinite cycle. However, if he was to further the story, what way is there for him to make a rational conclusion?

Whose to say that K1 won't be granted immortality, or that Bell won't take a mortal existence, Whose to say he won't be reincarnated and that she meets him in his next life.

There is even a theory that Takano may not be human, so that might make K1 and Megumi, not 100% human (would explain a few things about Takano and Keima, and K1 and Megumi's affinity for magical things)

Quote

Originally posted by Avinash_Tyagi (view)

Quote

Originally posted by Xiaoyung (view)
Hahaha. But you have to realize that in all technicality, there can really be no happy ending.... Once Keiichi dies, (not like he did in the book, but of old age) Belldandy will return to heaven. But that's the thing with stories like this.... Can you really have an ending? If Fujishima were to make this book the ending, then we'd be in an infinite cycle. However, if he was to further the story, what way is there for him to make a rational conclusion?

Whose to say that K1 won't be granted immortality, or that Bell won't take a mortal existence, Whose to say he won't be reincarnated and that she meets him in his next life.

There is even a theory that Takano may not be human, so that might make K1 and Megumi, not 100% human (would explain a few things about Takano and Keima, and K1 and Megumi's affinity for magical things)

I must admit that I was fairly disappointed with the storyline. I was hoping for something really new. By page 50 I had a gut feeling of how the story was going to 'end' and sadly I was close to right. Over all the storyline lived up to being a OMG story in that it was full of angst, unrequited love/attention, and no real lasting progression of the relationship between K1 and Bell. In fact it took the biggest step backwards possible (all the way back to square 1). The story seemed to literally take everything that made the series fun, funny, light hearted, and what would normally make it one of the greatest slow romances and throw it out the window, leaving the reader with a stripped down alternate version of the much loved series. Many events that would have occurred normally in the series were dull and listless or out right avoided entirely without the interaction of Belldandy to influence them. Queen Sayoko remained 'Queen', and no doubt the non-mentioned Toshiyuki Aoshima should have either stole Satoko Yamano away from Otaki or crushed the Motor club in retribution (since its obvious that the goddesses did not partake of the schools activites). The one event that Belldandy did partake in sent ripples through the school though. Essentially Bell avoided all the things that gave both her and K1 the most pleasure. While it was the crux of the storyline and it was nice to get more of a view on Belldandy's thinking throughout it still made for a made for a much more dull story. She basically sequestered herself to the temple except for minor outings( or 1 or 2 major ones). All of the goddesses seemed to step out of character every once in a while. While that can be a good thing and show some more dept to each (Peorth's sacrifice comes to mind) Bell seemed at times to be really off. What happened to Bell always being able to 'sense' when K1 was in danger? And Hild! Hild almost seemed like she as the 'mother' of all the goddesses. I know I've stated before that somewhere deep down Hild held a love for Bell, Urd, and Skuld, but I never would have thought it would be so lightly masked in this story. Also what happened to Lind? She was briefly mentioned, but with something as big as this going on as well as all the gods & goddesses showing up at the temple Lind should have joined Peorth, Urd, Bell and Skuld in finding out what was going on. After all Lind had been there before. Ok enough ranting..
The K1 immortality idea might be a viable solution to the whole time loop issue with this story. Yggdrasil ties all the gods and goddesses through their energy, and since K1 was building a tie with it because of all the energy he was absorbing from the goddesses around him, then why not finish what was already being started and make him a god. The only issue would be that there would have to be someone made a demon also (to remain in accordance with the doublet system). Though it was simplified as a 'singularity' its not hard to envision that part of the problem of why Yggdrasil collapsed was because when K1 'died' the tie to the system maybe had Yggdrasil trying to react as if one of the gods had died, but without a counterpart demon. Instant problem. And since it was no doubt running Windows instead of Linux like Nidhogg was Yggdrasil hard crashed. Nidhogg having the superior OS tried to fix things and viola! I jest I know, but since the whole story held nothing funny to it other than the 'Hunt'... someone needed to try to lighten things up a bit...

Yeah i'm happy to see other people hated the story just as much as I did, and yeah I agree, Bell was depicted horribly in the story.


Adding Yumi to my list of people I never want to see do another piece of AMG work again right next to Gohda.

I didn't think it was too bad =o ...... though it did seem like i knew what was going to happen when reading it =/

I really didn't think it was that terrible. Yeah, there are a lot of things that one could have predicted (including the final ending), and Bell wasn't exactly Bell. But you can't say it was so completely terrible you'd never want to read it. I don't know how many of you have tried to write a novel, but it's a long, tough process. So Tohma-san having been able to write a story is a great accomplishment itself. I mean, from what you're saying Tyagi, it's as if you almost want the time you spent reading it back. While I won't deny the fact that the story isn't as strong and well written as the manga, it's still not as bad as you're making it out to be. Besides, if Tohma-san writes a second book, would you really not read it, just because she wrote it? You wouldn't be the least bit curious about the story? Never say "never" my friend; doing so just keeps you from having and open mind and understanding of everything else.

Actually I wouldn't mind having the time back, same as I wouldn't mind having the time I spent watching the movie back both of those works sucked, same with episode 22 of season 2

I've been working on writing some stores for a while, and while I agree it is a difficult task, that's no excuse for destroying the characters, you want to write your own story with your own characters that's fine, but don't mess up established characters just to shoe horn them into your pathetic plot

Anyways I might be curious, same as i'm curious when I see a huge 10 care pileup on the side of the road, I might not like the results of my curioisty, seeing body parts and blood everywhere, but I might still be curious, that's what I expect any further novels to be, a wreck, but morbid curiosity compells me

Well, to each their own I guess. We all have our own opinions, and arguing over viewpoints is pointless. But I will agree that episode 22 of the second season was flat out terrible. As for the book, I've read much worse so I enjoyed it for what it was worth. And in the end we'll just have to see how Fujishima-sensei responds to the book. Who knows, maybe he'll follow up with what Tohma-san wrote, maybe he'll dismiss it as an alternate universe, and just continue on with the manga as if the book was never written. The latter would be closer to how he treated the movie plot. The movie only played a very minor role (if any) in the universe. So all we, as fans, can do is just sit back and wait. I wouldn't mind a second book from Tohma-san. As with all novelists, the first thing published is always the hardest to work with. The subsequent books however tend to improve as the writer gains more experience in writing. I should know, I've attempted to publish four books already and have failed all four times.... -_-;;

Quote

Originally posted by Xiaoyung (view)
Well, to each their own I guess. We all have our own opinions, and arguing over viewpoints is pointless. But I will agree that episode 22 of the second season was flat out terrible. As for the book, I've read much worse so I enjoyed it for what it was worth. And in the end we'll just have to see how Fujishima-sensei responds to the book. Who knows, maybe he'll follow up with what Tohma-san wrote, maybe he'll dismiss it as an alternate universe, and just continue on with the manga as if the book was never written. The latter would be closer to how he treated the movie plot. The movie only played a very minor role (if any) in the universe. So all we, as fans, can do is just sit back and wait. I wouldn't mind a second book from Tohma-san. As with all novelists, the first thing published is always the hardest to work with. The subsequent books however tend to improve as the writer gains more experience in writing. I should know, I've attempted to publish four books already and have failed all four times.... -_-;;

Sorry to hear that, what did you try to publish, and have you tried revisiting those books again and retooling them to try a second time around?

The first two attempts were the same novel, the subsequent two were on two different books. But unfortunately, school has taken up too much of my time, so I haven't been able to revise and try again.... And at the moment, I've lost sight of my characters from the later two novels, so I don't know if I'm willing to keep them going. I might just start from scratch again. My first novel (the first two attempts) I wrote when I was still in high school.... The editor was nice, (she did the editing for free and was only going to charge me a publishing fee if the book was approved) but I haven't heard from her in ages, and I've lost contact with her. But, I still hope I can have a book published by the time I'm 30.... Sooo~~~ eight more years....

Quote

Originally posted by Xiaoyung (view)
The first two attempts were the same novel, the subsequent two were on two different books. But unfortunately, school has taken up too much of my time, so I haven't been able to revise and try again.... And at the moment, I've lost sight of my characters from the later two novels, so I don't know if I'm willing to keep them going. I might just start from scratch again. My first novel (the first two attempts) I wrote when I was still in high school.... The editor was nice, (she did the editing for free and was only going to charge me a publishing fee if the book was approved) but I haven't heard from her in ages, and I've lost contact with her. But, I still hope I can have a book published by the time I'm 30.... Sooo~~~ eight more years....

Be sure to send me an advance copy