(no subject)

[miko2]

One of my all-time favorite anime/manga series is Ah! My Goddess, which is loosely based (very loosely based, in fact) on Norse mythology. Urd, Skuld, and Belldandy are three Norns from Norse mythology and represent Past, Future, and Present. Belldandy is (of course) what you get when you transliterate the original Norse name Verdandi to fit the Japanese language, then transliterate it to English. In the Swedish translation of the Ah! My Goddess manga her name is spelled Verdandi.

Other Norse references: the heavenly computer system is Yggdrasil, named for the world tree; the demon counterpart is Nidhogg system, named for the dragon wrapped around the base of Yggdrasil, gnawing at its roots. Belldandy uses Norse runes when casting spells. Rival goddess Peorth is named after one of those runes (one that is associated with risk-taking and mystery, which fits Peorth's personality). Sleipnir, the heavenly steed, appears in the manga occasionally. Hild, who is leader of the demons and Urd's mother, is named after one of the Valkyiries. (According to several sources the name means "The Battle".) A newer goddess, Lind, is based on a Norse giantess named Rind. Skuld's android Sigel (who wishes to be alive) is named for the rune meaning life.

There are other such references to Garm, Gunghir, and Fenrir. Usually these creations borrow the name and a bit of the idea behind the name but are otherwise applied to completely new concepts or personalities that don't directly correspond to Norse mythology. Kyosuke Fujishima borrows names and ideas from Norse mythology but doesn't borrow from it whole-cloth, and doesn't ever mention any of the major gods or plots. The goddesses in the Ah! My Goddess universe serve a god known only as The Almighty, who appears to be more or less a Judeo-Christian all-powerful god, not anything like Odin. Likewise, their enemies are demons who reside in a hell ruled by the head demon Hild. It's not precisely Judeo-Christian, but it fits that pattern much closer than it does Norse mythology.

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So this last year I picked up a series known as Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok. Like Ah! My Goddess, this is a mostly light-hearted anime series based on Norse mythology. This series sticks much closer to Norse mythology than AMG does, but still, it takes quite a few liberties. I've been trying to figure out why they bother me so much more.

One thing I have a problem with is that liberties are taken with major characters from Norse mythology. It's one thing to make Skuld a bratty, technology-obsessed kid, but it's another to reinterpret Thor and Loki. I mean, who knows that much about Skuld to begin with? But hopefully we all (those of us with an education anyway) know that Thor is the bearded thunder god with the hammer, strong and powerful and sometimes a bit dense, also prone to fits of anger, whereas Loki is a very powerful half-god who fills the role of trickster god. Loki is clever, sometimes cruel, always pushing his luck, at once loved by many of the gods and also hated or feared or mistrusted... and according to prophecy, the one that will ultimately betray the gods and help bring them down.

Now, I don't immediately object to reinterpreting these mythological characters, but in Loki Ragnarok Thor is known as Narugami, a young (beardless) Japanese boy who wields a bokkan (wooden sword). They explain that the sword is his hammer Mjollnir in disguise, but essentially he looks nothing like you'd expect Thor to look, and acts nothing like you'd expect Thor to act. Loki calls him Narukami, which is a double pun on god (kami) and lightning (kaminari).

Likewise Loki is portrayed as a very serious kid who hates evil. I wouldn't have a problem with this, except that he is nothing like the trickster god of legend. He doesn't joke at all, let alone play pranks on anyone. He's quite sober and focused on his goals.

Most of the other gods and goddesses are similarly reinterpreted, and it's not as if these new interpretations vary so much further from the original than the Skuld and Urd of Ah! My Goddess, it's just that in this case we're mixing up all of the major players of Norse mythology, and I know very well what the original stories were like. It bothers me, for example, that Verdandi (one of the three Norns or fates) predicts Loki's death, and it's very clearly not a case of the goddess of fate foretelling the future, but of Verdandi trying to frighten Loki by "predicting" the outcome that she wants to see happen (but which she fails to bring about). In fact I kind of have a problem with the three Norns -- Skuld, Urd, and Verdandi -- being some of the major villains of the series, especially since they are "good" goddesses trying to kill the "evil" god Loki, when it's quite clearly portrayed that Loki is never evil or even pretends to be at any point.

Other than that, the series is a lot of fun. The basic premise is that Loki has been banished from heaven and is trapped in the body of a young boy. He supposedly has to defeat a great many evil spirits before he will be allowed back in the realm of the gods. To this end, he founds a detective agency. All of this, of course, is a convenient excuse for doing a magical boy show that also mirrors the anime/manga series Case Closed (aka Detective Conan) and perhaps also CLAMP School Detectives. He dresses in Victorian-style Little Lord Fauntleroy outfits for no apparent reason, other than he is a magical boy character and a sort of dark romantic hero. Loki even has a transformation sequence, so in that respect he's very much the counterpart of Sakura from Card Captor Sakura.

Loki doesn't know why he's been barred from Asgard, and to top things off, Odin is trying to get other gods and goddesses to kill him. This gives the series a much darker feel than something like AMG, but in the end none of the characters seem truly evil, least of all Loki himself, and quite a lot of the series is also spent on light-hearted silliness. One does begin to wonder if Odin is just a really evil bastard, however, given how upright and honest Loki is portrayed. If there is one other character in the manga who comes off as villainous it's probably Heimdal, who cannot forgive Loki for the loss of his eye and swears to kill him, even after the facts point to Odin as the actual culprit.

I think it's this mix of serious life-or-death struggles and extreme silliness that some people have a problem with. That, and the blatant portrayal of familiar gods in completely unfamiliar ways -- Frey as a self-styled thief with a mechanical pig sidekick, for example -- kinds of throws me a bit. But it's a fun series.

I'm conflicted about what to do when the anime series is over. I have 1 volume left to pick up, and then I'm at the end. Of course, the anime doesn't end where the manga ends -- but to complicate things, the manga series was published under two different publishers in Japan, and for no good reason only the part from the second publisher is being published in English, even though it's merely a continuation of the storyline from what was previously published by the first publisher. So I may pick that up, but it'll probably frustrate me a bit because it doesn't start at the beginning.