Belldandy The Goddess of the present. Belldandy is a person who has the virtue of patience, trust, and the ability to love just about anything (Keiichi, her sisters, moles with hardhats.. you get the idea). She has a cheerful nature that can see the bright side to anything, and seems to put the welfare of everyone else above hers. Apart from the fact that she can really be naive at times (like letting another girl take Keiichi away from her with the condition she return him before dinner), she is basically a lovable person who spreads joy all over the place. Belldandy in the earlier issues of Oh My Goddess! is a more diverse character capable of anger and even once lashing out at Urd. but her character seems to have changed to a more calm, always gentle personality in the later issues, becoming more like the Belldandy from the anime. This evolution has been once been attributed to the arrival of Skuld, who provides a more cuter method of venting aggression of the characters for Fujishima. Belldandy enjoys cooking and knitting, but prefers to do these tasks manually rather than using her powers to conjure things up. She explains that by doing it herself, it puts true feelings into the work. It is interesting to note that the Belldandy in the OVA actually has brown hair whereas the Belldandy in the manga series has grey/silver hair. I haven't come across any explanations for it, but maybe they wanted to make her appearance distinctive to Urd, who has white hair. What is even stranger is that in Belldandy's first appearance, she has purple hair. Due to the fact that the manga is in black and white, the only indicator to the exact colour of Belldandy's hair is from the watercolor pages or the covers. Belldandy's first silver haired appearance is on the cover of Volume 3. In the event that she loses the ability to process energy in this plane of existance (like a crash in the Yggdrasil computer system), Belldandy will resort to sleeping in order to replenish her energy. A lot of sleep. Belldandy uses mirrors as portals to get from one place to another really quickly. In the OVA, she is beautifully voiced by Inoue Kikuko who has done other work in Ranma ½ (as Tendou Kasumi) and a few parts in the Sailormoon series (as Aluminium Siren in the Sailormoon S series and Princess Lubiina). She also does computer games like the recent Macross Digital MIssion VF-X as the voice of Riatoris. Belldandy is voiced by Juliet Cesario in the English dub.
Hasegawa Sora Hasegawa is somewhat the quiet little girl who always hangs around in the background. She sort of appears and does things once in a while. She is intelligent, but lacks a lot in the self esteem department and can't cook to save her life, which is something that Belldandy helps remedy later on... Hasegawa wears glasses, has freckles and is usually seen with a short, but totally unsexy, frilly skirts. In the OVA she makes a single cameo appearance and is voiced by Ohtani Ikue. Stephanie Griffin voices her in the English dub. Benpei RX Benpei was designed by Skuld to be a guardian of the temple to ward off attacks by Mara. His creation has been more of a slow evolution: at first, his power consumption was so high that he blew up all the circuits in the house. Belldandy fixed this eventually, but with really surprising side-effects. Benpei is built to be a multipurpose robot, so he can change bits and pieces of his parts or reconfigure things to suit any job. One of his more interesting configurations is to turn his legs into a motorcycle which he can ride. Benpei does not make an appearance in the OVA (except for the opening sequence), but a "cousin" of his is seen in the snow fighting scene in Episode 4. It looks like him, but the design is totally different.
Keiichi Morisato Keiichi Morisato is just an ordinary mortal who somehow or other managed to get through to the Relief Goddess Office and summonned Belldandy into his life. Keiichi feels that his short height is the reason why he hasn't got a girlfriend, something that is remedied by this wish to Belldandy at the start of the series. Keiichi is your basic Mr. Nice Guy. This qualifies him for the one wish from Belldandy. It would seem that at the start of the series, he is more of a lonely nobody in college and doesn't have much popularity, although he is a favourite of his two sempai, Tamiya and Ootaki, who has a habit of getting him to represent the NIT MCC (Nekomi Institute of Technology MotorCycle Club), in various events. Mostly on the dangerous side. Keiichi is absolutely crazy over Belldandy but makes his moves in a particularly shy manner (like plotting desperately just to get a peck on the check from Belldandy). Urd is a little disgusted at his schoolboy tactics at romance which actually leads to her arrival at the temple. Keiichi has become something of a commodity to Mishima Sayoko, who was the queen of the campus until the arrival of Belldandy. Her advances towards him at first was more of trying to prove to the rest of the college that she was still queen and could have anything (or anyone) she wants. Later on, she discovers that she might actually be falling for him. I guess that it is an ironic twist of fate that when Keiichi finally gets a girlfriend, he suddeny becomes so popular until he has been hit on/ seduced by all sorts of females like other goddesses and little ninjas. He is also the envy of Nekomi Tech because of his "foreigner" girlfriend. At the start of the series Keiichi is a Second year student at the NIT (Nekomi Institute of Technology). Don't bother looking for this school, it does not exist. He is a member of the Nekomi Institute of Technology MotorCycle Club, and has won various trophies racing for the club. Keiichi uses his BMW motorcycle and sidecar as his primary mode of transportation. Occasionally, Keiichi will sign his name as "K-1", this is just a little neat trick as the number one in Japanese is called "ichi". In the anime, we only get to see this once on the back of his racing suit. In the OVA, Keiichi is voiced by Kekuchi Masami, who has also done various other roles like Scott in Gundam 0083 and Masaki Tenchi in Tenchi Muyo. He is played by Scott Simpson in the English dub.
Mara Mara is some what the "bad guy" of the story. She is typically the person who comes out every once in a while to wreak havoc and to generally make life difficult for the Goddesses and Keiichi. But even so, there exists a little originality in her character in that she is more of a bad and evil person by duty, although there is argument that this is slowly dissolving into a stereotypical evil dude role in the manga series. Mara does not appear in the OVA but she does make a short cameo appearance in the opening sequence of the OVA. Senbei Senbei is the God of Poverty and Disaster. He works along a rather interesting system of Finite Happiness. As he explains it, the volume of Happiness in the Universe is actually finite. So for every person whom he brings misfortune to, his own Happiness quotient will increase. In simpler terms: you unhappy, Senbei happy. I can't read Japanese yet, but Senbei is described to have an English / American accent in the manga. In the Translated series, seeing that the characters are speaking in English anyway, they sorta alter him to speak with broken English, like letting him talk in the third person and all that. Senbei does not appear in the OVA either, but you can catch a glimpse of him during the opening sequence (come to think of it, you can catch a glimpse of just about everybody in the opening sequence).
Megumi Morisato Megumi Morisato is Keiichi's younger sister who comes to Nekomi as a first year student. She is a year younger than Keiichi which would logically put Keiichi as a Sophomore in Nekomi Tech. She is a loud but caring person and is extremely perky. She has been described by one particular site (I can't remember which) as "the typical little sister". This is demonstrated very nicely in the OVA when Megumi first arrives at the temple and promptly gets on Keiichi's nerves. It seems that the Morisato family is a very mechanically inclined family as Megumi, like Keiichi, has a natural talent and interest in machines. In the manga, Skuld actually considers her a rival and they actually duke it out Robot vs. Robot in the Oh My Goddess! Special: Robot Wars issue. Megumi doesn't live in the Temple. Instead, she lives in an apartment by herself which is guarded by a Third Class Earth Spirit who has taken the form of a mouse (and most recently, what looks like a Sonic the Hedgehog plush toy). As a close friend to the goddesses and as Keiichi's little sister, Megumi has been once been possesed by Mara, and in another incident, turned into a convertible. In the OVA, Megumi is voiced by Fuchizaki Yuriko. She has various other works like the voice of Kaori in Akira, Higuchi Kimiko and Akai Takami in Gunbuster and Li Lo-Ran in the Sega Saturn RPG smash, Sakura Taisen. In the English dub, she is played by Amanda Spivey.
Megumi Morisato Megumi Morisato is Keiichi's younger sister who comes to Nekomi as a first year student. She is a year younger than Keiichi which would logically put Keiichi as a Sophomore in Nekomi Tech. She is a loud but caring person and is extremely perky. She has been described by one particular site (I can't remember which) as "the typical little sister". This is demonstrated very nicely in the OVA when Megumi first arrives at the temple and promptly gets on Keiichi's nerves. It seems that the Morisato family is a very mechanically inclined family as Megumi, like Keiichi, has a natural talent and interest in machines. In the manga, Skuld actually considers her a rival and they actually duke it out Robot vs. Robot in the Oh My Goddess! Special: Robot Wars issue. Megumi doesn't live in the Temple. Instead, she lives in an apartment by herself which is guarded by a Third Class Earth Spirit who has taken the form of a mouse (and most recently, what looks like a Sonic the Hedgehog plush toy). As a close friend to the goddesses and as Keiichi's little sister, Megumi has been once been possesed by Mara, and in another incident, turned into a convertible. In the OVA, Megumi is voiced by Fuchizaki Yuriko. She has various other works like the voice of Kaori in Akira, Higuchi Kimiko and Akai Takami in Gunbuster and Li Lo-Ran in the Sega Saturn RPG smash, Sakura Taisen. In the English dub, she is played by Amanda Spivey.
Skuld Skuld is the Goddess of the Future. This would naturally make her the youngest of the three goddess sisters. Her primary duty is of a system debugger of the Yggdrasil computer system. This she does by using a special hammer (the bugs here in questions are literally bugs that disappear whenever they are whapped on the head. Although she wouldn't like to admit it, she is like Urd in many ways: like the fact that she is really impatient and wouldn't think twice before hurling a "Skuld-bomb" in your general direction if you tick her off. However, unlike Urd, Skuld is a beginner when it comes to magic, so she relies on using technology to do things. Some people describe her ability to create elaborate machinery in extremely short amounts of time as her "power". Among her creations are rocket powered baseball bats, illegal bicycle balancing tools and Benpei, the robot guardian of the temple. Later on in the series, Skuld starts to develop her magic ability. Nothing fancy at first, her first ability is to brand insults on other people. Later on, it develops to other things like telekinesis. In the event of a system failure in the Yggdrasil computer network, Skuld will consume large amounts of ice cream in order to sustain herself. Well, not like she doesn't do that already. Skuld uses the medium of water as portals to get from one place to another. In the OVA, Skuld is voiced very nicely by Hisakawa Aya. She has played various roles in animes like as Becky Farrar in "Gun Smith Cats", Iria in "Iria Zeiram The Animation" and most notably, the voice of Mizuno Ami, or Sailor Mercury of the Sailormoon series (who so happens to be my favorite Sailor scout). Pamela Weidner plays her in the English dub. There are slight changes to how Skuld introduces herself to the series, in the OVA, she appears right in the middle of Keiichi's bath, and promptly twacks him on the head. In the manga, she pops out of Urd's bath. Only to run away by teleporting herself and reemerging from Keiichi's cup of tea.
Tamiya-sempai Tamiya is Keiichi's sempai (which means senior) in college. Tall, dark, and not exactly handsome, he is the an imposing fellow with immense strength. He always seems to have a vacant look in his eyes which actually betrays his passion for machines (which is demonstrated very nicely in his speech in Episode 3 of the OVA). Although Tamiya is rather largish, he is usually seen taking rather smaller modes of transportation like a moped and a moto-compo in Chapter 70. He doesn't have a girlfriend but has fallen for Peorth once. He is extremely close to Otaki. In the OVA, he is voiced by Yamada Kiyoyuki. You would notice that Tamiya's name is derived from one of the biggest plastic model companies in Japan. Marc Matney plays him in the English dub. Otaki-sempai Also a sempai of Keiichi's, Otaki is visually eccentric. He carries with him an entire toolkit in his jacket and is never seen without his sunshades. He pierced both his ears but stuck sparkplugs through them. And his hair is permanently stuck in the "up" position. For some particular reason, Otaki also has a liking for suits of armour. He is currently going out with Satoko Yamano, a freshman at NIT whom Belldandy and Keiichi helped get together. He is voiced by Futumata Issei in the OVA and Sean P. O'Connell in the English dub.
Urd Urd is the Goddess of the Past. She is the oldest of the three goddess sisters. Although that statement is a little inaccurate as she is only the half sister to Belldandy and Skuld; Urd is half demon, half goddess. This explains her darker complexion and her slightly crazy attitude to doing things (she put Keiichi's hand on her breast just to make a point). She's sexy and she knows it. Urd wears the most outrageous outfits (one has to wonder where the heck Fujishima gets all these ideas) to complement her figure. Unlike Belldandy, Urd is not imbued with the virtue of patience. She prefers to use her powers rather than manual labour to do work. (see egg batter scene in Episode 3 of the OVA). Urd dabbles with potions and other wierd conconctions. True to her nature, in the event that she loses ability to process energy in this plane of existance, Urd will resort to drinking gigantic quantities of sake. Urd uses tv sets as portals to get from one place to another. In the OVA, Urd is voiced by Touma Yumi. You might be surprised to note that she also provides the voice of Young Belldandy at the end of the OVA. She played Ninomiya Hinako in Ranma ½ and Tokimi in Tenchi Muyo. She has also done several roles in the Gundam Wing and Gundam X series and various other stuff for the Sailormoon series. In the English dub version, she is voiced by Lanelle Markgraf.