So! I just watched the AMG movie. Of course, I was vaguely annoyed that Bandai didn't see fit to comply with AnimEigo and Dark Horse's translation of "Aa! Megami-sama!" which IMHO is a perfect, elegant redering of Fujishima's intent.

That notwithstanding, I was pleasantly surprised. I was rather expecting a Tenchi Muyo-style movie, where lots of stuff happens, but no actual character development occurs. Avoiding spoilers, I can still say that such plot-centric (as opposed to character-centric) storytelling is avoided in favor of a very balanced, surprisingly moving story. The new characters of Celestin and his sidekick girl sort of stick out, as they're (AFIAK) the only non-Fujishima created character in the film. Happily, though, they both turned out to be deeper than I anticipated.

The film also benefits from more manga-derived character design; I wonder if Fujishima did the character design himself -- it's that good.

Lastly, they got ALL the original voice cast of the OAVs -- including the retired voice of Belldandy, Kikuko Inoue -- to return for the movie. As this was not true for the spinoff TV series, "Adventures of Mini-Goddess," I was highly relieved. It wouldn't have been the same without Kikuko.

Anyway, getting to the point: as Gryphon has stated, he's more influenced by the OMG anime than the manga, so will this new tale have any bearing on Gods Willing (I expect the next chapter sometime within the next sunspot cycle) or, for that matter, Undocumented Features? There was some excellent footage of Heaven that really jives with what I imagine the upper of the Nine Worlds must look like, for example. Also, the scenes with Peorth and her various subordinates, hacking the world system, were very cool.

There have got to be some fun story hooks in there somewhere.