The issues surrounding Belldandy's childhood promise to Keiichi and the Attractor in the cherry tree have traditionally been the most confusing aspects of the AMG OAV. In this article I will attempt to clarify these issues, along with some others like Keiichi's phone call. The explanations are based on my own interpretation of the OAV. Unfortunately the thorniest issues have no parallel in the manga and thus this medium, generally regarded as canon (standard reference) for the series, has little use in proving or disproving ideas.

As viewers of the OAV will have noted, the first three episodes are essentially independent stories. The first episode deals with Belldandy's appearance, the second is a vacation at the beach and the third is about racing. The last two episodes on the other deal with a single storyline which contains most of the difficult issues.

The whole of the OAV covers a period of 9 months. Belldandy arrives sometime in March, Urd around July and Skuld anywhere from August to November (but probably November or October since most school festivals are held at this time). Belldandy's arrival in March is consistent with the end of the first episode since cherry blossoms bloom from mid-February to mid-March. In the manga Belldandy arrives on the 25th of October or November.

It has been repeated time and again that Keiichi dialed the Goddess Technical Helpline by accident. Sadly numerous websites have popularized this misconception. To be fair, Keiichi's call to Heaven by all means appeared to be an accident. Understandably many viewers of the OAV take this at face value. However careful analysis shows that the call was NOT an accident.

Our starting point here is Belldandy's statement in the park that only qualified persons get to receive a wish. This is understandable because we don't want people like terrorists ordering a couple of nukes from Heaven, or worse. Belldandy said that Keiichi was granted the wish because he was qualified. Let's take the opposite scenario - suppose Keiichi wasn't qualified. Would his call reach the Technical Helpline in the first place? Probably not. Even assuming that it is possible for an unqualified person to dial the Helpline, he'd only get a message on the likes of "This is the Goddess Technical Helpline. Unfortunately you're not qualified for a wish. Good day".

However that fact is Keiichi was qualified. This was like holding a winning lottery ticket but the prize was not money but a wish. If you have a winning ticket, obviously you get to claim the winning prize (the wish). However poor Keiichi did not know he was qualified for a wish in the first place. He could have died at 100 years of age without ever knowing he held the winning ticket. However Heaven would never play such a terrible joke on mortals - especially with the extremely serious business of wish-granting. Since only Heaven knew Keiichi was qualified, it would have to make the first move to grant his wish. Thus by divine influence Keiichi was able to call the Goddess Technical Helpline and claim his prize - the single wish.

The bottom line is the Heaven holds all the cards when it comes to wishes. It decides who is qualified to get one, which Goddess Office handles the wish (there's more than one - remember Peorth?), and which Goddess will fulfill the wish. It also has the final say on accepting or rejecting a wish. Meanwhile mortals go about their daily life completely oblivious to the existence of wishes and Goddesses. When a mortal qualifies for a wish, Heaven make the first a move to inform him or her. We know at least one method - through a phone call - which was never an accident in the first place but Heaven's means of granting Keiichi's wish.

Belldandy agreed to meet K1 at the spot near the temple residence the following day. Keiichi's understanding of the promise is more complex because he was supposed to give a ring as a surprise gift. Thus Keiichi's idea of fulfilling the promise involved giving Belldandy a ring although technically showing up at the agreed place the following day would have fulfilled the promise.

The issues surrounding the cherry tree and the Attractor are extremely important in the last two episodes. In particular, many people are confused regarding the nature of the cherry tree or Attractor. The OAV did not explain this in exact or unambiguous terms so that there is some room for interpretation. Here I will discuss two theories that have also been mentioned elsewhere.

Before going any further it should be understood that the Attractor is something sealed within the cherry tree. As Skuld explained, it was feeding energy into the bug exhaust port and was probably responsible for the formation of the port in the first place.

A. The Attractor is Belldandy and Keiichi's childhood promise.

Look again closely at the scene when the young Belldandy and Keiichi make their promise. In the background are several trees and the temple residence. The cherry tree is actually one of those shown in the background. When the young Goddess and Keiichi made a promise, it was as good as a contract. However it was a flawed contract because at that time Belldandy had not yet received her qualifications, that is she was not yet licensed. This was evidently a very serious violation because Belldandy would be eliminated because of it. Since the contract was flawed it was sealed up and placed within one of the trees nearby, in that case the cherry tree nearest the temple residence (it was not explained if or why a sealed contract required being placed in some physical object).

Thus the Attractor is Belldandy's childhood promise sealed within the tree. We know for a fact that the sealed promise had considerable energy since Skuld knew the seal was very strong. What is the source of this energy? We know that Belldandy's promise, even if she was not qualified to give one, was as good as a contract. If it was a contract then the Ultimate Force would ensure that the contract would be fulfilled. It is a fair assumption that the seal placed on the tree was very strong because it had to negate the power of the Ultimate Force that was trying to fulfill the contract, the same power that was feeding the bug exhaust port.

The problem with this theory is that it assumes that the promise or contract was sealed up. There is no evidence of this in the OAV, unlike for example Belldandy sealing up Keiichi's memories. Second it is quite possible that Heaven simply rejected the potential contract because it was flawed. Since the contract was not approved then there is nothing to seal up.

B. The Attractor is Keiichi's past memories sealed within the tree.

We know that in the past Belldandy was required to seal Keiichi's memories. The fact that the Attractor is something sealed up makes K1's memories an obvious choice. At the start of episode 3, Keiichi mentions that sometimes he felt that he had known Bell since childhood. Later at the start of episode 4 Keiichi has a dream about giving a ring. By 5 Keiichi at the very least remembers his childhood promise to give Belldandy a ring. Thus it is clear that the seal on Keiichi's memories had been gradually unraveling. One reason is probably Belldandy's constant presence. Another and more convincing is Keiichi's last promise to Belldandy before his memories were erased - to remember if they ever meet again.

It makes sense that the seal within the tree (the Attractor) and the seal on Keiichi's memories are one and the same. This simplifies matters greatly because we would only be talking about a single seal. If this is correct then Keiichi's returning memories would mean that the seal within the tree is weakening. An indirect proof of this is the appearance of the bugs. Presumably, the weakening seal would leak energy. The leaking energy would in turn create and feed a bug exhaust port. Thus we can tie two crucial events, namely Keiichi's returning memories with the appearance of bugs on Earth. Furthermore at the end of episode 5 Keiichi has forgotten the past again. This isn't at all surprising since the Magic Circle has destroyed the Attractor which was composed of his sealed memories in the first place.

One problem with this theory is that the place where Belldandy erased Keiichi's memories does not appear to be near the cherry tree. Instead it is the place where the promise was made that is adjacent to the tree.

The bug exhaust port (BEP) is the source of the bugs appearing on Earth. It should be understood that the port does NOT produce bugs by itself. Bugs are the physical manifestations of errors in Yggdrasil, which is located in an entirely different dimension from Earth. This is clear in the start of Episode 3 where we can see bugs form from Yggdrasil's machinery . As the name implies, the bug exhaust port is a essentially a conduit through which bugs from Heaven appear on Earth. The BEP does not exist in the manga but it probably based on the concept of a singularity. In chapter 33 the Goddesses themselves form a singularity and Keiichi's proximity to them (i.e. to the singularity) made him the recipient of all sorts of bug-related phenomena.

These issues are not satisfactorily explained in the OAV. For a bug port to form, the prerequisite would have to be a problem in Yggdrasil that would generate bugs in the first place. The OAV shows that in Episode 3 Skuld is overwhelmed with Bugs and later leaves for Earth. This might be the source but is it is unclear. Skuld arrived at the latest in November and the bug problem started in December. One month is a pretty long time to leave the bug problem unchecked, especially since it involves Yggdrasil which essentially runs the universe. Furthermore if the problem had NOT been fixed before Skuld left for Earth, we would have expected the bug problem to occur in Episode 3. After all, the Attractor had always been there, as it had been for more than a decade.

The formation of the bug port between Keiichi and Belldandy is definitely related to the presence of the Attractor, which in turn is based on a relationship between the two (through the promise or the sealing of Keiichi's memories). This is the only logical explanation for the bug port forming between the couple and not with any of the other goddesses. A postulated sequence of events is as follows:

There are two obvious solutions to the bug problem 1) Destroy the Attractor or 2) Separate Belldandy from Keiichi. For the former, it should be evident that without the Attractor, the Bug Exhaust Port cannot form. For the second case, it takes both Keiichi and Belldandy to form the portal, without the Goddess the port cannot form. A third solution would be to stop the bugs at the source (Yggdrasil) since the bug port was only conducting the bugs to earth an not generating them. A fourth solution, to fulfill the original promise, can be argued. This is implausible for several reasons, the foremost being that the wish could no longer be fulfilled. Remember that the wish was for the two to meet the following day at the specified place, NOT for the ring to be given to Belldandy. Even if they had met the following day Kamisama already sealed-up the contract. Thus it could no longer be consummated by meeting the original conditions. Why Kamisama chose to recall Belldandy instead of just destroying the Attractor is anyone's guess but obviously the storyline would have been less dramatic with this choice.

Most probably because Keiichi's memories were to be erased after she went to Heaven. This wasn't mentioned directly in the OAV but this act implies it. We can see that while Bell was erasing and making stuff vanish she was crying a torrent. She also had great reluctance in erasing herself from the pictures. Later she asks for forgiveness from Kamisama for leaving a sweater as a single reminder of her. From this, it's pretty clear that Belldandy was doing the deletion against her will. If it was her own will the act of leaving a sweater would make no sense when she was removing reminders in the first place. Belldandy being ordered to remove all evidence of her is logical if Keiichi's memory was to be erased. As mentioned earlier it's a possibility that when a contract cannot be fulfilled the standard procedure is to erase the memory of the mortal. This is consistent with the events in the past when Belldandy erased Keiichi's memory.

There has been some speculation that Belldandy's reunion with Keiichi was actually planned by herself in the first place. This contention is mostly based on an unusual scene at the very start of the first episode. When Belldandy was casting the transport spell, an image of the temple could be seen flickering within the blue energy ball in her hands. This is very unusual because at this point Keiichi hadn't even made his wish yet. It was as if Belldandy was either looking at the future or even planning things so that they'll eventually end up in the temple together.

Personally I believe this speculation is pretty farfetched. We do know for a fact that Belldandy prayed very strongly that they would meet again. Well, either fate or Kamisama lent an ear because Belldandy happened to be the one to answer Keiichi's call. A far simpler explanation is that Belldandy wasn't looking at the future but at the past. The sequence of events is as follows: Belldandy, by chance or design, answers Keiichi's call. The Goddess is elated that her childhood wish to meet Keiichi again was granted. She descends from Heaven and casts a spell to go to earth. During this time she recalls her past with Keiichi, especially the temple where they met, played and built memories upon. The memory of the temple appears in the blue ball she was holding. I believe this is a more plausible explanation that having Belldandy orchestrate things so so that she'd end up with Keiichi again. Such behavior is plainly out-of-character with the purest and most innocent of the Goddesses in the series.