The television adaptation of Good Omens prompted an outpouring of fan creativity, but what we saw today absolutely takes the (angel food) cake.
Good Omens co-author and showrunner Neil Gaiman has discussed his surprise at the enormous fandom explosion that occurred after the show debuted on Amazon Prime Video in June, and every day seems to bring something new and wondrous. While Good Omens already had a dedicated book-based fandom for decades, the TV show kicked engagement up to a whole new level. Ardent fans worldwide identify with and adore the colorful cast of characters, representing them in everything from comic cons to zines. There’s been a truly dazzling amount of fanworks created in reaction to the series.
More than fifteen thousand fanfiction stories tagged with the relationship between Aziraphale/Crowley alone have joined the ranks on Archive of Our Own, not to mention the production of zines, cosplay items, pins, stickers, jewelry, and more and more and more. And it seems like there’s no end to the stream of gorgeous fan art and even multi-page comics.
One artist recently went above and beyond, creating a short anime-style Good Omens sequence. It made the rounds all the way to Gaiman:
What the even…? https://t.co/SBnXe0nTN6
— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) November 15, 2019
In the clip, we see Crowley and Aziraphale in the sort of intro that is picture-perfect for an anime while pop music plays in the background. We also see the archangel Gabriel (perhaps as a villain) with a kind of lightning power, then Beelzebub, non-binary icon and leader of the forces of Hell. The last shot shows depictions of Crowley and Aziraphale that have become “fanon,” or fan canon—what Crowley might’ve looked like as a long-haired star-creating angel before he fell, and Aziraphale as the sort of angel that some biblical passages cite as being covered with eyes in their true form.
The anime sequence appears to have been made by Twitter user aromarose666, with other appreciative users in the thread calling it a masterpiece. Google translates the Japanese tweeted along with the clip as “I’m making nuances like this,” while my Japanese-speaking friend thinks it’s more “I’m feeling such a way about this,” and honestly, we are, too. While it’s unlikely we’ll get any additional installments of Good Omens on TV (though we’re still crossing our fingers), this brilliant clip made me think about the various multimedia ways its universe could expand in the future. I know I’m hardly the only one who would watch an entire animated series in a heartbeat.
(This wasn’t the artist’s first go at a Good Omens anime-style take; check out this other excellent sequence from October.)
パロディ/meme🌈
シュガビタGO👼😈
Sugar song and Bitter stepほぼオールキャラ！
(音量注意) pic.twitter.com/ZRjyKx3w6P— アロマ💋🥂 (@aromarose666) October 13, 2019
The amount of work that must’ve gone into single-handedly creating these animated bits of ingenuity and putting them together in this form is just incredible. If this artist isn’t already working on anime in a professional capacity, I hope they get snapped up fast.
(via aromarose666 on Twitter, image: BBC Studios/Amazon Prime Video)
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