The World God Only Knows - Reviews

The manga series written and illustrated by Tamiki Wakaki was adapted as an anime by Manglobe in 2010. The plot of this fantasy romance seems pretty thin at first sight. The devil tricks high schooler Keima Katsuragi into working for him. The job is to retrieve souls that have escaped hell. The catch? Well, if he doesn’t cooperate the devil will take his head. In compensation he is assigned to work with a super-kawaii young demon-girl called Elsie and the job involves seducing girls. Why was he chosen for this? Well, Keima considers himself to be the god of all romance role-playing games. So experienced is he that he reckons he can engineer it so that any girl falls in love with him. The only problem is he has no interest in real girls in the real world. However, given his lack of choice in the matter he reluctantly agrees to help Elsie. It turns out he is quite good at this new role too. Oddly enough each of the girls are also students at the high school Keima attends. The escaped souls have taken up residence in the hole in each girl’s heart. If Keima can fill that hole he can expel the soul so Elsie can capture it. It is all very Ghostbusters but without Dan Akroyd.

If this was all there was to this story you would be forgiven for thinking that it would be as dumb as a box of rocks or a shelf of hentai. It is not. The novelty here is that each girl genuinely does have an emotional difficulty that they really need help with. First there is the athlete who fakes injury as she lacks the confidence to compete. Then there is the girl who is still pretending to be rich after her family’s fortune is lost. There’s the idol star who lives in fear of being ignored. The martial arts girl who believes she must show no signs of weakness hence denies her femininity. Then, finally, in what is the best slot, we have the librarian girl who is too shy to stand up for what she believes is right. In each case our hero comes up with a way to reach out to each girl’s torment and provide them reassurance and help. There is nothing dumb nor exploitative about this. These are not stupid girls to be impressed with a bunch of flowers and dinner. Each have highly complicated issues to be resolved before the soul (that has hijacked them) can be expelled. The stories are clever and occasionally touching. The best is certainly the librarian girl Shiori Shiomiya which has some very lively and memorable animation sequences. The scene with the cascading books is up there with the best that Disney has to offer. Truly spectacular and a cut above the sort of hum-drum animation you would expect from a show like this. The story lines are novel and intelligent, the characters fun and watchable. The only downside is Keima himself. He one of anime’s most boring and non-expressive heroes. The saga got spun out into light novels, three anime series and a bunch of OVAs so it certainly won a few fans. To its credit this show is so much better than it might have been having avoided all the obvious cliches its simplistic narrative might have offered. Enjoy.

As usual, a short review.

The story is about a guy who received a task of capturing lost souls. Since lost souls reside within humans, sad humans, the protagonist has to replace the "hole" in the person's heart, and this this done by making them fall in love with him. Works kind of like Amagami SS, as every girl gets her own arc, but still quite different since time doesn't go back. The animation is pretty decent, with vibrant colors and nice tecture. The music is brilliant, especially the opening is superb and gives off a feeling of holiness. The characters are unique in the sense that they all contrast their normal stereotype. A rich blond girl that acts high and rich but is actually poor. A pop idol that is famous but unsatisfied beacuse of one audience. A silent librarian that actually talks a lot in her mind. And of course, main protagonist is as interesting as ever. He defies reality, how awesome is that!

Overall, this anime entered my favorites list. I am currently watching the second season at this time. Anyone who enjoys romance and harem should definitely check this one out.  

The world god only knows is the story of a charater and his conquest of girl dating games. It takes a bit of a turn when he receives an email challenging his skills for the real thing.

Story

The story is pretty flawless. Each sub plot is put together pretty well. With the rising amount of anime being relased in 12-15 episode seasons this one ranks up pretty high. each episode kept you interested with laughes and its occasional moments. Besides the ending which is interesting in its self but is lacking as an actual end to season 1. Unfortuniently it seems that this series end was kinda forced and not knowing how season 2 will go it seems more like it should have been a 14-16 episode show. Due to those reasons I can only give t a 8/10

Animation

Animation is pretty flawless. Characters seem to move smoothly and are well detailed. Its animation is up to date. The last episode tests the abilities of the naimation skills and pulls it off. With the interesting gob mode animation  it easily earns the 8/10

Sound 

The sound over all was much enjoyable. Watching the series dubbed I enjoyed the cast and felt each one of them did a great job. When it came to the pop idol  felt they choose a good character for dubbing as the singing voice in japanese didn't feel as much like a total different person. As for the music in its self it holds strong and good till the end. I love the intro song. But the very final song seems like it was randomly throw in the quality of singing is treterouse and I hated it. although that be the great music that held before help a 9/10

Characters

I felt that each character was well put together. Due to there being so many substories each girl had to be introduced quickly. Although that being said they did a geat job of establishing their backstory without it feeling forced. Each character seems easy to connect with and understand and does not feel recycled throughout the series. Giving the chracters a 8/10

Overall

The series was pretty good it kept me interested from start to almost finish. Ignoring the last episode I loved it. Even with tat said the last episode is interesting but feels like a filler. This series is defintally one to add to the shelf. 8.25/10