Review of The World God Only Knows

*Note: this is a review for all 3 seasons. There may be minor spoilers but I'll warn you if I'll be mentioning one. I have also finished the manga as well so there might be some manga influences in my review (I will try to only focus on the anime though).* After watching three seasons of The World God Only Knows (TWGOK), I'm left with one thought: I wish I have Keima's pick-up skills when he is conquering a girl. Maybe I should try picking up dating sims. Having watched a few romance anime (and also a fan of the romance genre), it gets tiring to seea relationship just between two people, or occasionally a love triangle. Harems are the answer to that but it's tricky to write a good story juggling so many characters. Then, we have TWGOK. This anime combines elements from the couple relationship and the harem structure to create a grand act of conquering individual girls at a time. If you came looking for many types of ladies, TWGOK has them all.

The story in the first two seasons are relatively simple. Keima is a good-looking video game God, or rather specifically, a God of dating simulations. Romance is his oxygen and he gets it by breathing in dating simulation after dating simulation. Despite his Brad Pitt-like looks, he adamantly believes the best girls are found in the 2D world. One day while conquering a 2D girl, he is forced into a contract with a demon, (no, not like Death Note demon but a rather much cuter one) named Elsie, to extract wandering souls that have taken refuge inside a human. In order to extract the hidden soul, he must "conquer" a girl or, in other words, make her fall in love with Keima. The catch is that each girl he conquers has her memory erased of the conquest. Although there are many girls to conquer, Keima is not short of unique ways to win her heart. So strap yourselves in your seat. You will be taken on one fast romantic ride.

The story in the third season takes a different approach than the first two seasons. Due to the difference, I'll be marking things about the third season as a light spoiler because perhaps you don't want to know how the story changes. So, feel free to skip down to END LIGHT SPOILER marking. However, I will not spoil anything about the third season.

---BEGIN LIGHT SPOILER---

The third season marks the beginning of the shift in the story. Keima is still conquering the ladies but rather than being all light-hearted like in the first two seasons, this season highlights much more character development for Keima. The story has many more "feelsy" moments and more supernatural elements to it. At this point, it definitely shows the writer's own story rather than continuously poking fun at other romance stories. This defining aspect is a reason why the third season is the highest rated out of all three seasons. To provide a little teaser for/incentive to watch the third season, I will say that having conquered so many different types of girls, he is bound to find someone he admires.

But the bad thing about the third season is that it skips crucial story information. So before starting the third season, I strongly suggest reading the manga, in particular, after you finish season 2, start on chapter 41 in the manga and you can either go all the way to chapter 113, the start of season 3, or watch the OVAs "Yonin to Aidoru" (chapter 54-55) and "Tenri Arc" (chapter 57-65) and start the manga from there. The manga is a really fun read and covers even more interesting characters that the anime does not.

---END LIGHT SPOILER---

What makes TWGOK stand out for me is that the writer is not afraid to use the standard character types: the quiet type, the athletic, the Tsundere, etc. In fact, there is little to no outstanding characteristics about each of our characters. Further, the anime has a great time poking fun at the romance anime that stretches for, say, 12-24 episodes when the actual romance/action can actually be condensed into 2 episodes. Indeed, TWGOK is a parody of most romance anime out there.

Like I previously mentioned, the characters aren't particularly outstanding, except for Keima and perhaps Elsie. Keima is a relatively normal high school student who plays tons of dating simulators. But when he is on his courting A-game, he becomes a smooth-talking Channing Tatum minus the muscles. I am not sure if I can apply his methods to 3D girls (well, maybe but with a restraining order at the end) but it is damn entertaining to watch.
Elsie is a fun but mostly clueless demon partner. What she does is basically identifying where the wandering demon is hiding and securing it in a bottle. Of course, since these demon partners are visible to all mortals, Elsie pretends she is Keima's sister and lives with him. How Keima's mother doesn't mind, well it's pretty comedic, but it's not really important because Elsie is a great cleaner and she is an awesome sister as well.

We do not learn much about each girl except for some surface details, which is a bummer. They are pretty interesting people if you continue with the manga but probably due to production issues/time constraints, the anime was not able to develop their interesting aspects. So if you are going to stick with the anime, each girl will either be a hit or a miss for you. Nevertheless, the anime does a good job of highlighting the particular traits of each girl.

On the technical side, there is nothing out of the ordinary about the artwork. Keima has a relatively simple character design while Elsie gets a floating pink scarf (a.k.a. a hagoromo) and a cool skull spirit detector as a "hair pin." The what I call "derpy moments," or funny moments, are comically drawn. If you have seen a lot of romance anime, you would know what those climactic kiss moments are like and TWGOK is not lacking any of those. If you do not know what I am referring to, it is basically the moment when the male protagonist takes the hand of the girl and pulls her into his arms in slow mo for that eventful kiss. It's super cliché but it's sure darn funny to watch.

The OST is nothing to rave about except maybe for the opening theme of all three seasons. They are sung in English and executed very well. Sung in a monastery style, it definitely reflects the fact that we are watching an episode of God in action. I always watch anime subbed so for the first few episodes of season 1, my ears could not believe that I was listening to an OP sung in English. But I eventually ended up liking the OP, especially the one for season 3. The ending theme was also well done.

TWGOK is one fun ride. It has the laughs, the romance, and most importantly, it has the God. I think I may have picked up a thing or two about getting a girl to like me. Hopefully I didn't miss any disclaimers about the anime, like "Don't try this at home." Anyway, this anime may not be for you if you absolutely loathe cliché character types but if you like romance and comedy, or a light-hearted anime, definitely give TWGOK a look (and its manga as well)!

Let me know what you thought of TWGOK! Which girl did you think was the best? Do you have a favourite character type? I would love to hear from you!

P.S. For those who have seen all three seasons of the anime (no manga characters), this is my list of best girl:

1. Ayumi
1. Taylor Swift, whoops!, I meant Kanon
3. Chihiro
4. Shiori
5. Jun
6. Tenri