Review of The World God Only Knows

"Activate! God of Conquest Mode!" Keima, the main character, has spent nearly his entire life playing Dating Sims and acquired the nickname, The God of Conquest, his fame in the Dating Sim world is unparalleled, yet a mistake happens that throws him into the world he was striving to escape from. Through the meeting of a Demon named Elucia, and the introduction of loose souls throughout Japan, Keima is forced to conquer girls that transcend the unchangeable patterns of the 2D realm, using his experience from gaming, Elucia and Keima set out to make girls fall for him to stop the destruction of his hometown.

This review is not going to contain spoilers (I will try my very best), and will most likely be influenced by my personal opinion and experience on anime that I have viewed thus far.

How should I put this? The reason I first got hooked into this series was the implication of comedy and gaming that I encountered during the first episode. Since I'm kind of an otaku myself, I found connections to the main character Keima. The comedy that was implemented into Kaminomi was standard at some times yet new for me because of the elements that Kaminomi provided that I have yet to see.

This is an unusual romantic/harem anime, but it works in a couple ways. To start off, one thing that I would argue about would be the way this anime is popularly tagged. Instead of being a shounen themed anime, I would rather recommend a minor theme of netorare, and slice of life. My reasons for this, I choose the slice of life theme because of the daily things that go on in the anime, although I can't reveal any major part of the plot, little plot development happens while Keima "rescues" each girl from their loose soul. In fact the anime plays out more in a loop pattern, each girl does have their respective differences in personality, yet the main base origin of the arc is the same, I would have liked to have seen some changes in the plot. The reason I would choose the tag Netorare, is because of what affects Keima at the end of each "conquest", although I can't reveal what it is, you'll have to watch the anime for yourself and see if my claim for that tag is justified.

The Story & Characters: In my experience of harem/romance anime, Kaminomi was a unique one, to my surprise, the anime failed to follow the standard boring procedures of harem anime, and proceeded to introduce each character whether they would return or not in a different way that I found pleasing. Tying in the typical Dating Sims personalities of girls, and making somewhat similar characters appear in front of Keima that resemble them made the journey of romance pull me along. Though Keima can never fully commit after conquering the girl, I would say that the comedy in his attempts were the best. It seems as though the second season was immediately released and I hope through that some loose ends and questions will be resolved. That being said, the story never left me bored, or wasted time (maybe a bit during each girl's individual background story) but the anime nonetheless made up for lost time.
The characters as I see in most harem romance anime are the main reason the plot develops (if it did at all). Keima, an otaku, Dating Sim gaming freak, is the main character, and through his quirky ways of getting women to like him, the anime thrives in the comedic and slice of life aspect. The only other main character to me seemed to me Elucia, a demon from hell who is assigned to capture loose souls that escaped from hell. Elucia is one of the common air-head characters that adds to the main characters personality and their common goal that brings them together. The beginning did present a more serious life or death situation, but to my disappointment never mentioned it again. Thus the anime lost some serious, "sense of major purpose" feel to it.

Art and Sound: Though the music wasn't something I would immediately say in my head "I gotta Youtube convert this", it contributed nicely to the anime and made many scenes flow better than without it. I've never had to complain about art and music in the series. TV Tokyo, Geneon Universal Entertainment, Manglobe, Sentai Filmworks did a good job with the art aspect, since there wasn't any action at all that required the sharp picturesque feel. The average smooth drawings of characters suited the anime's pace well.

Overall: I enjoyed this anime mainly because of the main character and his journeys with Elucia, not because of possible plot development. Although in the second season I do expect some questions to be answered, this anime is definitely worth a look if you find yourself similarly attracted to anime such as Date a Live, Oreshura (Look up for synonyms), and IS:Infinite Stratos.

Thanks for reading!
-Nebarto