Review of The World God Only Knows

Quick note, considering that there aren't many differences or changes between either of the first two seasons in any category, and it'd be kind of pointless to do two separate reviews that say the exact same thing, this review with be covering the first two seasons of The World God Only Knows. There will however be a separate review for the third season at some point in the future. Now that that's out of the way, please enjoy the review. You know, i'm pretty sure that i'd be hard pressed to find many anime fans that aren't also gamers, at least to some degree. After all,the two cultures have always blended well in the past. But right now i want to talk about a specific type of game, visual novels. Visual novels are a type of video game that are basically interactive stories, you play through listening to the story unfold and occasionally you make choices that decide how the story will play out. There are some that are popular on an international level such as the Shin Megami Tensei franchise and Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright, but it's only in Japan where visual novels have a strong popularity and a wide variety of games taking up the market. So the idea of making an anime/manga series where the concepts of visual novels are a large part of the story and characters doesn't exactly seem so farfetched. In comes The World God Only Knows, which implements the idea of these games into the harem genre to make an anime that has spawned quite a popularity since it's debut. But does it follow the plan that leads us to a happy ending or a dead end?

Story (6/10)

The story is about a teenage boy named Keima Katsuragi who is obsessed with games, specifically visual novels of the dating sim variety. He has the uncanny ability to be able to capture the hearts of every girl in his games with ease earning him the title of God of Conquest. One day, however, he receives a strange email asking if he can truly capture the heart of any girl he chooses. Keima, considering it a challenge, replies yes, accepting the challenge, when all of a sudden a young girl named Elucia de Lute Ima, Elsie for short, appears out of thin air claiming that she is a demon from hell and that he has just signed a contract with her. The contract states that he will be her partner in capturing the loose souls that have escaped from hell and have found host bodies in other people, primarily women, and if he refuses to do so then he will lose his head, literally, and Elsie, being bonded with him, will also die. So now Keima has to use his extensive knowledge of dating sims to make these girls fall in love with him, to fill the emptiness in their hearts and kick the invading soul out. And that's basically it for the first two seasons, Keima and Elsie find a girl who's carrying a loose soul, Keima seduces her, they kiss, the loose soul is captured, and through the element of plot convenience, the girl forgets all about the conquest so Keima can move on to the next girl without being considered an adulterous asshole. Throw in a couple filler episodes and that's it. Still, despite it's formulaic and repetitive nature, it's actually quite entertaining. The different heroine arcs are well executed, the humor is always silly, and i was never bored with the show. And i think one thing that makes it all work is that the show is in fact, a parody of visual novels. It kind of pokes fun at just how predictable and unrealistic they can be, but it's never mean spirited, always choosing silly humor over scathing criticism, which makes the show very lovable. However it does bring up some questions. How did Keima get tricked into the contract when he never signed a contract, he just pressed a button on an email? That's not exactly something that would hold up in court hell or otherwise. Also while the girls do lose all their memories, it's kind of hard to not say that Keima is cheating on them when he never actually breaks up with anyone. And it's hard not to say that the show isn't just a bit hypocritical when it says, more than once mind you, that reality and fiction are two separate things, yet Keima always succeeds in seducing women with what he's learned from his games, things that would never really help in the real world. Honestly it's best to not try to use your mind to much during the show, or else you'll be wondering why your laughing at an antisocial teenage boy manipulating women into falling in love with him, only to make out with him, force them to forget their memories, and move on to the next girl to do the same exact thing, and all with the help of a demon ad the powers of hell.

Art (7/10)

The World God Only Knows along with all of sequels and OVAs were done by studio Manglobe. The thing about Manglobe, is that they're great when it comes to action shows, Deadman Wonderland, Samurai Champloo, and Ergo Proxy are all perfect examples of this. But for everything else, they're mostly just decent. Overall, The World God Only Knows is a good looking show but there's nothing really special about it. The only notable thing is it's style. Despite the fact that the show does have a default style that it uses most of the time, they'll often change the style for the sake of gag humor, which was actually quite nice. I was never bored with the visuals because of their ever changing nature and often times, it tended to work in their favor for more comedic results. One last quick tip, when going into the show, be prepared for bright colors. Seriously, trying to watch this side by side with a show like Texhnolyze like i did, so freaking jarring.

Sound (8/10)

The soundtrack is definitely the most impressive part of the show. They could have easily put in a couple of bouncy catchy j-pop numbers and be done with it, but they put some time and effort into it, resulting in some very nice orchestral pieces. The song that plays during the final stage of a conquest in particular, always left me on a good note. Although you will probably have the song "Happy Crescent" sung by the heroine Kanon stuck in your head for a week after watching the first season. Another thing that should be brought up are the openings, both of which are done by a group called Oratorio and are each quite good. But i'd like to specifically mention the opening to the first season, often regarded as the best opening by fans, called "God Only Knows", however the part we hear in the show is only a small snippet of a nine minute long epic, which is worth giving a full listen too. To quickly regard sub vs. dub on this, i'm going to suggest going with sub. For the dub, Chris Patton does great as Keima, and Luci Christanson is acceptable as Elsie, but that's about it. Besides, if you choose the dub, then you miss out on the heroine Shiori delivering her famous "baka/aho" lines, which i consider to be some of the greatest delivered lines in the Japanese language.

Characters (7/10)

There is no doubt that the main pull for a large chunk of fans of the show is the God of Conquest himself, Keima Katsuargi, whose kind of what you'd get if Lelouch Lamperourge was an eccentric otaku. Keima is basically the opposite of what you would expect from a harem protagonist. Where the average harem protagonist is average in every way and only gets girls by being extremely kind, Keima is an intelligent and handsome young man who puts plenty of work and effort into winning over his target. But that also brings up another point of his character, in his eyes, the girls are nothing more than missions that he needs to accomplish. He has been nothing but disappointed by reality and seeks solace in the games that he's so obsessed with, because of this he's an antisocial problem student, and an outcast to his peers. He looks at everything the way he would look at a game, so rather than winning over women with a genuine kindness and understanding, he manipulates them through scripts and planned situations, caring more about getting the conquests over with so he can go back to playing games rather than the girls own happiness. But still, he is still a good person underneath it all and had shown the occasional subtle moment where it seems he does care about the girls he conquers and is also bothered by his own personal situation. Then there's the demon from hell Elsie. I'm not even gonna poke around the bush, Elsie is freaking adorable, everyone who's seen the show knows it and i'm not even going to deny it. She herself doesn't have all that much to do with the conquests, only showing up to capture the loose souls when they're kicked out of the host body. She instead takes the role of Keima's little sister, doing everything in her power to impress him and make him happy just for a little bit of praise, but often fails either because of her own ditzy nature or Keima's stand-offish nature. Also she has a weird obsession with firetrucks. I don'y know why she does or how it's relevant to the series but goddammit it's adorable. The only other character worth mentioning is Haqua du Lot Herminium, Elsie's colleague and friend from hell who also captures loose souls that was introduced in season 2. Haqua is very prideful, not coming from a noble family and instead rises to the top through hard work and determination, but because of this is unwilling to admit her own faults and, at first, doesn't choose to openly acknowledge Elsie as a friend, despite treasuring their friendship. There's not really much to say about the rest of the prominent characters are the heroines and they can basically be summed up with a trope, such as athlete, rich girl, and book worm. Still the show does like to mix things up a little bit by adding new twists to their tropes, like the rich girl is actually poor, or by having the loose souls give the girls powers, like having a personality literally escaping from a girl. But even so, none of the characters outside the heroines really get any development and are basically the same people they were when they were first introduced, and the development that the heroines get are fairly predictable and melodramatic. Still by the end of the series you will most likely have your own favorite heroine.

Enjoyment (8/10) Overall (7/10)

You know those series that you can never consider a personal favorite for one reason or another, but you still love to death for one reason or another. Well for me, The World God Only Knows is one of those series. Yes it's formulaic and simple, but it's always entertaining, and the characters are still memorable. But you should take to mind that this series is not one to be taken to seriously. It's mostly silly and even the melodrama is there for parody rather than emotion. There's not real drama to be found in this series...at least, not until season 3. But that's a review for another day. Until then, remember to find your ideal route in life, because i can see the ending....No i really can't but that'd be pretty cool though wouldn't it.