The World God Only Knows

I like this anime, and the animation is really good. I started to watch this because the cover looks pretty interesting. But to be honest, the opening kinda sucks. I think it should be less digital and they should put some cheerful music on. That's one thing I don't like. But other than that, I guess the anime is pretty funny. But one thing I'm confused about is Keima. Why is he trying to conquer digital girls? I think he's really weird, and the series goes boring when it comes to his PFP. My favorite characters are Shiori, Elsie, Haqua, and Chihiro. I just love Elsie's voice. The music in this anime is good, esp; Ai No Yokan, performed by Elsie, Haqua, Chihiro, Jun, and Kusunoki.

Normally I refrain from writing reviews of anime series. As either the anime ended with too many loop holes or just too much frustration(mind you all this excludes those animes in which i don't make it past the 3rd episode). Yet I was surprised at how well the story of this specific anime was done. I can honestly say I was hooked literally within the first half of the first episode. Now I might not be a veteran of anime, but I can honestly say that as one who appreciates anime not just for the fact that is it different, but for the fact that it IS different. Not many anime's can hold my attention long enough for me to lose track of time completely and then almost cry at the fact that there is not another episode waiting for me to view. All in all I recommend this anime to those of you who have a sense of humor, love games, and have a basic understanding of Easter Eggs, how crazy reality really is, and finally that an amazing story-line is what most newer series are lacking.


---Nazarus

I happened to come across this show a month or so ago. When I read about it, I thought "great, Another one those fan service heavy harems", but I gave the benefit of the doubt and watched it. And I have to say, damn am I glad that I did! The concept was fresh and new, but not too ambitious that people couldn't get into it.

The storyline was one of the most enjoyable I've seen in a long time, and while I don't want to give it away, I will say that it will have you rolling on the floor laughing at some times time and then have you shed a tear at others. Just the scenes where Keima argues with himself about his ideals is enough to lock you in for the long haul.

The music is great but a bit lacking at times. The openings and endings are pretty generic, what you'd expect from an anime, and the OST is awesome with a great mix of upbeat tunes while retaining some great piano riffs for the the more solemn scenes. Overall, it keeps the mood going and has good sound, but by the end of the second season, you wish that they put few new tunes in.

Nothing can be said about the characters that hasn't been said a thousand times already, but alas, they're brilliant. The design for them is traditional, but still new and unique. Hell, the fact that all the girls each embody one of time honored dating sim traits is great and makes you pick favourites right off the bat.

The animation is very fluent and well thought out. There's never a scene where you think " oh well they got lazy there..." You can clearly see how hard the studio worked on it by just watching the openings. Its quite possible that 3 seconds of footage could of consisted of well over 1000 separate frames, it makes the show fun to watch and leaves you impressed. They did an amazing job with the mouth movements, especially when a character is singing. the mouths match up almost perfectly with the sounds and just leaves a good taste in my mouth when i watch it.

In conclusion, The World God Only Knows is an indicator that anime is still going stronger than ever, this is a series that rekindled my own personal love for anime and reminded me that there still exists good shows, you just got to dig a little to find it. I hope that everyone agrees that this is a anime you do not want to pass up.

This is a fantastic anime. When I first read the premise I wasn't very excited about it. This anime ended up taking a back seat to others and I wish I had watched this one sooner since it's so great.

The main character, despite his dysfunction or maybe because of it, is a very likeable character. Else, the demon girl, is amusing and makes for a great sidekick/little sister. Many of the supporting characters are likeable and charming in their owns ways as well. I don't think there was a character in either season that I didn't like in some way.

I also enjoyed how this anime makes fun of gaming and anime stereotypes. I found myself laughing every episode because of some of the things that got brought up or that happened.

Like my title says, if you like anime comedies then this is a must see for sure.

Even though this seems like a normal show it's not actually and in reality it's quite useful and I may regret saying this but this show scares me a bit because the main character is almost a reflection of what i am....playing almost all the time in school at home and everywhere it's scary....even using phrases from the games..although I never really had the chance to play dating sim games. anyway this is quite the interesting show to watch and enjoy specially for those who love gaming and well I guess otakus and all since he is a god gamer and all. the manga has more of course and i'm hoping that season 3 will come out soon and even though he is a gamer god it's quite hilarious how he can conquer girls and mind you those lines of his actually works....*dramatic pause* continuing on in conclusion this is one of those animes you should actually see even though its on its 2nd season but this may actually help in some cases if you know how to do it correctly.

As a medium, anime sits nestled between two potentially very powerful qualities. As half art, in the traditional sense, it can choose to venture into the highly symbolic, expressive, and deeply meaningful. As half cartoon, it can exploit visual short-hands and exaggerations to great economy. Anime, as a class of media, has many sub-genres, but even taken as a whole most animes tend to follow a lot of the same "rules" (tropes, really). When used correctly, one can get a lot of enjoyment as they set us up for expectations and either meet them or not.

TWGOK exists among the best of them, not because of anything profound it has to say or anything truly game-changing. Instead, it chooses to meet every single one of your expectations about anime, never really straying from the tried-and-true, but it does so with great expertise. When so many other series fail in this area or that, this is a refreshing bit of pure joy that leaves you completely satisfied.

The plot unfolds quite naturally. Our hero likes playing dating sims. Since this is anime, where everything is larger than life, naturally he considers himself the god among dating sim gamers. His arrogance, naturally, leads to him carelessly accepting a challenge. This challenge ends up being a contract with the god of the underworld to retrieve escaped souls (of course). And, naturally, these souls choose to hide and make themselves difficult to retrieve, thus setting us up for a monster-of-the-week. Annnnd, naturally, they choose to hide exclusively in the empty areas of young girls' hearts, who are all about his age and attending his school. Naturally, the only way to get them out for capture is to fill that emptiness with something else (love, duh), thus forcing him to face a literal real life dating sim challenge each time. Did I mention he must do this with the aid of a klutzy-but-means-well demon-girl side-kick? Who moves in with him claiming to be an illegitimate daughter of his father's, much to his mother's chagrin? I know I mentioned this was an anime...

It's all so predictable to even a casual anime watcher, and yet the delivery is so organic and well done that you don't care, heck you even like it. As I said, it meets all of your expectations about anime expertly. Some might complain and want something more experimental, bold, or different. This is not the show for their adventurous appetites.

The animation is stunningly good for a TV series, fluid and sweet to the eyes. The music is competent, the opening theme is fun to watch all on its own (I never once skipped it, even when marathoning episodes back-to-back), and the voice acting is pitch perfect, every character has precisely the voice you expect, all acted superbly.

So where does it fall down? Is this truly the perfection of anime? Has it no flaws? Of course it does.

Probably the number one issue is its predictability. I argue that it is done so well you won't care, but nevertheless it does not try anything new. You will likely never be surprised, no twists and turns, no heavy drama or character stories, no real poignant epiphanies about life and what it means to be human, and every for every challenge posed to our hero you already know he will prevail and will easily anticipate how.

But, again, I think there is something to be said for a show that, while not courageous, does what it does so well.

When an anime references the tropes it’s been built on nowadays, nobody bats an eye. The genre of meta comedy is overflowing with attempts at witty commentary and knowing application of ideas seen all too often. With this in mind, the approach The World God Only Knows takes can be considered the logical conclusion of this, as there is something deliciously meta about an anime protagonist chasing girls with only his knowledge of dating sims. It’s a potential breeding ground for parody, deconstruction, or subversion, letting the show play with the already solidified expectations of the intended audience. Unfortunately, its execution greatly hinders this aim, making it fall short of its mark.

The most problematic aspect of The World God Only Knows is that it’s beleaguered from the beginning by its protagonist. Keima is introduced as an intelligent individual who is nevertheless severely misguided on his view of reality. His character is the perfect archetype for the show, but his depiction sometimes conflicts with his expected personality. Blushing stammers and uncertainty in his attitude create a jarring contrast with the over the top reactions during most other parts of show, resulting in a weak impression on the audience when they should be expecting an unwavering idealist. This uncertain portrayal also creeps into the heroine of each arc, which at times struggles with maintaining the girl in an archetypical state. It strives to exact a balance between not being boring and restricting development to maintain linearity, but it often fails, giving the characters too little or too much investment from the audience than is helpful.

The characters are hardly helped by the pacing, which allocates different times to each heroine’s story. The first two arcs run far too short, clocking in at one episode and one and a half respectively. This impedes the buildup of expectation the show wants by resolving the conflict too quickly, robbing one of any significant exploration of the character. In an ironic twist, the next arc paces itself too slowly, which tires the audience with a foregone conclusion and extraneous details. The show does slightly redeem itself by finding the correct pacing in the final arc and playing out the logical conclusion in a well timed manner, but then brings the entire season’s pacing into question when the episode count leaves a filler episode at the end. Just as annoying is the lack of closure in that episode, which clearly points to the coming of season two.

This is not to say that these failings severely cripple the show; it merely stunts the potential to be good. The characters still present themselves in a charming manner true to their archetypes, and the show succeeds in at least driving the meta expectations in the right direction. Likewise, certain aspects beyond the main plot and characters supplement the show greatly, even if they’re only tangentially related. The soundtrack stands out throughout each episode, adding a colorful layer to many a scene. A couple of filler episodes also exceed their plot centric brethren. Most entertaining of these, and perhaps most surreal, is episode four, which takes an absurd idea to even greater lengths than I thought possible. The rest of the show may have something to learn from the execution of that one episode.

To an extent, The World God Only Knows fails in its ability to capitalize on the qualities of animation. In a medium where character qualities are vocally expressed and the tape simply keeps rolling, there is no buffer for incongruence in character or uncertainty in length and pacing. The show may have presented itself as a playful meta series, but its shortcomings means it comes out merely a little charming, and nothing more.