Written by Plot
Dating sim master Keima Katsuragi wants nothing more than to immerse himself in the 2D world, chasing digital girlfriends. But when the so-called “Capturing God” answers a mysterious email from an unknown sender, Keima finds himself chasing down real-life ladies in an attempt to help the peppy demon Elucia de Lute Irma capture “lost souls” escaped from the depths of hell. Now, lest the guillotine collar around his neck cut his head off, Keima must convince various girls to fall in love with him in order to scare out the souls hiding in their hearts.
Katsuragi Keima
Katsuragi Keima is the MAN! Probably one of my favorite male protagonist of all time, second only to Sakurai Tomoki himself. Like Tomoki, he is either being really funny or really serious, and he’s fantastic at being both. He is the master of dating sims, and has been known to be able play at 24 games at once. He uses the techniques he learned in his dating sims to help him make real girls fall in love with him. Outside of his games, Keima does not appear to have any romantic interest at all. He pursues all of his “captures” with the same, cold analytic approach, and every action or expression he makes is usually part of his plan. He’s not completely heartless, but is largely indifferent to life. He even claims he is in no way sexually attracted to video game heroines and sees such thoughts as below him.
Synchronicity!!!!
Elucia De Lute Irma (Elsie)
A demon from hell, sent to earth as part of the loose soul capturing squad. Elsie was at the bottom of her class in …. Hell.. school, or something. She now spends her days with her “buddy” Keima, as him and her try to track down Loose souls that escaped from Hell, and hide in the hearts of females, although she is mostly dependent on Keima to do the work.
[Review Begins Here]
Well let me start by saying that their was one major thing I was worried about going into this series. In the plot summary you may notice it says “Keima must convince various girls to fall in love with him…”, and I thought that meant this was going to turn into a major harem type of show. And I’ll be honest it would be slightly interesting to see a harem show where the protagonist had to keep all the members of his harem from finding out about one and other, but I’m sure the intrigue of that type of show would wear out fairly quickly, being replaced with annoyance. However in this universe, after Keima set’s the loose soul free, the girls lose their memory of falling in love with Him. However it is shown in an OVA that their memory may not be completely gone, but that’s going into spoiler territory.
Next up, the animation in this show is fantastic, and the Blu Ray is coming out in January, so I’ll most likely get it for my birthday, and if you can’t buy the Blu Ray, at least watch it on Crunchyroll. (It’s January 30th I expect gifts from all of my readers 
) Now let me just say that while the first season does look pretty good, it’s obvious the second season got a huge budget bump, after the success of the first season.
Now the part I really don’t want to write about, my problems with the show. One particular problem manifested in episode 1 (Since it’s the first episode I don’t feel bad about giving out spoilers). What basically happens is that when Keima is trying to make Ayumi fall in love with him, Ayumi “trips” and falls over a hurdle, when running on the track. Keima later confronts her about this, saying that “she’s not really hurt, and planed the fall all along” on the sole basis, of her not tying her hair up that day…… I’m deadly serious. Of course he turns out to be right, but come on writers, your making Gosicks’ mysteries look believable by comparison. Luckily this only really happens once, and the girls back story’s or whatever else the audience doesn’t know till the last second about the girls does get more realistic as the show goes on, it’s really just that one instance I have a problem with.
Another problem I had, was the 3rd girl Keima was tasked to captured, an idol named Kanon. She was an extremely superficial air-head, who almost broke down when one guy at her concert looked at his phone for a second, and DARED to take his eyes of her. I will admit it is due to spoiler reasons about he characters past, but that didn’t make it any more enjoyable to watch. Unlike a lot of reviewers I didn’t find the Mio character to be that bad, and did actually enjoy her arc, but hey that’s my opinion.
I suppose I could complain about the lack of plot, or development of the main characters (the girls get plenty of character development), but you’re not really watching this show for its plot. To quote Yahtzee “….but that’s not what your there for, in the same way you don’t go to the beach to get sand kicked in your face, or you don’t go to Glasgow to get your eyes gouged out with broken bottles. No respectively you go there to build sand castles, and purchase heroin.”
Now for the Op. It’s freaking amazing! If you where a fool enough to NOT watch it, it’s at the top of the page, and waiting for you. GO WATCH IT NOW……. O.K. I assume your done. One of my favorite things about this Op (aside from the beautiful animation, impressive CGI, and overall awesomeness) was that the entire song was in English, although be it broken English since it’s done by a Japanese singer. Not to mention the fact that you’re not even hearing all the song, that’s only 1 minute 30 seconds out of an 8 minute song, and again it’s all in English! So ya, serious props to the singer Elisa (an actual person, not to be confused with Elsie).
Finally I think I’ll touch on the shows comedy. In short: It’s freaking hilarious, go watch the anime now! In long: I have said before I’m a proponent of over the top comedy, and The World God Only Knows sure has a lot of that. The show’s comedy ranges from parody’s of Dragon Ball Z and The Peanuts, to slap-stick of Keima getting tazed by Kanon. But the funniest episode by far has to be episode 12. I don’t want to spoil anything, but if ever I’m depressed (it doesn’t happen that often, I’m sort of a happy-go-lucky kind of guy) I will usually watch the first 10 or so minutes of that episode, and *poof*, instantly back to normal.
Also I don’t feel it necessary to review the second season, because it’s just a continuation of the plot from the first season, so if you liked the first season, you’ll definitely like the second season. So in final, The World God Only Knows is a hilariously funny anime, with (mostly) awesome characters, and I really want a third season. Now next week my new DVD will hopefully arrive and I can review the anime I had scheduled for this week. You can also email in recommend anime for future reviews, by mailing your suggestion to webmaster@ultimateotaku.com.
You Can Buy The World God Only Knows: Complete Collection [Blu-ray] At Amazon.com
[Next Week: Kämpfer]
