Ranked #229

Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai II

The World God Only Knows tells of the wacky adventures of Keima Katsurai, a kid who literally does almost nothing with his free time but play dating sims. Because he's so good as dating sims, he refers to himself as the “Capture God,” claiming that he can beat any gal game imaginable. Elsea, a demon from hell, mistakenly thinks that the specialty of the Capture God is to seduce real women, and enlists his help to retrieve lost souls; demons that hide in the hearts of women, and can only be retrieved by filling the emptiness in the woman's heart. Keima never actually *wants* to help retrieve the lost souls, but is forced to due to a contract that he has signed; if does not oblige to the contract, he dies.

This all gives an interesting twist to the “Monster of the Week” dynamic, in that instead of having the main character fight monsters every week, the series has him seduce women.

There's a nice mix of drama and comedy; most of the drama and serious aspects come from the emotional issues that the love interests face–whereas most of the comedy comes from the wacky personalities of Keima and Elsee. The transitions from dramatic to comedic scenes can be abrupt, but most of the time it doesn't feel too forced.

During a comedic scene, the characters (particularly Keima and Elsee) often switch to a much more cartoony art style, which helps to add comedic affect. There's also a lot of shout outs to various media, which will probably warrant a chuckle or two if you manage to understand any of the references.

The two protoganists of Keima and Elsee, although actually quite likable, come off as a bit one-dimensional. Keima is a genius boy wonder who considers reality “a shitty game,” and Elsee is an adorable demon who screws-up at everything…and there's not really much else to these characters, as there is barely any character development throughout the series. This is justifiable in that the anime only covers the first 40 chapters of the manga, which as of this writing is an ongoing series with 174 chapters released. So when watching this 24 episode series, think of it as the beginning of a larger story than it's own standalone thing.

The level of enjoyment watching this sort of depends on how willing you are to suspend disbelief to the fact that Keima uses his knowledge to win the heart of a woman not once, but multiple times. The fact alone that Keima uses his knowledge of dating sims to win the heart of women will probably come as a little implausible. Nonetheless, it's interesting to see how Keima strategize, and to see *how* he uses his knowledge of gal games.

With each story-arc by itself, each of the heroine's love for Keima doesn't really feel forced or unnatural–especially when you consider that these are women who have their emotional weaknesses amplified by an infesting demon. Each love interest is quite likable, and goes through a fair amount of character development; its somewhat remarkable considering that none of these characters get more than three episodes of screen time.


Overall The World God Only Knows is a fun and enjoyable series, albeit one that might challenge your suspension of disbelief depending on how you look at it (although only a little.) It has a nice blend of drama and comedy, and manages to make good use of its premise. If you like romance-centered cartoons, you'll probably like this. read more

This review is meant to be relatively unbiased and contains no spoilers. This is also my first review and I hope it helps.

So here it is, the highly anticipated and rather unsurprising second season of The World God Only Knows. If you've watched the first season and enjoyed it then your opinion of the series shouldn't change very much if at all since the underlying aspects haven't been altered in any way. Readers of the manga will be pleased at how well the second season adheres to original story while offering only some small differences in context and doing well to maintain the design and expression of each character.

Brief Summary (no spoilers): 9/10

On a brief overlook of the story, we see that Keima and Elsie are still searching for and capturing loose souls that are manifesting themselves within the negative emotions of beautiful, distraught young women all around them. Keima still has to put on the charm and swoon these ladies to his favor in order to release these ghastly geists from their hosts so that Elsie can seal them away in a special jar and return them back to New Hell. The plot of the second season continues where the first one left off with only a few minor differences as each episode progresses.

My Thoughts:

This series is particularly interesting for a multitude of reasons. In some sense, it can be put into the category of being, at a glance, your typical harem-romance-comedy series with some supernatural twist... But it's not. If anything, this series drifts away from much of the standardized content floating around by keeping the characters relatively static throughout the story and emphasizing its thematic tones as the overall message rather than the plot itself. By this I mean that even though the romance factor is still an intrinsic part of the show itself, it's the understanding behind the ideology of each relationship which keeps the story unique and interesting to watch.This is prominently demonstrated by the girls who Keima conquers losing their memories immediately after some moral revelation has been achieved.

Keima's philosophy regarding relationships and life itself is undoubtedly what makes this series so appealing to its fans. The way his beliefs revolve around the principles of dating sims is symbolic of how he ultimately desires a world without change and social convention where life follows a linear, logical path at all times. His rejection of reality and surroundings is not necessarily due to hatred for the world by personal animosity, but rather by distaste for the human condition as a whole and manages to remain impartial to it throughout his daily life. None of this affects him negatively aside from the social aspect, however. His application of sheer rationality to relationships with other people is something that is demonstrated in a very creative manner by the author and is very enjoyable to watch.

Animation/Art: 9/10

The animation quality is best described as being sharp and well-polished with few details being overlooked.The use of colors in each scene notably matches the mood of the characters or the situation which adds for a nice overall effect. Character design is one of the most crucial aspects for this series, particularly facial expression, and the producers did an impressive job on getting it as close to the manga as they could. There's a couple of situations where the fluidity of a character's motions are slightly "off" from one another, but it's often easily overlooked by either comedic relief or simply being too brief to even notice or care about. You can tell that a lot of money and hard work went into making the show look the way it does, and it's quite effective.

Sound: 8/10

The sound is above average in quality and serves the general purpose of adding to a comedic sequence or aiding in establishing the proper atmosphere and tone of a scene. The OP is sung by Oratorio this time around, and it's much to the same style as the first season although has more of a pop element to it. The voice acting is good for the most part

Overall: 9/10

The second season of The World God Only Knows is a step-up in quality from the first season with all of the same characters and great dialogue techniques as before. The game references are still in abundance, as are Keima's priceless methods of getting the ladies to fall in love with him. If you enjoyed the first season, there's no reason why you wouldn't enjoy this sequel. If you're new to the series, it's obviously suggested to watch the prequel for further understanding of the overall plot. For now we'll just have to wait and see where the anime is going next. If it follows the storyline of the manga, things are going to get interesting. Can you see the ending?

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