Ranked #63

Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai (Manga)

"Gotta catch em all!" This famous pokemon phrase might be fitting with this series in such a weird way. Instead, we get 'I can see the ending'.

Shonen Sunday has been getting quite bad financially. After the long running of a few hit series such as Conan, Kenichi, Hayate, Inuyasha, and bunch of others, they were not getting notable works. As all those long running series are encountering mannerism, it is pretty obvious they are getting less and less viewers due to lack of importing of fresh new series with good idea. This manga, Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai, is also meeting the point where manga gets over the cut-line to be called "long-term-serialisation" and encounter mannerism.

Well, guess what? Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai, is actually getting even more interesting. This review will not only include why this series is successful, and also reason why it is different from any other series that is on the same magazine.

The original concept of Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai is solely concentrated on single most strongest character of the series, Katsuragi Keima, who is created by amalgamating past hikikomori/neet/otaku-self of author, Wakaki Tamiki, and character of Lelouch (Keima's pose when calling 'I can see the ending' is a parody of Lelouch's geass pose). The simple, but most unique idea of this manga was bringing this crazy otaku to 'GOD' of Girl games and apply this knowledge to actual reality; 'capturing' girls in 3D world. Author brings concept of hell and heaven to explain proper logics for a reason why Keima has to capture these girls all the time; old devils will try to regain their power by staying in the empty spaces of girl's heart, thus new devils has to send groups to capture them again by feeling their heart.

Now, this unique concept worked so well. Keima's force is just so strong, he just shadows all the moe-figures of all those cute girls he met. We see how each capturing applies overused cliche in much refreshing way. Even though their are many moe stereotypes that many western people might get turned off, they are not even noticed due to the fact that major focus of the series is none other than Katsuragi Keima himself. Despite being harem series, this manga managed to twist the cliche of harem series by overseeing various cliche in 'different perspective', which is a key point to this manga's success.

However, no matter how interesting concept that any manga has, if it is 'repeated', it will become 'old' at some point. That's what many other series in Shonen Sunday failed. At some point, they had to switch this repeated concept to actually build plot and give possibility to 'end' the series. This promise of 'ending' is so important, as it gives readers actual motivation to read through and understand the development it had to reach the conclusion. We see that promise, in Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai.

First of all, we have 'mission'. Keima's 'mission' is to capture 'all wondering spirits'. The problem is how to reach that. Surprisingly, we can see that author already had on his mind how to end this series, even in the first chapter. When I can say it aloud due to spoiler, he already had clear structure and idea on the setting of 'heaven and hell', and explanation of this relationship is brilliant.

Second, character of Elsie is very significant. One of the important ability for writer is 'not wasting characters'. Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai, never wastes any characters, almost. All heroines who got conquered had their own moe archetype, charm and theme. In case of Elsie, she is the reason why author could have flexible changes in plot to be more solid during the serialisation. Elsie is cute, but dojikko. It is very important that we CANNOT believe her entirely due to her purity and stupidity in some parts. She makes up the parts that Keima lacks - since our capturing god seems to be so perfect in many way, he needs side kick who can balance that perfection out. That existence, is Elsie. Due to her, the development of Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai could enter entirely new phase where plot actually moves on and able to see the ending of series itself.

Plot is extremely delicate. There are a lot of devices that are critical to plot and overall development but people don't really notice it at first. Why? Because author intentionally lowers the tension whenever important stuff comes out. But at the same time, still marks it onto our mind saying it is important, indirectly. Those devices piled up more and more, finally reaching current development which I can simply describe as - amazing.

Discussing about art, there is once when author, Wakaki said, "Mangakas cannot survive if they cannot draw bishojo or bishonen. If you can draw bishoujo or bishonen, you can at least live and earn money as 3rd-grade mangaka like me". When he is criticising manga industry, he is also criticising himself; his drawing changed hugely since the start of Kami Nomi. Characters are now more closer to bishoujo and bishonen, especially Keima and Chihiro. However, the strength of Wakaki in drawing is direction as a whole. Cut division, use of Chibi, cartoon devices and appropriate parody and gag scenes. Those features are integrated without awkward.

Enjoyment of this series not just come from Keima Katsuragi and twists of genre. It has everything that good shonen manga must have; tension, 'serious humour', complex plot, delicate and solid foundation for the structure of open setting, attention grabbing events, and more. I can easily say how well made this series is and how clever the author of this manga is. My satisfaction for deciding to follow this series to the end is already 100 percent full.

The major theme of this series is 'ideal and reality'. I really want to see how author will manage to deliver this message from heart of his experience, yet keeping charm and enjoyment that this amazing series has. read more

Synopsis: Katsuragi Keima is known as the "conquering god". He is an infamous gamer who is known to have conqured 10000 heroines in games and is a heavy influence to gamers world wide, also to game companies. Keima despises reality and he hates anything that's not a game, even girls! However one day he is approached by Elsie, a demon of what they call "New Hell", and she requests the aid of Keima, who is known as the conquering god to help capture the "run-away spirits". These spirits formal demons of "old hell". To restore their formal power, the run-away spirits will reside inside a young female's soul, and be reincarnated when these young females get pregnant. By making the host (the girls) fall in love, their hearts are contended and the run-away spirit leaves the contended soul and can then be captured by the new demons. Keima's daily life of gaming soon turns upside down as he struggles to conqure these girls for his life's sake.

Review: As the synopsis goes, Keima Katsuragi is entitled the "conquering god" in this story's universe, he is able to conquer almost any game, mostly galge games (dating sims and such). It is even stated that he can complete 10 galge games under 24 hours. Yes, the main protagonist of this series is a hardcore gamer, who holds heavy influence in both the gaming industry and gamers.

At first glance, "The World God Only Knows" seems to be your typical generic harem series. For some of you might already know if you are subscribed to "otaku pages", most of their post related to this series are mostly a guy with holding a PSP, kissing young highschool girls, hence the impression of a playboy or harem series. I once thought "The world god only knows" was just, another typical harem series. However that wasn't the case, these illustrations only portrayed the intensive stage of each arc and only covers a fraction of the entire context, what lies before these intensive events are highly structured, well developed plot lines that intrigues readers and viewers.

Yes, this isn't just your typical harem series where another random guy becomes just another harem king, this series contains much more than just kisses and conquering, let me explain it in further detail...

As the synopsis goes, Keima is a professional gamer ---> meets demon from "New hell" ---> Demon requests help from keima, who has absolutely no interest in reality to help capture runaway spirits (demons of old hell), however he is forced in a life or death situation the moment he signed the contract with the demons.

Now why is there an "Old", and a "New" hell? This is another intriguing part of this series that is gradually build up as the story progresses, this series tells you thoroughly about why there's an old and new hell. To make things more intense, these heroines which Keima has to conquer has much more deeper meaning to them other than just being capturing targets. Among these "targets", lies a 6 gods from heaven, makes sense right? if there are demons, there will also be gods, however any further explanation will ruin your enjoyment so i'll just skip this.

Now for the critiques of this manga itself. The artwork of this manga is rather simple and the less serious type of art, mainly doodle-type artwork similar to Nisekoi. Despite just being doodle art for the less serious moments (mainly 60% of the entire manga), this manga has many variations of it's doodles and they're rather... cute if I must say. They match the scenario exactly and these doodle arts, compared to actual shounen facial gestures actually do serve a purpose despite being simple and expressive, it exaggerates the emotion that's being played in that particular scenario and it gives multiple impression on viewers. However the main drawback of this manga series is, the author has a tendency to overuse doodle art, and some parts of the manga can become very vague and slacky.

The plot line itself is rather unique, while being the harem type of pot line, there is a major twist to this. That is the fact that the harem king himself, Keima, of this series hates real girls! This may create a negative impression on you audiences but don't be fooled! Despite the people around the protagonist knowing of him being a genius creep, who plays his PFP (PSP) in class, they still fall for him! The level of stupidity in this is just so massive, that it just gives many viewers of this manga mindf**ks when things get intensive. The ammount of skill keima attains from games is just massive, he even applies theories before conquering a target by doing a detailed layout of his targets before conquering them.

Other than the harem side of the story, the plot also heavily involves the 3 realms: Heaven, Earth and Hell. As these three sides colide after the outbreak of the run away spirits, many series of events are revolved around Keima and even the concept of time is used in this manga. Yes TIME, anything about TIME is surely to guarantee a thrill!

The characters, other than the protagonist are finely crafted. Although characterization in this series was basic and had a slow development at first, the later half of the series will just snipe you down. Indeed this series has one of the most finely developed characters and they each have very different and well defined individualities, this also applies for the side characters despite them having only about 6 chapters of focus on them. This also makes the characters of this series very catchy and lovable.

Overall, this manga has made quiet an impression on me because of it's catchy characters and simple yet elagant character designs. The protagonist is very entertaining and he has a variation of hidden personalites as the story progresses. The plot and story is also very enjoyable and easy to catch on to, the pacing is rather smooth and is always congruent with the characters. However the major drawback for now, is the utterly long 168 hour wait for a chapter update....

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