TL;DR
Story: 4/10
Art: 8/10
Sound: 6/10
Character: 7/10
Enjoyment: 7/10
Overall: 6/10 (rounded down from 6.25)
Good points:
+ Very funny and has good humour
+ Good ED Theme
+ One slight plot twist in the Chihiro arc
+ Very good character design with many variations
+ Strong male main lead
+ Good character growth
+ Some touching and emotional / romantic scenes
Bad points:
- Lack of overarching / engaging plot
- Lack of some coherence in the Nagase / Kusunoki arc
- Lousy OP Theme
- Lack of some important character development, especially in main characters
- Can be a bit boring towards the middle
- 2 filler episodes out of 12 of them
Story: 4/10
There are 4 main plot arcs to the story, 1 of them being an encounter with Haqua and a gigantic loose soul, and 3 of them being the regular "capturing" of loose souls by making girls fall in love with Keima - Kusunoki, Chihiro and Nagase. Once again, there is a lack of an overall plot line, though Haqua does shed a bit of light on the extent of this "loose soul" capturing contract - 60,000 more - but this adds nothing to the plot whatsoever, neither does it actually give us an indication about whether the end is coming.
The first arc, Keima encounters Kusunoki - a martial arts / karate tough girl who is basically struggling to reconcile her feminine liking for kawaii things (like cats and clothing), with her masculine fighter training and background. Nothing very ingenious here, sadly. Keima himself didn't do much except take her out for a fun date which was honestly more for comic laughter than to drive to plot. In the end, Kusunoki resolved it on her own by "fighting" with her feminine side, eventually leading to an awkward compromise that, to me, didn't really solve the main problem. Perhaps this anime was created too long ago and the writers were still stuck in their own gender stereotypes - but yeah, this plot arc didn't shine too much. Also, Kusunoki randomly being "forced" awkwardly to kiss Keima at the end was very unconvincing.
In the second arc, Haqua comes in, and this is where things start getting interesting. She happens to drop by after failing to catch a loose soul, then gets Elsie's help to capture the loose soul - after quite a lot of cooperation and hard work. Keima doesn't really do much in this particular arc, which is actually quite good in my opinion, since it shows that the actual "demons" do have some ability to capture loose souls on their own - as long as the soul has not possessed anyone. There is also talk about how loose souls can possess even demons, and there is greater clarity about the difference between the civilized demons and the more "wild / loose" ones who wreck havoc on the earth - so that's some much needed plot development right there. (+1 to interest, +1 to depth)
In the third arc, we get another interesting girl - this time by the name of Chihiro. Everything about her is uninteresting - she's basically a wallflower / background character with no exceptional skills and nothing (basically, this character is someone the audience can empathize with the most). The plot for this one, however, gets a slight twist, which I thought was good, though it was kind of expected. Keima starts off trying to fill up Chihiro's heart by helping her to make her crush fall in love with her - but it turns out that Chihiro turns back at the last moment, and Keima is forced to make her fall in love with him instead. I also think that out of all the girls so far, Chihiro is by far the most "realistic" capture of them all. As an ordinary girl with no particularly special powers bestowed on her, she reacts convincingly to everything that Keima throws at her. (+1 for depth, +1 for coherence)
In the fourth arc, the final one, we have student teacher Nagase, who used to be on the school's basketball team captain - but disbanded the team after the members left the squad because Nagase was "too passionate" about basketball. I really didn't like how this arc played out because it really didn't make much sense. Nagase, as a teacher, tries to help Keima to get off his gaming during class - but she is convinced that this is because Keima is "lonely". Clearly, Nagase has not seen the interaction between Keima and Elsie and how they are always inseparable.
After many awkward encounters with Nagase during lunch, in class playing games, Keima ends up going to watch a pro-wrestling match with Nagase - and he does so by stealing her seat, then making her share seats with him. First of all, you can't possibly fit two people there without disturbing the rest of the people watching, and second of all, how the heck did Keima even know that Nagase was going to some pro-wrestling match? I know Elsie has information on Nagase, but this is only limited to background info, interest, hobbies, and doesn't actually reflect what is going on in Nagase's calendar / notifications / planner right?
After that match, Nagase does one last passionate thing in class before breaking down and heading to the basketball locker room, only to find Keima hiding inside her old locker - which is not only creepy, but almost impossible under any case. I'm not talking about whether Keima could actually fit inside, but if you check the time that Nagase had to reach the locker room and Keima, you would clearly see that Nagase had a headstart of around 30 seconds. Assuming both of them went directly to the basketball locker room - Nagase would have reached first, and there was no way that Keima could have squeezed himself into that locker in time, unnoticed, without leaving any traces such as an open door, a locker, or anything else whatsoever. Although to confirm this, we must have more information about how the "dummy swap" spell by Elsie actually works.
In any case, after Nagase was cheered up by her students, at the end, she probably had no reason whatsoever to go back and kiss Keima. This probably wasn't even part of the plan. Keima had no intention of kissing her or romantically proposing to her - and somehow he was just there at the right time so that the loose soul could be captured? It was very forced toward the end of this arc, I felt.
We're not even very sure if they went for the marathon in the end, because remember that Nagase signed all of them up without their permission? Firstly, is it really possible to sign an entire class up for a marathon without sufficient details like shirt sizes / NOK details / even making payment? Even if Nagase just used the school's database of students - she would have to fork out close to $1000 just to register the entire class. The anime also never explicitly said anything about Nagase cancelling the marathon or the class going for the marathon in the end - they really glossed over this plot point, didn't they?
As a whole, the story lacks quite a bit of depth, coherence, and only 1 of the plot arcs was actually very interesting. The rest were "ordinary" and were not very special compared to the previous captures.
Art: 8/10
Quality art.
Animation: 2/3 - The animations were spot-on, striking and very colourful
Aesthetics: 3/3 - I really loved the cute theme
OP Sequence: 2/2 - Very well choreographed intro scenes
ED Sequence: 1/2 - Nice, but could have been more interesting
Sound: 6/10
OP Theme: 0/2 - Really bad. Stop it with those horrible English intros please.
ED Theme: 2/2 - Really good, upbeat and catchy. Why isn't this the opening theme??
Background Music: 2/2 - These were mostly classical, and were used in all the romantic portions of the anime. They suit the mood really well.
Additional Themes: 2/4 - The comic / upbeat theme that plays at every start of an episode, the light hearted one, is really comfortable to listen to.
Character: 7/10
Once again, we will look at the main characters, Keima and Elsie, first.
Since the first season, Keima has gotten slightly more used to all this catching real-life girls stuff that it's already second nature, and he's already accepted his fate that he pretty much has to embark on a new mission every time the detector goes off "Doro doro doro..." As a character though, he has grown slightly, as by the end of the anime, he starts to accept reality more - and says that there might be an "ideal" path along the very sad real world that he must find. Keima himself however, still doesn't have much of a backstory, and we don't find out much about any other sides / back stories to his character - as not much of his life other than gaming is shown, or perhaps his entire life is just games. Keima as character remains interesting though, especially in the way that he strategizes his captures, though most of it this time, may have just been due to dumb luck. (+1 to interest, +1 to growth)
Elsie, too, has not changed much. She's still her usual hyper-active useless self, and we honestly don't know much about her past either - save for the fact that she was a classmate of Haqua - but it doesn't tell us anything about Elsie.
Haqua, a new character in this series, is also another "tsundere" type, but maybe less so. She does come with some backstory - a demon who aces all the theory tests back in school, through sheer hard work and determination, but when it comes to the real world, she falls flat and can't seem to replicate all the successes she had in the past - so that's good, and it really helps to explain her frustrations / dissatisfaction with her current situation. She isn't that interesting of a character though, and she also doesn't exhibit much growth. (+1 to depth)
Moving on to the 3 main heroines, Kusunoki is another "tsundere", but this time, it's one that can really kick ass. Definitely one of my favourite character archetypes - the fighter girl - made famous by FFVII's Tifa, that shows that pretty girls can pack a punch that will send you flying across the room. Kusunoki show's some growth after doing girly stuff on a date with Keima, and also after "embracing" and "accepting" her feminine side. Kusunoki, in this manner has two sides to her, and makes her more multi-faceted than most other girls. (+1 for growth, +1 for uniqueness)
Chihiro, is the other less likeable character, that nobody likes and nobody dislikes either. She's just the stereotypically normal girl with stereotypically normal interests and dreams - but since she is this way, you can really empathize with this girl - how she always feels inferior to everyone else who can do things better than she can, how she loses to someone in every department, singing, sports, studying, looks, you name it. But she eventually grows out of this depressing state and moves on to decide to start a band, despite knowing that she sucks at singing, just because she wants to follow her heart. (+1 for growth)
Finally, we have Nagase, the character that I'm not convinced would do so many crazy stuff just because she's passionate about trying to get others to agree with her / follow along with her or trying to "help others" in ways that are usually over-the-top and hence uncomfortable for many people. Her personality is actually very linear - sure she has an interesting back story, but it only goes to prove one point - that Nagase suffers from "overdose of passion" syndrome and can't understand that you can't impose ideals on other people.(+1 for depth)
Nagase isn't that interesting of a character either - and I thought that what Keima did with her was not anywhere near romantic enough to warrant that kiss at the end. All he really did was talk to her in a basketball court and told her to stop imposing her ideals on people, yet continue living out her own ideals for herself, and then it was straight cut to a scene where all her students came over to apologize and encourage her.
Enjoyment: 7/10
I definitely enjoyed this comedy, once again, with so many laughs here and there and all the funny cutscenes with Keima explaining things to Elsie who always has that clueless cute look on her face :3 The humour is really very good and is one of the few things that this anime executes perfectly. (3 points for good humour)
In terms of romance, I would say that there were some touching scenes - especially the scene on the boat with Keima and Chihiro. That was probably the one that I felt the most emotions for. The other two kisses by Kusunoki and Nagase were too forced, so I can't give the romance bit too high this time around. Kusunoki going on a date with Keima was -slightly- romantic though, and it definitely was enjoyable to watch Kusunoki's reactions to cute stuff (2 points for romance)
However, I have to say that there were honestly some parts of the show where I felt bored - mainly in the Chihiro arc where it seemed very circular in nature - like they were going nowhere, and the background music was so slow that it was making me fall asleep. Luckily, this was only for one of the arcs. (2 points for pacing)
Unfortunately there were some filler episodes - namely episode 8 and 12, so I can't give it any bonus points.
Overall: 6.25/10
Kami Nomi 2 seemed interesting, but as a whole, it was inferior to the first season. But I guess it's still necessary to watch because of the characters who will be become main characters again in Kami Nomi 3 - so it's worth watching if you intend to continue the series to season 3, which I believe will be the best out of the three.
