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....
http://on.fb.me/105WD8m
