First Look: The World God Only Knows

Title: The World God Only Knows Genre: Comedy, Romance, Supernatural

Summary: Keima Katsuragi is an avid galge gamer known at his school as “Otamega” (a derogatory term combining the words Otaku and Megane) and on the internet a “The Capturing God.” One day he receives an e-mail offering him a contract to “capture” girls. He accepts thinking it’s a challenge and a demon from Hell named Elsee appears. She asks for his help in capturing runaway spirits that are hiding in “real” girls. He refuses stating he only like the girls from the game and she tells him that if he refuses then both of their heads will be cut off.

First Look: Hooray for another romance comedy! Kind of. I can’t say this is the “true” romance comedy for a couple reasons. Which brings us right to the story. The story isn’t bad. I like the idea of having multiple girls over different arcs but still be continuous. The anime can be considered episodic since each girl probably wont take more than two or three episodes. It is an anime that does revolve around dating SIMs. But unlike others that come to mind cough Amagami SS cough, this one focuses more on the the emotional bonds than physical. Another thing that I found a bit displeasing is the method the creators took to allow the character to move on. First, the character is emotionally detached to every 3D girl, so no troubles there. Secondly, he finds the task of making girls fall for him more of a chore than anything. And finally, the kicker, all the girls supposedly forget the bonds between themselves and the main character. Why do I say supposedly? Well a few of the screenshots suggest otherwise:

Hopefully this is the case because it will probably end up being a lot better than expected. The romance is fairly good. It has those, “What every girl dreams of” feeling. The characters also act accordingly and don’t suddenly fall for the guy because he does one nice thing. Often times they are a bit taken back and it looks as though it does more harm than good. A reaction I would expect almost every girl to have when someone out of the blue confesses their love to you. But then of course it is a romance so there are the sweet moments as well.

The art style as you can tell isn’t anything spectacular. The four scenes posted above pretty much sums up the extend of style they used. There are the obvious romantic scenes like dancing in the moonlight or kissing at sunset, but nothing special. The soundtrack on the other hand is well done. They went with an English lyric opening (seems pretty common lately) with a neat trance beat. It also explains the meaning behind the title The World God Only Knows. The ending is more J-pop but I like the animation a lot more. Very simple and artistic.

Final statements: Seems like it will be a pretty solid anime. If you haven’t picked up much this season I suggest checking this out. I don’t know how great it will turn out but probably the most promising so far. On watch.