The World God Only Knows Season 1 Review

Synopsis:
At the start of the series, Keima receives an e-mail offering him a contract to "conquer" girls. When he accepts it, thinking it is an invitation to a game, a demon from Hell named Elsie appears. She asks for his cooperation to help her in catching runaway spirits. These spirits hide themselves inside the hearts of girls, and Elsie suggests that the only method to force the spirits out is by "conquering" the girl’s hearts, making them fall in love with him and filling up the gaps which the runaway spirits hide in. Interested only in 2D girls, however, Keima is appalled by the idea, and refuses the assignment as he has no romantic real life experiences whatsoever.

Review:

This is one of those series that comes around every couple years that gets overly ignored. People will read the summary and immediately dismiss the series without ever evening reading about it or watching it. I’m here to smash that idea because this series deserves tons of popularity in the anime/manga world. The artwork is very well drawn out and is constantly refreshing, especially with all the new faces every episode. Musically this series rivals many of the more dominant anime on the market. The episodes with the music idol are a great example of how well done the music is in the series. There was plenty of talent in the voice acting though none of the actors/actresses have any major roles in their background. The dating sim twist is very interesting and much more in depth than I originally thought it was going to be. You can truly tell how much detail and attention went into the focus on the story.

I didn’t really have any personal complaints, but I did here some uninformed reviewers complaining about some of the story elements. After every capture is made the girl that he had just won over forgets ever encountering the lead character. This made even myself questionable about how much was forgotten and what is the overall point if nobody ever remembers anything. This gets explain later on trust me, though I cannot get into detail without spoiling future episodes in the series. A common theme I have with most of these anime is how things like monsters destroying the school is overlooked by everyone aside from the lead cast. It is just something you have to learn to accept in the anime world, in most cases that is.

If you are looking for an anime that is light on fanservice, but very high on awkward moments then this series will suit you. There aren’t a lot of negatives for this series because everything is well written and spaced out through the entire season. While the first season did leave plenty of questions, with the second series already halfway complete now is the time to catch up on this amazing anime. Keep an eye out because I expect to be seeing plenty more from this series.

4/5

Studio: Manglobe   Genre: Romance/Comedy Episodes: 12

Original Run: Oct 6, 2010 to Dec 22, 2010 Language: Japanese with Subs

Article by: Larry Harris