Okay, so I’m going to be covering multiple series this week for this category. People have kept saying over and over that this arc of TWGOK would be something special, and now that I’ve watched it, I do have to say: it was indeed the best arc of the series so far.
Finally, this show bring sin an actually normal girl who is more than just another stereotype come alive. Finally this show actually brings in a boundary between reality and fiction, and finally Keima actually develops. If anything, this episode was refreshing and different, and it was the first major arc since the first episode of the first season that did not feel like a chore. But I do have a few problems with it.
Especially near the end, the girl of this episode turned formulaic again. The whole moral speech-kiss routine actually wasn’t quite different from the other arcs. In fact, every arc has simply ended in the same way. It’s not the first show to do that and things like that can be done well; heck, Jigoku Shoujo turned it into an art and all, but Keima’s moral advice about how she should live… probably was the least interesting part of the entire arc.
That’s just nitpicking, though. The question is: was it worth it sitting through sixteen episodes of mediocrity, just to see this? For that, I unfortunately have to say “no”. I could just as easily have skipped a bunch of arcs, and I wouldn’t have missed anything. The thing is, that at the moment, this series feels like it’s a series where various game characters have escaped into the real world where the main character has to conquer them back, with this arc being the point where he actually has to encounter a real girl. Unlike Gosick, which despite its mediocre episodes did a wonderful job of building up and using this build-up, The World God Only Knows has too little of this to really make me reconsider labelling this as a waste of time. The rest of the series needs to be of at least this calibre for that to happen.
What was up with that Southpark-reference, though? I really noticed that the references this series puts in are… completely random and out of context.
Rating: * (Good)
“I could just as easily have skipped a bunch of arcs, and I wouldn’t have missed anything.”
WRONG! It’s still going to be in the third season or so but the arcs will actually come together.
I also enjoyed this episode because it finally developed something about Keima. For the REST of the episodes for the season…well, the last girl to be conquered’s not anything special. Heck she’s not a girl lol.
TWGOK might not just be your type. It simply is entertaining and amusing. It doesn’t have that usual equation you’re looking for, I suppose. With building up and everything. It’s heavily focused on dialogs and episodes and the things that Keima do.
This show is kind of a genre piece; you either love it or hate it. It’s arcs are also very self contained (for now, anyways – the manga does tie it together eventually).
I don’t think Manglobe is doing an especially good job, either. Stuff goes weird sometimes.
K.K. is right about that. Manglobe isn’t doing the best job. The funny thing is that the problem isn’t that they aren’t being faithful. In fact they are being faithful enough that I can’t really complain on that matter. No, the problem is execution. It’s also the reason why deadman wonderland anime is not as good as it was in the manga.
TWGOK is not a deep and meaningful manga. It’s just an entertaining read. It is formulaic but the mangaka knows when to change the formula up so that people don’t get bored with it. So here’s the problem with the anime adaption. It’s the comedy. TWGOK is essentially a parody and comedy is the main element. But mangalobe omits jokes and the ones they do include are executed poorly. Of course it doesn’t help that they drag out arcs more than necessary.(Why did Kanon and Shiori even need a back story?) But I really think it’s the poorly done comedy that drags the adaption down.
“this series feels like it’s a series where various game characters have escaped into the real world where the main character has to conquer them back”
Maybe this is the point, targets be like gal games characters, a parody.
Does anyone else feel that Chihiro had the most personality out of all the other girls?
I’ve been going through the whole 142 chapters of the manga during the last few days. The plot do get interesting at some point, but I doubt that the anime will get there, or it will have to cut out many of the girls (there are actually 16 captures at the moment). Out of those 16, only 7 take a bigger part in the plot. The structure of the manga and its plot makes it so that the introduction of the cast is quite long. True, the captures are quite similar and I believe that the mangaka did a poor job when characterising most of the cast, probably mostly to keep the story fast paced and interesting for a younger audience that might not be happy with a very deep case study of each girl’s psychological distress (which, by the way, is the true subject of the story: human distress). Spouting cheesy morals, cheering them on in this passionate way… is really just for show: an act needed to fill the gap in the girls’ heart to drive out the runaway spirit. Right now, the anime is just very engrossed in how Keima helps those girls, but, as the manga moves on, as the picture becomes bigger, the plot becomes less about the captures and the dating sims parody and more about the runaway spirits. What bothers me most is not that the captures are formulaic, but that it always makes Keima a cross of a shrink and a lover. In a way, relationships, might they be love or therapeutic ones, are formulaic in how they develop and, here, there is simply a «galge theory» emphasis added over, just like tropes are added over reality in series. Rather, this show makes love to be the consequence of psychological healing, thus creating a kiss scene that is often not necessary and appears quite random. As of now, because Keima is always a half-assed mix of a lover and a shrink seducing stereotypes, most of the capture arcs are only enjoyable because of Keima’s antics and cold attitude. The manga will probably never get much better than it is right now, which is only a few levels over what the anime provided thus far, so I guess it is just not really worth it beyond the entertainment value. The whole thing would have been better if the mangaka would have just decided to take Keima as he is, make him late 20’s and working in a big corporate business and do character studies of real women instead of high school girls. The next arc is probably one of the best capturing arcs in the manga, so it will probably deliver an uplifting feeling for the end of the season. If they don’t get a third season… well, I don’t know how the creator will bring closure, but it’s going to be ugly, like, Keima deciding to live in the real world and thus escaping the contract, which turns out to be a curse for ignoring God’s creation. On a side note, whoever directed the Chihiro conclusion made it to be much superior to the manga in terms of portraying and atmosphere: the scenes following her as she goes to meet Keima with the piano background were anime original and really added a lot to make Chihiro more substantial.
Chihiro’s arc is the best so far in the anime. Next episode is suposed to be comedy, and after that comes another one that is good in the manga.
I disagree with some critics of the manga; I think it actually gets better as time goes by (with a few exceptions), we have to consider as well that this is a commedy/parody and not some type of psycological study (they are actually making fun of that altogether). The problem being, as some have pointed out, that the anime is really slow paced and too serious in some cases where it shouldn’t, yet this turned out pretty well in this arc except for a couple of minutes in the end.
Starting from this point we start getting some recurring characters. And I’d like if they animate his mom’s story. If they ever make a third season I just hope that they’ll improve the pace… I wont spoil anything but I just want all the “cast” to be together by the end of the third season.
congratulation for the worst review of this anime what have read,simply drop this and see other thing.
Preference.