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Digital
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Friday, 05 August 2011 00:00 |
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Page 1 of 3
Keima's back, and he's got a few more loose souls to deal with - and this time Elsie's got a little help from hell. But a few of their targets this time around may be too challenging for even the Capturing God to deal with...
The first season of The World God Only Knows turned out to be a decent litte excursion into the world of dating sim tropes, and in the spirit of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", the second season carries on in much the same vein. There are three girls tackled over the 12 episodes here: Kusunoki, a girl who's struggling with a bad case of split personality as her outwardly tomboyish side struggles with her inner lover of all things cute; classmate Chihiro, who in game terms is the ultimate invisible girl - the one whose personality they never quite got around to developing; and trainee teacher (warning! warning!) Jun, who finds her inability to impose her own enthusiasm on her students immensely frustrating.
If you've seen the first season, you'll know the deal here, as Keima assesses each girl, assigns the common traits seen in dating sim characters to them, and then works out how to break through their defences to release the loose soul that possessing them. Most of the fun here needs you to have seen enough dating sims (or enough anime based upon them) to see what aspects of them that the show is playing on and poking fun at - but if you've been watching anime for any length of time, that's not really a difficult requirement to meet.
Away from the usual storylines, there's also an arc here that's a little bit different. It introduces us to Haqua, Elsie's classmate from back in the days and a former straight-A student who's been rewarded with a supervisor's role in the quest to recapture the loose souls. The problem is, she's one of those people who are great in classroom environments, but who are completely hopeless when it comes to putting classroom knowledge into real-life use. Haqua, to be blunt, is absolutely hopeless in her job, knows it, but is doing her best to cover her tracks - and not doing a very good job of that, either. Haqua is a great addition to the show, bar a little bit of tsundere overkill with her personality (that really comes into play when she begins falling for Keima herself), and watching her come to terms with the way in that her life isn't going quite according to plan is probably the highlight of the season.
There are a few between-arc filler episodes, as well, with the final episode in the season being the best example of them, as Keima picks up a game that's been sitting in his backlog for a while and discovers that it may well be the best thing he's ever played. For all that Keima's good at dealing with real-world people and working out their problems (if he wasn't such a dedicated gamer, he'd probably do quite well in the real world), he's most fun to watch when he's attached to his PFP and doing what he does best: capturing 2D girls. Shame that side of him is only really used as comic filler.
Overall, though, there's not much to complain about here. The main criticism is the same one I applied to the first season: that each capture arc is playing out much the same story, only with little teaks to fit the personality of the current target, and that could get tired quite quickly - especially if you were marathoning the series. Watching broadcast-style, an episode at a time, seems like a better bet. If the first season worked for you, there's nothing here that's going to throw you off - the addition of Haqua is a benefit, even - and you're not going to feel that you've wasted your time. There are hints at the end of the season that a 3rd season could be in the works, and I can't say the idea puts me off. Well worth checking out.
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