The World God Only Knows – OVA

Before Elsie and co. can get their instruments tuned, they got a test to ace!

I can never get enough of TWGOK. Shamefully I still haven’t had a chance to watch season 1, but with season 2 still fresh in my mind I can’t wait to dive into this OVA with Jrow!

Hi there Hime, hello everyone. It feels like so long ago since season 2 concluded! At least we get to whet our appetite a bit with a nice little OVA.

It’s hot, and some of Keima’s previous conquests are fanning themselves in the heat waiting for Elsie to arrive. It seems Chihiro is finally putting her desire to form a rock band into practice as the girls head to the music room to have their first music session.

They are pretty impressed with their first attempt at a song, but when listening back to it this initial confidence plummets pretty rapidly. Poor Elsie didn’t even plug her instrument in! They also find that their schedules conflict, and as such probably won’t be able to get together that much to practice outside if school. So, they come up with the idea of forming a club!

You girls got 25 minutes to improve that awful playing!

Their teacher is against it at first, and tries to bargain with them; if they all get 100% on their next English test, he’ll okay their club. Naturally, this turns out to be a bit if a problem as the highest grade in their little group is only in the low 80s. As they are chatting, they are interposed by the pink haired Kanon-Chan, who is here for tests. She guesses what they are doing and invites them to see her on the stage. Chihiro agrees but only if she cheers them on with their band in return.

Elsie ropes Keima in (literally) to help them study, but as you can imagine he’s not exactly a good Samaratin about it. He inevitably agrees though, giving them all they need to pass the test. Kanon interrupts -again- and ends up studying with them too. Keima divides the hour between them, and when it’s Chihiro’s turn, she tells him how Kanon’s been staring at him the entire time. Kanon puts on her moe-moe glasses and asks him if they’ve met before…

God Mode, activated.

Chihiro’s playing is making Keima vomit all on his book

Keima goes home and leaves the girls to their own devices, where instead of studying for the exam, try to puzzle out Kanon’s reaction to seeing him. Somehow the girls all get 100% on the test, apart from poor Elsie, who doesn’t even scrape 50%. The teacher decides to let them form the club anyway because he’s in a good mood, I guess, and the girls relish their new-founded clubroom!

The educaytin sistem in Hell is pretty horrbile. Lets cut Elsie soem slak, eh?

Taking their cues from UtaPri, Chihiro calls out “Are you ready?” and the group plays us out to the end credit, having exponentially improved.

*Ever so slight whispering says “To Be Continued…”*

END THOUGHTS

Well that was a nice little tie-in to season 2. Chihiro was probably one of my favorite “conquests”, so I really enjoyed this OVA. I thought her arc in the series was really well concieved and executed, and it’s great to see the note it ended on come to fruition. Having not seen the first season I’m not familiar with Kanon, which did kind of stall my enjoyment a little. She didn’t come off as strong as the other girls, but I’m going to chalk that up to me not knowing her story rather than her actually being a bland character (I hope she isn’t!).

This was a really nice, lazy OVA. It never dragged or felt forced. Much like the series the production team really know their pacing, which is a gold star to anyone who suffers from chronic bad pacing in their anime. So I appreciated that. On the whole, though – it was just fun. Which is what TWGOK is all about. While it does have this talent for knowing when to be serious and when to be light-hearted, at it’s core it’s a parody and a celebration of everything otaku, the good and the bad.

I’m a bit dissappointed that there was no hints of a third season dropped, but we can still live and hope! [cross-dressing Keima; I desire it.] Still, all in all this was a nice little extra dose of TWGOK’s fun and silliness.

Fun times with Elsie and some of Keima’s past conquests. Since this was animated from chapters 54 & 55, it felt like a side episode and had the same touch of charm and the rhythm that makes TWGOK as enjoyable as it is for me, Hime and many others. I agree with her that Chihiro’s arc was terrific, so more time with her and also Ayumi is cool. I do want to let Hime know that Kanon’s arc was one of season 1’s best (like episodes 5-7 iirc)… and that she looks cute in her bikini in the OP. That song has been on my iPod for a couple weeks, and I love how the OP animation took the awesome visual style of the past two seasons and adapted something to Kanon’s more bubbly, pop-princess personality.

No wonder these girls are failing! Keima’s trying to be all cool about it and help them study, but instead they’re on the phone and playing crappy guitar. Cmon now. Keima’s become one of my favorite characters since I marathoned season 1 about a year ago and it’s always fun to see him flip that switch and just be super cool and suave when he needs to be. The show hinted last season at Keima’s old “girlfriends” remembering him, and Kanon showed it off to the point of even asking if she knew him. It could be quite problematic for Keima in the future if indeed the memories don’t ever fully go away.

I think Hime might’ve missed it, but the slightest hint of whisper of “To Be Continued” brings an extra 1% chance/hope of Season 3. All we can do is watch this, talk about it here and buy the DVDs that Sentai Filmworks just licensed for release in the USA (which I definitely plan on doing).