The World God Only Knows: Goddesses Arc – 02

It’s Survivor: KamiNomi! Who will be voted off Keima’s harem next week?

The third season of The World God Only Knows started with more of a whimper than with a bang, but at least it ended with a nice cliffhanger. The second episode picked up right where that left off, setting up the arc with Keima’s most difficult challenge yet, as he’s forced to revisit many of his previous captures while also keeping everyone oblivious of each other and of Kanon’s disappearance. That along with the return of girl-on-Keima violence made this one a much more fun episode to watch.

Chihiro may be a little plain, but at least she likes to physically hurt Keima.

You’ll have to excuse me while I swoon over Ayumi and her most wonderful legs.

Now that was more like the KamiNomi I remembered: Keima acting like a pompous douche while getting beaten every which way by girls he’s trying to court. Even the tired accidentally-walking-in-on-a-bath bit was amusing, thanks to his stone cold demeanor. And it looks like the “capture” plot pattern is back, with the twist that he has to tackle the 5-girl harem route and also do it within a week. Things just don’t get any easier for the poor fellow, does it? But unlike the regular captures from prior seasons, Keima is actually motivated, as noted by Haqua. Before, he was fighting for his own survival, being dragged along by Elsie, but now that he’s fighting for Kanon’s, he’s taking charge. It’s actually making me take a liking to the insufferable son of a bitch.

Keima managed to narrow down the list of candidates surprisingly fast, and this is where I thought the quick pacing of the adaptation hurt the show a bit. He made some blatant leaps in logic that left me scratching my head. First, how does he know that all the goddesses are anywhere near him? Earth is a big place, and is there any reason to believe that all the goddesses ended up in the same country, much less the exact same school? Next, how does he know that all the goddesses are hiding within his prior captures? Again, no good reason to presume that. Perhaps his speculation that he was selected because the goddesses would appear near him for him to save has some truth to it. This being a story of gods and demons, some convenient fate would fit right in. And finally, how did he narrow down the list to those closest to him? Yet again, no good reason. He did investigate a lot of individuals, but he also threw out plenty of candidates for not being in his grade. Yeah, he needs to take some shortcuts due to the time limit, but I would have liked at least some handwaving instead of evidence-free declarations.

New girl Tsukiyo elbows in.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Keima like this before. I can’t remember any such incidents off the top of my head, at least.

We can now see why 2 of the 3 girls appeared in that flashback montage. And seeing Yui and Tsukiyo in the spotlight again has me wondering about what I must have missed. Does Tsukiyo’s (apparent) passive aggressive response to Keima’s apology make sense given what we saw of her during her capture? What about Yui’s new more boyish image? That one caught Keima off guard, so I guess not. But was she as much of a Yamato Nadeshiko as the flashbacks made her appear?

I suppose those details are secondary, though. Tsukiyo seems a little too dry and passive, but hopefully she’ll get some chances to abuse Keima. Yui’s really awesome, though. Her mannish style of dress and speech and aggressive courting of Keima captured my heart immediately. But I’m most excited to see the return of Ayumi, Keima’s very first capture and my personal favorite of the girls. That athleticism combined with the short hair and hairband… Wow. Chihiro also satisfies my short hair preferences, and a really toned down Kana Asumi voice is a pleasure. Even if she really is rather an uninteresting girl. Shiori, I could do without. Kana Hanazawa, bless her beautiful voice, playing such a meek, shy, quiet character doesn’t do much for me. I didn’t really like her arc much last season.

Yes! Even Haqua gets in on the action!

Part of me hopes that Keima will be proven wrong in his list, and at least one of the goddesses will be in a girl he didn’t think of. Bonus points if it’s one he never even met before. Based on this episode, Chihiro and Shiori seem like safe bets, with Ayumi and Tsukiyo very strong maybes. The fact that Yui appeared to have forgotten Keima makes her the obvious odd one out, though that also ironically makes me think she has to be a match. Admittedly my confidence level is pretty low for all of these guesses, which is a good thing at this point. It leaves me looking forward to what will happen next week.

Preview:

I guess she’s not so bad when making faces like this.