The World God Only Knows: Goddesses Arc – 04
No means no, fellas.
 It’s always fun watching Keima’s carefully laid plans to play his girls get railroaded, and what a treat it was to see Vulcanus try to get in his way only to become his next capture. I’m loving the lightning quick pacing of this season so far. This might have been the slowest episode yet, and it still managed to get through a bunch of significant plot points, including the capture of the 3rd goddess and the information that Vintage has infiltrated the loose souls division that Haqua leads. |
Where did she get that stepladder? Seriously, it was flying at his head before he even finished his line.
So Keima now gets to experience the nightmare that every harem lead has to, managing existing relationships with girls while handling new ones coming after him. It’s nice to see such a shift from the series’s tradition, but I wonder how long it can remain fresh, considering every gag based on multiple girls going after one guy has been done every which way to Sunday in the harem-infested world of anime. To be fair, KamiNomi brings something new to the table, with the goddesses depending on their hosts’ affection for Keima in order to raise their own strength. Which gave us some amusing bits like Vulcanus/Tsukiyo (Vulkiyo? Tsukanus?) getting him to carry her around in front of the other girls, or Diana/Tenri (Dianri? Tenana?) trying to force herself onto him so that she can get wings of her own.
That wiggle of her retracted wings at the end sold the gag.
For some people, this would be a very positive development.
At least Keima getting physically abused is a gag that’s guaranteed not to get old. Of which there was plenty in this episode, with everything from books, benches, stone floor tiles, and feet getting thrown at him. The excessive violence inflicted on some harem protagonists can be so excessive to be off putting (coughlovehinacough), but unlike most harem protagonists, Keima is a manipulative sociopath. Starting with Shiori this episode was good, because it reminded us of that before all the beatings went down. Notice how after reading her French Revolution magical girl story, he had regrets about having to tell Shiori that he liked it – not for any ethical reasons about telling a bold faced lie to a girl seriously pouring her heart out, but rather because the story was so bad that he felt he was breaking his artistic integrity. What a jerk.
Of course, he always has a way of making it in the end, as he did in winning Tsukiyo’s heart again. So here’s where knowing what actually went down in her arc might have helped – I had no idea about the talking magical doll. Come on, Manglobe, you guys made an entire episode for Kanon that was pure fanservice with no bearing on this season. You couldn’t have done one of Yui’s or Tsukiyo’s arcs? Gotta learn to plan ahead, guys.
If Keima had taken time away from galge to watch A Certain Magical Index or Shinsekai Yori, he would have known, you should never consider yourself safe when up against a telekinesis user.
I get that Keima needed Tsukiyo to fall for him again in order to power up her goddess, but once Vulcanus came right out and said who she was, why didn’t he just explain to her the situation? It’s possible that that knowledge would have made “capturing” Tsukiyo harder, but he was getting beaten up pretty bad. Then again, he’s never really shown much of a tendency for self preservation, so I guess this is no surprise. And, again, he did make it through to her in the end, though it did feel a bit contrived, since Keima didn’t really say anything convincing other than, “Kiss me! That can solve all our problems!” (spoiler: no it can’t). I guess it’s somewhat romantic which Tsukiyo might have a weakness for, but that brings us back to the point about her missing arc.
So now that the deadly curse has been lifted off Apollo/Kanon (Aponon? Kanpollo?)… surprise! She cast a spell on herself for protection, and guess what, that means you have to keep finding those goddesses, Keima! Lucky you! At least the show was good enough to come right out and call it the dumb RPG fetch quest it is. It doesn’t excuse that plot device, but it does lessen the blow a bit. Try watching a season of 24 and seeing how many contrived fetch quests get chained together without a hint of irony. But whatever, all that’s just a framing device at this point for Keima’s further misadventures with his targeted girls, and those misadventures have been just as good as in previous seasons so far. Next episode seems to be focused on Yui, which is exciting since she’s the only person who seems to befuddle Keima. I’m looking forward to it.
Preview:
Plus, we get to see him crossdress!
About lvlln
A math/science geek and a self-dubbed cynical optimist. I don't care if it's deep, if it can make me feel something or laugh, it's fine in my book. @lvlln
POWUH: 800-899 and Mad Scientist with 814 comments
Yup, Manglobe really dropped the ball for skipping Tsukiyo and Yui. But as you mention, I wonder how difficult it is to foresee the extent to which source material will be adapted.
As a matter of fact, the sales for TWGOK have always been poor afaik, so I can excuse Manglobe for not introducing characters leading up to an arc that’s this far into the storyline. Then again, they’ve stuck through it for three seasons and a plethora of OVAs despite the disappointing sales, so perhaps some other driving force is at work.
POWUH: 700-799 and Parkouring Fanboy with 776 comments
Well, it seems likely they knew that they would be adapting the Goddesses arc when they decided to do Tenri’s arc via 2 OVAs after S2. Kanon 100% came out after that, so they should’ve known that doing either Yui’s or Tsukiyo’s instead would have been further setup for this season.
POWUH: Meta Resident and Werewolf Chaser with 1270 comments
………….Dammit all I can see frm gender bend Keima is a brown Megurine Luka D: Also the doll doesn’t talk in her arc because she doesn’t have enough Love Points*TM to awaken Vulcanus yet. Though there are subtle hints in the manga omake.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
It’s becoming something to look forward to when Keima is suffering for his objectives. No pain, no gain. I don’t know how he can continue to stand such physical abuse.
As for the preview where he’s cross dressing, with his facial appearance, he looks like that cross dresser Rui from Gatchaman Crowds.
POWUH: 600-699 and LN Enthusiast with 623 comments
>Tsukanus
Just…no.
POWUH: 600-699 with 691 comments
i found Tsukanus to be good…the ones who were bad: Dianri, Tenana, Aponon
the rest is usable…kind of a exotic rpg character name
and
see what i’ve been trying to say from the begining, skiping Tsukiyo and Yui’s arc was a bad move, especially if you consider that the two are goddess…
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I don’t know that we really needed to see either Tsukiyo’s or Yui’s arc to understand what’s going on here. Would it have been interesting? Sure. A lot more interesting than a lot of the girls they showed before. But if they’d skipped them before, they would have had all the manga fans up in arms then with “How can you skip Jun or Kusunoki or *whoever*?” And if the choice is either another season of the same kind of captures as before, or this season of the goddesses arc (which is pretty much what the choice is), then I think goddesses is a lot better choice. It doesn’t matter how interesting some of them are, or what importance they have now. Their captures are only academically interesting at this point.
POWUH: 700-799 and Parkouring Fanboy with 776 comments
Well, I’m not talking about doing a whole season of captures preceding the goddesses arc, just replacing Kanon’s fanservice ep with either one of Yui’s or Tsukiyo’s. And their captures certainly do make a significant difference, if only for the fact that we missed getting to know these girls before this arc, so it’s harder to care for them, compared to the girls we saw before like Ayumi or Kanon.