Kamigami no Asobi – 04

It’s not true friendship until speedos are involved.

…Apparently Zeus decided to go back to summer? I’m pretty sure that the summer uniform is worn June through September, so when the hell this episode takes place is anyone’s guess. Not that there’s even really a firm sense of time in this anime, so it doesn’t even matter.

Yui’s efforts seem to be working, since the gods kind of sort of hang out now. Or at least, they all attended the meeting about clubs, which is definitely a step up from everyone ignoring what Yui says.…This plot set up is rather convenient for having the characters participate in generic school activities, isn’t it. But hey, we’re finally moving on from Apollon (he’ll have focus again some time probably, since they haven’t explained his issues yet) and we’re now on to Hades. I guess the story has decided to go through the Greek gods first? Though I don’t think that Dionysus (pfft Apollon’s nickname for him is great) will be getting an episode since he didn’t get a route, but it’s great that they’re having his character involved with what everyone else is doing. …He’s certainly doing better at being his own character compared to “I’m going to do absolutely everything Loki does” Thor. The Egyptian gods are getting pretty shafted so far too. Thoth still has personal space issues, but what else is new. They’re also pretty much entirely ignoring Anubis, but maybe they didn’t want to pay Kaji to make nothing but animal noises for episodes on end.

They cursed him for being far too moe.

Hades’s antisocial behaviour was pretty easy to solve though, since he just needed to be around optimistic people who can see past a little misfortune. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to participate (like Loki and maybe Takeru), but he just wanted everyone else’s happiness. So overall, having everyone just accept the misfortune seems like the best solution. There isn’t really much anyone else can do about the curse, unless they wanted to go and become personal counsellors to aaaaaaaaall the dead people who cursed Hades in the first place. I guess I’ll have to wait until I actually play the game to find out if they even solve this or not (though apparently Hades’s endings are kind of depressing, so maybe they don’t). …You know, I’m pretty sure that Hades bringing misfortune (other than having the misfortune of being the guy who watched over the dead) wasn’t actually a thing, but lolBroccoli. I hear they also turn Amaterasu into a guy and pretty much make up their own version of Japanese mythology in the game, so their take on the gods is pretty loosely based for some things.

I guess they had to give Hades some sort of character trait to make things more interesting. He would just be quiet and antisocial without the misfortune thing, and they already have Tsukito as a character who rarely speaks. Plus they actually gave an explanation with Hades’s curse mark, so at least they tried to give reason behind it.

At least Yui is still relevant. They probably could have had bromance solve the issue with Hades (and they kind of did with the unecessary frolicking in the rain scene), but Yui made the biggest effort, and she was acknowledged for it. The rest of the cast was only really there because Yui needed them to help out at the time. I don’t think they would have done nearly as much if she hadn’t interfered. So yeah, now that Hades will most likely be less antisocial, they can go back to ignoring him for the most part and focus on some other god for the next episode. Though maybe instead of the “stay away from me” joke, they’ll just probably have bad things happen from time to time. …Or they could just ignore that particular plot point completely from now on and just have Hades reduced to one liners, but I don’t think the writing for this is going to be THAT bad.

This was an alright episode. They’ve maybe gone into the usual pattern of harem anime and will probably spend their efforts focusing on one guy per episode, but that’s totally not a negative thing. It’s easier to give each character exposure this way. I just hope that once the episode is over that they continue to involve the character in some way. They did okay with including Apollon this episode, but Tsukito was pretty much just an extra body to animate with little to no other purpose. Er, I’m just worried that Hades will fall into the same category now that his issues are solved and he’s generally pretty quiet. Other than future worries though, I really had no other problems with the episode. Yes there was still a bit of bromance, but they’re still keeping Yui as a proactive heroine. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before either, but Brains Base’s backgrounds are all really nice as well. …The characters may be a bit QUALITY at times, but at least the sky is nice to look at.

Because all Greek gods have a thing for Japanese confectionaries. 

About Karakuri

University student and the one at Metanorn who's known for wearing glasses. Likes blood, insanity and plot twists, but also plays otome games and adores cute romance anime. It balances out... somehow.