“The World God Only Knows: Season Two” is a fun, delightful, emotional anime series continuing the adventures of video-game loving Keima and demon Elsie as they continue their pact of collecting demons but also for both characters to grow as individuals and work as a team. If you want something lighthearted, not dark, deep or perverted, definitely give “The World God Only Knows” a chance!Â
Images courtesy of © Tamiki Wakaki/Shogakukan, Kaminomi Project, TV Tokyo 2010. All Rights Reserved.
TITLE: The World God Only Knows: Season Two
YEAR OF SERIES RELEASE: 2011
DURATION: 12 Episodes (300 Minutes)
BLU-RAY DISC INFORMATION: 1080p High Definition, English and Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0, Subtitles: English
RATED: TV 14D
COMPANY: Sentai Filmworks
RELEASE DATE: August 7, 2012
Originally created by Tamiki Wakaki
Directed by Shigehito Takayanagi
Series Composition by Hideyuki Kurata
Music by Hayato Matsuo
Character Design: Akio Watanabe
Art Director: Ayumi Sato
Anime Production by Manglobe
Featuring the voices of:
Hiro Shimono/Chris Patton as Keima Katsuragi
Kanae ItÅ/Elysia de Lute Ima as Elysia de Lute Ima
Ayana Taketatsu/Kaytha Coker as Ayumi Takahara
Aki Toyosaki/Cynthia Martinez as Jun Nagase
Ami Koshimizu/Maggie Flecknoe as Kusunoki Kasuga
Kana Asumi/Brittney Karbowski as Chihiro Kosaka
Saori Hayami as Haqua d’rot Herminium
Atsuko Tanaka as Yuri NikaidÅ
Ayana Taketatsu as Ayumi Takahara
Every otaku’s favorite dating-sims champion is back! Keima still has his adorable lost soul-hunting, demon cutie with him, and together, they continue their pursuit of finding escaped lost souls who are hiding within beautiful, young school girls. But how to release these trapped spirits? Why, they have to get the girls to fall in love, of course!
This time when lost souls turn up in everyone from the school’s sexy bully to the school’s hottest new student teacher, Keima finds even his romantic powers are going to have to work over time. And when a giant loose soul turns the entire school into a group of love-starved zombies, Keima and Elsie have to recruit a new demon to help!
Hardcore gamer Keima Katsuragi and demon Elysia de Lute Ima are back in more adventures to capture demons as part of their pact in the second season of “The World God Only Knows” which will be available on Blu-ray and DVD courtesy of Sentai Filmworks.
What is “The World God Only Knows”?
In 2008, manga artist Tamiki Wakaki created the series “Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai†(The World God Only Knows) which was serialized in “Weekly Shonen Sunday†and is still ongoing today.
In 2010, an anime adaptation of the series featuring 12-episodes were created and featured anime produced by Manglobe (“Deadman Wonderlandâ€, “Samurai Champlooâ€, “Ergo Proxyâ€, “House of Five Leavesâ€) and followed by an additional 12 episodes in 2011.
The series is directed by Shigehito Takayanagi (“Galaxy Angelâ€, “Kanamemoâ€, “Trigunâ€), screenplay by Hideyuki Kurata (“Bamboo Bladeâ€, “Excel Sagaâ€, “R.O.D. – the TV-â€), music by Hayato Matsuo (“Saint Tailâ€, “Transformers Armadaâ€, “Saint Tailâ€), character design by Akio Watanabe (“Starship Girl Yamamoto Yohkoâ€, “Nurse Witch Komugiâ€, “Akiba-Chanâ€) and art direction by Ayumi Sato (“Sacred Blacksmithâ€, “CANAANâ€, “Hell Girl: Two Mirrorsâ€) and Kayako Tokou (“House of Five Leavesâ€, “Heromanâ€, “Angel Beats!â€).
The series revolves around Keima Katsuragi, a high school student who is obsessed with dating simulator videogames. And because he is so good with these games, he is known on the Internet as “The God of Conquests†in which many all over the Internet would come to him for advice on how to handle situations in how to approach girls on these games.
But while he is a master at getting girls on the video games, because he is introverted, he has not been able to have any real girlfriends and in his mind, the life inside a video game is much more better than real life. In fact, because he is constantly playing video games even in class, many in school regard him as a creepy otaku.
Meanwhile, in Hell, there are problems as spirits from Hell have escaped and have possessed several girls. And now, a demon from Hell and new Spirit Hunter named Elsie has been chosen to find someone in catching these spirits. And because Keima is known as “The God of Conquestsâ€, Elsie feels that he is the only person that can help her.
So, she sends him a contract for his help but for Keima, he thinks its an invitation to a video game and agrees.
Immediately, he is greeted by the cute and bubbly demon named Elsie and finds out from her that he has signed a contract, breaking the contract can lead to him being beheaded and killed. And in order to complete the contract, he must help catch runaway spirits that have hidden inside the hearts of girls. The only way she can get these spirits if Keima uses his method in “conquering†girl’s hearts and make them fall in love with him, thus filling their heart with love and pushing the spirits out of their body.
As Elsie adapts to the human world by becoming Keima’s illegitimate sister and attending his school and vouching for him (she has no idea that people think of him as an otaku), together they work in conquering a girl’s heart in order for her to catch the spirits and bring them back to Hell.
In season two, the demon collecting continues but also Keima starts to wonder, how many of these demons must he capture?
Meanwhile, he must help out Kusunoki Kasuga, an heir to the family’s martial arts but for some reason, has a split personality of a person who loves and hates cute things. Also, Elsie meets her friend, the overachieving Haqua from the Demon World and is now a Section Chief. But for some reason, she appears in Elsie’s region. Why is that?
Keima must also overcome depression when his classmate Chihiro Kosaka continues to torment him and what happens when the new student teacher Jun Nagase encounters problems at school and sees Keima, the lazy otaku as a challenge?
Find out in “The World God Only Knows: Season Two”!
VIDEO:
“The World God Only Knows: Season Two” is presented in 1080p High Definition and for a TV series, one of the positive things that fans will enjoy about “The World God Only Knows” is its overall look. The colors are vibrant, black levels are nice and deep, the characters are well-shaded and it helps to have anime studio such as manglobe that can dedicate a lot of time into making this series look good. From background scenery to closeups, there is plenty of detail. And during my viewing, I didn’t notice any banding issues or any problems whatsoever.
The anime series looks fantastic on Blu-ray!
AUDIO:
“The World God Only Knows: Season Two” is English and Japanese presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Dialogue and music are crystal clear through the front channels, but it would have been nice to have a 5.1 mix even if it was just the English lossless track for better dynamic range. But for the most part, the dialogue is clear and I experienced no audio problems during my viewing of the series. Voice acting is well done for both Japanese and English lossless soundtracks. While the Japanese soundtrack does have an edge on the more emotional scenes, the English voice acting was very good. Chris Patton and Luci Christian did a wonderful job playing Keim and Elysia, although I notice some repetition of voice talent in the students voices, but overall, voice acting is well-done on both soundtracks.
Subtitles are in English.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“The World God Only Knows: Season Two” comes with the following special features:
- Clean Opening and Closing Animation – The clean opening and closing animations for “The World God Only Knows: Season Two”.
- Japanese TV Spots – The Japanese TV commercials for “The World God Only Knows: Season Two”.
- Japanese Release Spots – The Japanese video release spots.
Charming, heartwarming and a lot of fun, “The World God Only Knows: Season Two†continues the adventures of Keima and Elysia.
While I’m not sure if “The World God Only Knows” will have a conclusion anytime soon, especially when both probably have to collect nearly 60,000 demons and have only collected only a handful, one must wonder what new characters will be introduced and how will it affect Keima.
The second season features Keima actually maturing quite a bit. Learning that if good things can be found in video games, perhaps good things can be found in reality. He just needs to be open to it.
In the first season, Keima was a hardcore video game otaku. Always playing dating sims in class, outside of school, at home and while nothing has changed since the first season, due to predicaments that he finds himself in, especially with those that are possessed by a demon, he starts to learn more about humanity and the emotions that these characters face.
In season two, it was interesting to see Keima helping Kusunoki Kasuga, a captain of the girl’s karate club. She wants to be strong but also maintain her femininity, so he goes on a date with her. And although he is inexperienced in reality, on video games, he has plenty of experiences of virtual dating via the dating sims, so it’s interesting to see him put these skills to use with a real person.
The new recurring character introduced in season two is Haqua, the Section Chief of District 21 of the Far East Division and the student who got the perfect grades and was the honor student of Elsie’s class. But despite having success in school, unlike Elsie, she has not been able to capture any ghosts and it begins to lead to some resentment and depression for Haqua that Elsie, who was seen as the worst in the class, has done better than her.
We also see the return of Chihiro Kosaka, the person most vocal towards Keima about him being a creepy otaku and it starts to affect Keima. But unfortunately, because Chihiro has become possessed by a demon because of her inability to attract the guys she likes, Keima must help the person who has been rude towards her. But what happens when Chihiro starts to fall for Keima?
Then we have Jun Nagase, the teacher who wants her students to be team players. But when Jun feels that Keima is a problem child and wants to only play video games, she tries to figure out why he is like the way he is. But we also learn that when people don’t work together, it depresses Ms. Nagase and leaves her open to being possessed by a demon.
The final episode features Keima playing “One Leaf”, a game with a horrible design but for some reason, he enjoys it so much that he begins ignoring everyone including Elsie. I have to say this episode made me laugh a lot due to the character design of the female video game character and Keima imagining himself falling for this big headed character.
But by the end of this season, we see Keima grow through his experiences so far of capturing demons, working to save young women and starting to see that perhaps, reality is not so bad as he thought it was.
While the character of Keima and his passion for dating sims may not break any new ground for anime series (the anime series “Chaos: Head†takes a more darker approach to an obsessed otaku gamer), what I did enjoy about the concept of “The World God Only Knows†is its approach to Keima and Elsie trying to capture these spirits.
The series could have gone the banal route of becoming a harem anime series as Keima does use his charm in order to help each of these girls that have spirits within him, but one thing I would like to see explored is Keima’s growth as a person. The first season focuses on Keima, an obsessed otaku learning how to communicate with “2D†(real women) rather than video game girls, so you hope to see him make the transition in becoming a person from the experiences that he learns from each girl that he helps. The second season shows growth, introduces a new recurring character but I’m wondering if this is going to be a series that keeps going and going, without any conclusion. 60,000+ demons to catch is a very long time, so I wonder how they are going to work this one out.
As for the Blu-ray release, I was quite pleased by the overall look for season two. One of the biggest differences compared to the DVD release of season one, was I noticed the softness, while on Blu-ray, I notice the colors, the vibrancy and details much more. The series looks fantastic in HD and fans should be quite pleased with how the series looks. The lossless track is clear, granted I wish it was a 5.1 soundtrack but the stereo lossless track is still good. Special features are pretty much the clean opening and ending themes with TV and video spots.
Overall, “The World God Only Knows: Season Two” is a fun, delightful, emotional anime series continuing the adventures of video-game loving Keima and demon Elsie as they continue their pact of collecting demons but also for both characters to grow as individuals and work as a team. If you want something lighthearted, not dark, deep or perverted, definitely give “The World God Only Knows” a chance!
