The World God Only Knows (Anime) Review

The World God Only Knows (2010)
Format: TV Series, 12 X 24 minutes
Studio: Manglobe
Score: 2 stars
Summary: Had so much potential, with a strong start and unique direction, art and animation, but ultimately failed on almost all fronts.



The World God Only Knows (abbreviated TWGOK) started off so well. The premise was interesting; Our lead character (an otaku) has to win over the hearts of several girls to free their souls from evil spirits. After each "conquest", the girl loses all memory of what happened between the protagonist and herself. The episodes had very good pacing and direction, and looked rather unique too (reminded me of Bleach in it's style actually). That is, until the first few episodes concluded.

The later episodes just seemed to drag on and on. The Kanon arc was especially irritating with it's lack of direction and poor pacing. You never really know when it was going to end, but you really hope it would. The very worst of it all was the last episode. Instead of trying to redeem itself, people at Manglobe decided to just pad out 24 minutes of pointlessness and then ANNOUNCED A SECOND SEASON.

But first, let's talk about the staff and studio behind this. Manglobe has, in my humble opinion, a history of making excellent anime. A list of all the TV anime they have produced (and not just simply help out in):

• Samurai Champloo (Television series, 2004)
• Ergo Proxy (Television series, 2006)
• Michiko to Hatchin (Television series, 2008)
• The Sacred Blacksmith (Television series, 2009)
• House of Five Leaves (Television series, 2010)

Impressed? You should be. I've personally watched Ergo Proxy and Michiko to Hatchin. Those 2 series easily match Production IG and Madhouse quality. The rest of the list come highly recommended by several popular anime bloggers including psgels from Star Crossed Anime Blog and Ben from AniPages Daily. Seriously, a studio whose whole production history is dripping with quality releasing something like this?

Coming back to the second season announcement. NO. If you really want to do a second season, please emulate what you have done with the first 4 episodes. Those were really unique and teased at what could have been a great series. Remove the first 4 episodes and I would have given 1 star.