The World God Only Knows Discussion Thread

seitora

Well-Known Member
Maybe.

You know, it's a testament to Keimas strength as the main character that you barely realise how few male characters there are.

There's like, the other male partner guy, Keimas dad and grandpa, Ramen girls father, rich girls butler and wow I'm already digging the bottom of tge barrel here
 
seitora said:
Maybe.

You know, it's a testament to Keimas strength as the main character that you barely realise how few male characters there are.

There's like, the other male partner guy, Keimas dad and grandpa, Ramen girls father, rich girls butler and wow I'm already digging the bottom of tge barrel here
You can see some other male students?
 

Hoki

Well-Known Member
The classmates that stacked themselves in a pyramid were kinda nemorable.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
MastaofBitches said:
seitora said:
Maybe.

You know, it's a testament to Keimas strength as the main character that you barely realise how few male characters there are.

There's like, the other male partner guy, Keimas dad and grandpa, Ramen girls father, rich girls butler and wow I'm already digging the bottom of tge barrel here
You can see some other male students?
Yeah, and there was that one scene in the Back to the Past arc where they were all locked up in a classroom in the elementary school
 
Wasn't there some male Karate Club members during the Hinoki capture arc?
 

goldenarms

Well-Known Member
Cynical Kyle said:
Hoki said:
Given that it's only to Chihiro that Keima shows no pretense of being anybody else other than himself must be the one thing that set her apart from other girls. Though you have to admit at first, what does Chihiro see in Keima? He's a jerk, not all that cool, and a complete nerd.
Chihiro's specs aren't exactly stellar either. She's shown to be shallow, directionless bitch and calling her "plain jane" would be too kind. Chihiro half-halfheartedly attempts things and moves on, giving up at the slightest difficulties while bemoaning her fate. It's not surprising that girl like that would fall for a guy that's living the life exactly how he wants.
Which brings up the question, what the hell does he see in her?
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
She's the NORMAL which, if Keima has yo live in the REAL, at least doesn't involve him getting involved in the affairs of goddesses and devils again

I guess anyways
 

shiki

Well-Known Member
My guess is that he saw something in her when he helped her the first time that resonated with him and it stuck with him.

Keima was all about the under-appreciated heroines with flaws (sometimes game-breaking ones) that don't necessarily catch on with the major user base. Remember that short interlude with the game with a bunch of glitches.

Plus, looks obviously aren't the #1 thing with him. Yokkyun. Keima might bitch and moan about moe-traits and how things should go but it was shown repeatedly that his main thing was accepting girls as they are while helping them change on their own terms if at all possible.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Necro. So what, this forum is mostly dead anyways.

So I'm doing a re-read of the series, since for some reason I have an obsession with it and it's one of those ones I never really forgot. I've been wanting to write fanfic for it eventually, but the further out it's been since I've read it, the more I need to re-read it. Doing so might give me some new ideas, too. I'll probably break it up into around 30 chapters at a time (depending on where an arc ends), roughly around 5 days to a week apart.

I never did watch the third season of the anime, either. So I'll definitely be re-watching the anime too, and all 3 seasons.


Anyways. Reread up to Chapter 27. After that the Chihiro arc starts.

I'm going to take a stab and guess people shipped Keima x Elsie as an early ship. She's the only 'repeat' girl early on, as everyone else lost their memories (or supposedly did, until a later retcon/revelation that some of them didn't). Then they get lots of little scenes together like her getting in the bath together, and Keima practicing love confessions on Elsie. She kisses or licks his cheek in Chapter 11. Then of course her repeated antics set her squarely into little sister territory. Though I will say...Elsie's ponytail string is wrecked in chapter 26, and is forced to let her hair down. Wow. If ponytail Elsie is little sister Elsie, hair down Elsie is really damn pretty!

Also, the conquests really go by quickly in the early part of the series. That makes sense from a meta level. I think I remember reading the author's blogpost once that this was deliberate, since he had to keep interest in the series up to keep serialisation going, since a lot of mangas get cancelled in the early run. Once it was an established manga, he could afford to move slower (and then it slowed down too much, but that'll be for later).

I had forgotten how risque some of the character shots were. For all the Konosuba jokes about how Aqua doesn't wear panties, there are a few skirt shots that are just about that tight, too. Then in Chapter 4 there actually is a pantyshot of Mio. Shiori is an extremely cute blushing girl. Chihiro actually shows up multiple times (usually talking to Elsie) before her own arc comes up.

Haqua is an interesting girl (and best girl, don't @ me). She's nominally tsundere, but I have a hard time thinking of Haqua that way. Mostly because I think when you have a tsundere character, you have a character archetype opposite the tsundere that drives the conflict, usually in romcom ways. Keima...isn't like Shinji, or Shirou. Right when Haqua meets Keima, in chapter 23, he throws her off with his interrogation. It's something like...usually a tsundere has 'tsundere instincts' to bash the male character when he says or does something dumb or perverted, and Haqua does in fact physically abuse Keima a lot. But then there are lots of moments that Keima completely interrupts her tsundere-ness, and it's a recurring thing in the series.

Also, since I'm taking Haqua notes...she says in Chapter 22 she was born in the West (as in, western countries, and she wanted to be assigned to Europe). And early on, she had a thing for letting people shake her hand.

"Still, to threaten a demon...what a human."
"To be threatened by a human...what a demon."
Still one of my favorite sets of lines in the series.

Also, because I am a massive Haqua simp:



The first and only anime figurine I've ever bought. Maybe I'll buy the Nendoroid, too.
 
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Yeah, the early arcs are all really good, and I think Elsie would have been the "Main" heroine if the series got canceled earlier, but when it was clear it was going to last a while she got redirected into the little sister character.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Reread up to Chapter 56. After that, Tenri reappears.

'I can finally see the ending.' is still one of my favorite quotes in the series, and it gets used over and over.

I've seen it multiple times, but it's always amusing to see the subtle and not-so-subtle scenes where Keima is given 'god' undertones and symbolism.

Finishing the Chihiro confession arc...I don't know if Wakaki intended for her to become the official love interest this early in, but it's really interesting to see how early on she was set as completely defying all of Keima's game knowledge. Also, the first appearance of that ship that I recall shows up in Dokuro, Ayumi, and Chihiro's future scenes, as well as the start of the 2B Pencils, which then gets some more development in 53-54.

The Jun Nagase arc is kind of cute. I'm hot for teacher. Even if it's still 'monster of the week' arc, I'm glad each conquest is suitably mixed up. That really does help keep the series fresh early on. I think it's that it's not just a matter of that each girl hits a specific heroine trope, like 'runner girl', 'idol girl', 'plain girl', etc., but that they're also paired up with personality quirks, backstory issues, etc. to keep stay unique. In that regard, the Minami arc (middle-schooler swimmer girl) is actually really nice and sweet. Keima doesn't really lead her on at all or do anything nasty (though he does set-up scenes where he gives off 'mysterious, aloof senpai' vibes that are far from his real self), but kind of encourages a feeling of puppy love, and uses his encounters and date with her to help Minami progress over her own personal anxieties like giving up on swimming as a competitive sport, and moving on to begin her first year of high school.

(if you're wondering where my Tsukiyo commentary is, she was so boring I skipped over making any remarks :rolleyes: )

Haqua continues to be a reoccurring girl for a few chapters. I love just how unabashedly tsundere Haqua is in chapter 47. If I recall, chapter 47 is where the 'aren't you going to ravish me' line comes from, though I think it got re-translated (when Haqua makes a bet with Keima only to lose, and she assumes he's going to have his way with her, only for him to ask her for information on Hell and devil-capturing). I kind of find it a little cute how she has that D-ring loop attached to her collar as an accessory, though I don't know if there was an actual reason for it other than just design. Since I have to work with safety harnesses though, it throws me off since I expect D-rings on the back side, not the front...now, D-rings on the front of a collar, for bondage play, is totally normal, and I have no idea if Wakaki knew what he was doing there. :p

Also, it occurs to me Haqua might have idiot hair. It's not the typical ahoge that's one cowlick sticking up, but she does have two little licks that stick out sideways.

Some random images as I went through. Kept in spoiler tags so I don't blow this page up with images





Elsie with her hair down is just so cute







Like I said, I love just how unabashedly tsundere Haqua is





Even Yukie ships it






The first of many to come!




The Beatles 2B Pencils struggling with their practices
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
And reread up to Chapter 89.

Chapter 57 is the first appearance of Tenri. It takes a few chapters to get the ball rolling, but we eventually get to see the underway passageway and the underground hiding place of the Weiss in Keima and Tenri's recollections, which I think comes into play again in about another 100 chapters or so. We've had a few little things built up here and there to break TWGOK out of its earlier episodic nature, but this is the first big set-up for later. Especially when Diana comes out and reveals the existence of goddesses, and then about 20 chapters later that she has 5 sisters as well who are also probably hiding in the hearts of heroines.

The disparity between Tenri and Diana's personalities is still amusing. If it weren't for the fact they're two separate entities sharing a body, I'd be tempted to call it moe gap. I really only barely clued into it years and years ago, but Tenri is basically a name with allusions to heaven, isn't it? Or at least, the 'Ten' character is (天), which is only fitting for the first girl revealed to have a goddess. Young Keima is kind of cute...he definitely developed bad eyesight after years of playing games, since he didn't need glasses when he was younger hah.

After that is the arc where the Katsuragi family go to his paternal grandparents in their rural village. The 'capture target' here turns out to be an old lady (Rieka), and the Weiss gives itself up when Elsie tells it Rieka is to old to give birth for it to escape via a pregnancy. I do remember being pleasantly surprised by the twist of this arc, and spirit-Reika has a fairly sweet outlook. That whole arc is such a big deviation from the formula of the capture arcs that the manga had been going through thus far, and I really feel like I'm not culturally situated enough to appreciate it the way a Japanese person might whose grandparents or even parents' ancestral towns have been subjected to extreme depopulation

Then there's Sumire's arc. To be honest, I never really bothered remembering Sumire's name, and have always just referred to her as ramen girl, since that's like 80% of her backstory. Something I think that gets glossed over in the fan translation is that she's probably either Chinese or half-Chinese, though not necessarily second-generation (I believe there's a lot of Koreans or Chinese living in Japan whose familes have been there for several decades or even centuries). A lot of Westerners can kind of sympathise with the backstory of an immigrant opening a food store but wanting his child(ren) to do better, though we still get the whole father-and-daughter backstory with that in this arc. Also of note is Keima doesn't even kiss Sumire or make any declarations of love. She makes him one final bowl of ramen and that's good enough to get the runaway spirit out.

Chapter 75 is one of those chapters that's mostly about Keima's philosophy on games and game designs and galges and heroines. And of course, Yokkyun. If I can ever come up with a good idea, I may yet write something about Yokkyun.

Then there's the Nanako arc, where he helps a competitive shogi girl develop her skills through hardcore cramming to defeat a tough opponent. There's an obligatory kiss at the end, but that's really it, surprisingly. The series suddenly stopped using love declarations to seal the gap in girls' hearts for a while. However, Keima still uses his galge experience to help develop his relationships with girls, even if it's more platonic than romantic.

And the last bit of this current run, finishing up at chapter 89, is the Yui arc. I remember at the time that this cross-gender bodyswapping arc was actually nicely done in that it wasn't at all mean-spirited. There's a little bit of Keima and Yui both picking up some of their gender stereotypes, but nothing that might be expected from other series if they did something like this. Keima getting addicted to otome games is still definitely a laugh, though.

It was definitely a very nice inversion to the usual conquest routes too, and I'm surprised at how well Wakaki was able to consistently spice up each new conquest. Oba-chan/Rieka was with a grandma feeling lonely and her pseudo-spirit form created by the Weiss, Nanako was more competitive spirit with the kiss an afterthought, there was barely any romantic undertones in the Sumire route, and now outright flipping the idea of who conquers who.There's definitely something about Keima having to let himself be conquered, setting it up to be conquered, and still being taken off-guard by how strongly s/he was conquered (and yet another fanfiction I want but never got would be a born-female bisexual Keima who plays both otomes and galges still getting suckered into a contract with Hell)



Random smattering of pages I liked plus commentary



Elsie is always cute with her hair down



Rieko (oba-chan) was definitely a looker as a young girl.



This is amazing cover art



The mod team might tell me off for not posting this in the NSFW section, because as the internet knows, hand-holding is the filthiest, lewdest, most depraved thing there is.



Truly tsundere




Cheesy, but cute



For some reason, I just find this whole page really neat.
 

chronodekar

Obsessively signs his posts
Staff member
Keima getting addicted to otome games is still definitely a laugh, though.
Oh yeah! Something like this did happen, didn't it? (my memories are foggy). Good times!

-chronodekar
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Oh yeah! Something like this did happen, didn't it? (my memories are foggy). Good times!

-chronodekar
Yeah. In the Yui arc, Keima and Yui go through Freaky Friday bodyswap hijinx, so Keima ends up playing otome games to figure out how to conquer guy!Yui since he's in a female format the time.


It got pointed out to me as well elsewhere, but somebody has done a bunch of hilarious (somewhat minimalist) TWGOK fancomics between 2016-2020
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
And going again.

I finished the Hinoki arc, who is Kusonogi's older sister. I guess I felt this arc ran a little too long, considering it goes for 11 chapters (well, 12, but I'm not counting one for obvious reasons). It does start to really set up for the break from the capture-of-the-week routine, though. Fiore shows up, Nikaido confirmed to be mysterious and powerful, and what's interesting is the sisters dynamic takes over the love dynamic in this one. Even with some of the previous conquests that weren't really love, Keima was still solidly the support pillar for the girl, and this one went away from that. Although, I wasn't really feeling it at points this time.

Chapter 94 is great fanservice. Bunnygirl Elsie and catgirl Haqua are adorable.

.


After the Hinoki arc, there's a few chapters dealing with the school's festivals, where Keima is supposed to search for the Goddesses, and tries a little, but doesn't put too serious effort into it. It's nice to kind of get some more character moments with both Ayumi and Chihiro in these chapters.

After that is the Akari/Rimyuel arc, who is Elsie's 'big sister' working undercover with Nikaido, though the readers didn't find out the true significance of this for another 100 chapters. I feel like I will need to re-read this again later, as my memories of the series ending are vague enough besides that she and Nikaido were trying to lure Fiore out, and got Keima instead. Besides her personality turning the tables on Keima's attempts to 'capture' her, it's interesting how much of this arc is very isolated. There's only a smattering of interaction with Elsie and background students, and 9.% of it is basically Keima and Akari talking (or kissing) in a single room. They have a lot of low philosophical discussion about the ideal vs the real, the imperfect vs the perfect, etc

The other reason I'd have to re-read later is because I don't recall if there was ever any real difference between humans and demons in the series. As far as I recall, demons are basically glorified humans with magic powers from Hell. But to the extent Rimyuel might consider herself 'not-human', attempting to construct a perfect human has a little more interesting subtext. Of course, I may also be overthinking Rimyuel's motives. She is part of the runaway devil squad, so she might be trying to understand the insecurities of humans better, instead. In her eyes, a perfect human wouldn't have any holes a Weiss could hide in.

After, we cut back to re-introduce Kanon back into the story, and this is where it gets confirmed she's a Goddess host, with her Goddess being Apollo. Apollo is a cute ditz, and the two of them have some cute, sister-like banter. However, Kanon gets pursued by Fiore, confesses her memories have returned to Keima, then Apollo takes over and, like an idiot, runs away from Keima, only to get stabbed by Fiore. Thus ends roughly the first third of TWGOK, when we had mostly captures-of-the-week, and now really begins the guts of the Goddess Arc. I finished up at the end of 118, which is when Keima resolves to find the remaining 4 Goddesses to help save Kanon. In the process, he ships Elsie off to pretend to be Kanon in her idol career, and Haqua becomes his new, temporary buddy.

Keima taking responsibility in 117 (as a whole 'if I didn't blow this off, Kanon would be OK right now' moment) and willing to put his all into the Goddess search is probably just as damn big a moment as Kanon's confession and her then getting stabbed.

Anyways. A number of pictures that I found amusing or cute.



I love this puppet expression of Keima's every time it comes up (which isn't very often. I think...3 so far to this point in the manga?)



Elsie gets in on the fun. It can't always be Haqua accidentally showing up naked around Keima :p




This could have been the flag for a very different ending to the story :oops:



I always adore Tenri in a box.





This whole date scene is hilarious. I love the bottom three panels. Haqua and Diana are a terrifying twosome when they team up



The comedic moments in this manga never fail to make me laugh



Ochako Uraraka makes a cameo in TWGOK years before MHA even came out! (Either that or I can make a joke about the 'sameness' of manga styles)

Elsie's drawing of a girl does look a lot like her, in all honesty.




Glad to know Apollo admits to being an idiot :p




The real bombshell moment, when you know the plot is finally going to start moving at a rapid pace.



And then Kanon's love confession a chapter later. I absolutely love the peanut gallery's expressions. There's really no hints here that I can see that Ayumi also had a goddess in her, though.



This was a special page in one of the tankobons release, not something that came out in the weekly serial release, so I've never seen this before. The weird thing is that Haqua apparently has a wide opening on the back of her shirt, and it's not just a different piece of coloured cloth.



Now that I'm looking for it, I can see that opening on occasion, like on this page in the upper-right panel. However, I'm going to completely forget that now and pretend this design quirk doesn't exist. Her shirt has no flap. o_O



Elsie pretending to be Kanon is still absolutely cute and adorable, and I kinda want to write a post-manga fic where she gets to go on tour with Kanon as a back-up singer





The best of times, when Keima and Haqua become buddies. This may be a manga that's visual medium only, but I'm pretty sure I can hear Haqua's heart thumping on the centre panel of this last page <3

Finally, because I have money and can afford to buy stuff like this without it even really affecting the bank, I nerded out and got the Haqua Max Action Figure. So now she can go with my Nendoroid.

 

seitora

Well-Known Member
It looks like Wakaki is getting a new anime...but it's not his 365 Days to the Wedding manga. Instead, it's 16bit Sensations, which he illustrates and helps writes, but isn't the overall creator.
 
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