It has been a remarkable ride following this series for so long, and looking back at how The World God Only Knows has impacted the anime community, it’s not far off to say that it changed harem anime as we know it. It shows that you don’t need to show girls in suggestive situations all the time to provoke entertainment or emotion into your harem. Sometimes all you need is genuine emotion and intelligent comedic writing to create a meaningful love story. Or, in this case, multiple love stories.
The story has focused on the Goddess Arc, which fans have criticized because it skipped a large portion of the manga to get to this point. This brings up the fact that judging a show based on the source material should always be said: Always consider an anime based on its own merits rather than how well it follows the source material. What’s more important is how it keeps telling the story in a concise and detailed matter that is true to the spirit of the manga rather than how specific scenes follow the manga well. In Megami-hen’s case, the pacing and how they develop the story, while not necessarily perfect in some areas, complement each other exceptionally well in terms of emotion and clarity. While it does jump around in certain areas a little too fast, especially in the later episodes, it doesn’t deter the show from having an emotional impact whenever it is on-screen.
With each passing season, the art and animation are spectacular. Tamaki Wakaki has a creative eye when he draws his manga. His drawings come to life in animation and are both a perfect representation of them and an adorable treat to watch with great easy-on-the-eye art. The characters look lovely with the colorful backgrounds that complement each other with high excellence and creativity in a limited scope of the Moe and Slice of Life genre.
I’ve always admired The World God Only Knows. The manga and anime versions are how they can pack in so much depth and development into every character that you come across in just a short amount of time. In this season, the characters are now fully developed after two seasons, and none of them have lost their charming personalities. Keima is still the cynical but often hilarious protagonist that we’ve all grown to love and kind of hate at the same time. His sense of courage and intelligence make for an enticing protagonist and a larger-than-life character in general. At this point in the story, we finally see a bit of humanity in his role. It is portrayed with immaculate maturity and pure excellence, making Keima a three-dimensional character rather than this one-sided gamer otaku that he is often depicted.
The girls, once again, are as cute and charming as ever. Now that Elsie has replaced Kanon for Keima to find the other Goddesses in the girls he’s conquered, Haqua is now Keima’s buddy, and man, do these two make for such a hilarious duo of detective and partner. The only slight problem with this is that they don’t go far enough to show that Haqua and Keima’s relationship develops further through these conquests. Despite this, they add a lot of chemistry between our two main leads regardless of the amount of screen time.
As for the rest of the cast, not all girls return from previous seasons. Only a select few can have the honor of getting the most out of the story. For what it is, the girls and the comedy that they bring to the table can still be quite enjoyable to anyone who appreciates excellent parody in their spare time. One, in particular, is Shiori, who is trying to write a story of her own that she got inspired by her conquest by Keima. What results is them bickering by writing together to create a funny parody of how people tend to criticize how people typically write a story in context with the show.
We turn to the girl who has the most significant presence in the season: Chihiro. Her personal development with Keima couldn’t be more heartwarming than any anime character relationship story in recent years. Heartbreaking and sentimental as it might be, there is still this aura within Keima that completely changes him and morphs him into a new way that we’ve never seen before. It is times like this that make The World God Only Knows a very excellent harem show. It treats the subject matter in a parodied manner, but at the same time, it can emote these heartwarming scenes that work from not only a writing standpoint but also a pacing one.
Music in The World God Only Knows always tread in J-Pop's territory, with Kanon’s songs in Season one and other character songs in the past. The pieces in Season 3 are just as good as previous seasons, even though they don’t necessarily step on any new ground in terms of instrumentation. This opening is oddly enough sung in English by Saori Hayami, who does it very well! Her pronunciation of the English language is spot on without many awkward attempts at sounding both Japanese and English or Engrish as it is often called in slang terms. Unfortunately, I felt the ED was mostly forgettable after repeated listening. All singers do their jobs well, but other than the voices, I found myself often skipping them most of the time.
As for voice acting, which is often the bright spot in the series, the seiyuus all do a fantastic job in their roles. Hiro Shimono is as charismatic as Keima. The always beautiful Saori Hayami does a tremendous performance as Haqua, and a surprise performance by Kana Asumi as Chihiro, who wholly owns her role through the latter half of the show. Though it could’ve shown more of Kanae Itou as Elsie, you want more of her sexy voice on-screen when you have her on a show.
There will undoubtedly be a lot of debate with this season in particular. Whether you agree that watching the show and criticizing it for not following certain things correctly in the source material is a valid reason for not liking it or not, you have to set aside that in the back door and appreciate the show on its own merits. All the seasons were building upon this, and the result was worth the wait. There are moments in the anime that will make you remember specific moments for years to come, whether it was something that made you laugh with exquisite delight or cry with overall genuine emotion. For me, this one line in the show is the one that will stick with me for years after watching it: “You don’t need a reason to fall in love.” Words of wisdom by Chihiro.
Grade: A
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