Manga Review: The World God Only Knows

Title: The World God Only Knows
Author: Wakaki Tamiki
Release: Weekly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shonen, Romance, Comedy
Art: A
Originality: S+
Story: A
Characters: S
Humor: A
Action: A

Impression: This is a story of a young otaku who is known as the Capturing God for having captured the hearts of 1000 young maidens – in dating-sims that is. Because of his unique talents, he is recruited by Hell to capture escaped demons hiding in the bodies of young girls. Together with a ditz of a representative for hell, Katsuragi Keima must make girls fall in love with him so that the demons are forced out their bodies ready to be captured. As you can see this is certainly one of the most original manga out there and it is powered by genre savvy humor that any long-time manga fan can appreciate. For newcomers to the manga scene, this has plenty of lessons to teach about the tried and true plots of manga and anime. Guys could even learn how to pick up girls following Keima’s examples, I wouldn’t depend on them though. There are numerous shout outs to current and old series within these pages; even car manufacturers are not spared from the spectacular sense of humor that the author fills his work with. I’m not certain if the author actually tried to make any of the arc endings heartwarming but they certainly are charming and memorable. If you ask me, the author falls short on relationships between the characters themselves. His partner Elsea seems to be Keima’s initial and designated eventual one and only but the rival characters have more chemistry with him than she does so I hope the author realized that and is going with an alternative route. In any case, this series is set to be a future classic and hopefully will get a faithful and well done anime adaptation.