Oh right, I knew I had something important to do today. Watch a silly harem comedy and overanalyze its self-aware takedowns of genre craft.
Episode 8
0:10 – This show is extremely silly . Was Haqua and Elsie’s entire graduating class female?
2:13 – Man, Keima does so much work to make this more watchable than your garden-variety harem. Most harem leads are such milquetoast self-insert “nice guy” nobodies that it immediately strains credulity that a handful of girls would all suddenly fall in love with them. It makes the power fantasy angle kind of overwhelmingly evident, it makes for a set of totally unbelievable female characters, and it results in regularly stilted and repetitive banter. Keima, on the other hand, always works to make himself some kind of bizarre anime-negaverse brand of charming, and he always knows exactly what he wants. That lends itself to more distinctive little dramatic arcs, better banter, and much more believable romantic progression.
Plus the show both doesn’t get caught in static love drama and also draws great humor from the distance between anime character psychology and human psychology. Which is kinda key, since taking any of this seriously as actual romance swiftly leads to dark places .
3:19 – What self-respecting Hell government bureau doesn’t have a gift shop?
6:37 – Why is that doll so funny
6:48 – Life is suffering for Keima
8:42 – Well this is different
9:57 – Thank god for Keima’s anime-logic universe . If this were the real world, he’d be screwed
10:30 – Man, these wings keep getting easier and easier
13:27 – Nora’s doing a great Varys impression
16:31 – His strategies are almost immediately defeated by any girl who isn’t introverted/isolated. Kind of a limited power
16:42 – Meaning the goddess isn’t inside Chihiro, and things are going to get extremely messy
19:33 – TWGOK keeps it classy
20:05 – Oh god, this is gonna be so bad. He’s gonna make some big play, and it’ll actually work, but she won’t have a goddess, so gaaahhhhh man I’m uncomfortable just thinking about it
And Done
Welp, this is gonna end miserably. Brace for impact, folks
Actually, the first picture makes perfect sense because Elsie and Haqua’s class was entirely female. In fact all the devils in hell are female. No explanation has ever been given as far as I am aware as to why this is the case. In fact, there are about 60 characters in this series but none of them is male in earth, heaven or hell except Keima (except for one bit part male teacher). We don’t even know what Keima’s father looks like. All of them are female and almost all of them are cute, even Keima’ mom. This is the ultimate male fantasy.
As far as Keima’s tactics being successful, that is also easy to explain. All of these girls have some kind of psychological problem, and are infested by a demon, a goddess or both. It is much easier to get some one to be grateful to you when they have a problem and you help them out. Keima is the doctor who diagnoses and cures their illnesses, so of course they fall for him. Most of these girls are normal and outgoing; there are only a few introverts. This anime is hard to follow without reading the manga because so much of the introductory material was left out.
You are right, Keima is almost unique in this sort of anime. He thinks out solutions to their problems and earns their respect and regard. What makes this all funny is that Keima doesn’t want to do any of this, all he wants to do is go play his dating sims.
I couldn’t forgive this series for skipping around 5-7 girls
They didn’t really have a choice though, right? From what I heard, the second season did far too poorly to warrant a third one, so it was probably either skip to something more central-plot-driven or be doomed.
The Yui arc they skipped sounds fantastic, though.
That’s the other thing, they skipped over girls who actually had goddess in them in the first place. They wasted a chance for development
In other words, you have to go read the manga for this anime to make sense. It has been scanlated to current date.
Well, I haven’t read it, but between the show’s own warp-speed recap and everyone talking about it online I’ve gotten the gist of the issue. But yeah, it definitely doesn’t follow gracefully from the last one
Bill, it sounds like part of the plan.
Sounds anime adaptations are often intended to drive more manga/LN/VN sales, where the real money is. So skipping things so you’d buy the manga? Sounds like a plan.