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「神以上、人間未満」 (Kami Ijou, Ningen Miman)
“Higher than a God, Lower than a Man”
There’s no way I can write six posts simultaneously, but it’s kind of scary how Keima’s zealous attitude towards gaming mirrors my blogging one. In fact, this finale served as an “anime reality check” of sorts, as contradictory as that may sound. From an outsider’s perspective, our behaviors may as well be perceived as a case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. We hate backlogs, we want to get stuff done right away, and we slave away on our blogs for our readers. While we don’t specifically take requests, e-mails weigh into our decisions on what to tackle next. Heck, I was even known to have practically every game console released, albeit not multiples of each one like Keima does. Yikes.
All of that made this finale just as hilarious as it was unsettling, especially considering that I’m getting the short end of the stick without the support of a cute demon cleaning girl. As much as I love laughing at the (anime) story of my life about working like a machine and shortening my lifespan, I do share that almost retarded unwavering determination of getting stuff done on time and meeting my personal expectations. And just so that I never lose sight of that, there are always people to remind me that they’re completely fine with me pulling all-nighters for an entire week, by asking when the next season preview will be posted. Words can’t even begin to describe how “utterly awesome” it is being the victim of the unrealistic expectations I’ve set for myself. It’s like being on top of the world, except I’m under everyone’s feet. Truly, higher than a god yet lower than a person. I feel like I should be butchering a song like Keima just to show how ecstatic I am about that. “Feeling heart ~”
As masochistic as all of that sounds, I haven’t quite reached the point of becoming completely delusional with 2D anime girls coming out of my monitors. Much like Keima, I do however still get enjoyment from getting my work done and knowing there are people who both eagerly anticipate and appreciate it. Granted, I gather he’s having more fun than I am, even when he’s wearing himself out swinging a Nintendo Wii-mote around like crazy. In his attempt to clear as many games as possible in an inhumanly short period of time, he did give me the idea of posting six things simultaneously for added effect. You know, just to geek it out hardcore every now and then. You won’t find me caught up in my own little world and floating on cloud nine because of it, but the whole dying in someone’s arms bit doesn’t seem all that far-fetched. Despite these past two weeks having been particularly rough, rest assure that I do this as much for my own sense of pride and twisted fun as Keima does. The fruits of the unworldly labor will be seen! When that Winter 2011 Preview is published it (and it will be), it will be nothing short of an endless number of possibilities opening up! (Note: There’s a good chance that a lot of this is huge exaggeration. A very good chance in fact.)
Anyway, this finale did bring back a lot of memories with Keima whipping out the old consoles with both a Nintendo Power Glove and Power Pad. He sure meant business when he started playing an adventure game with a PlayStation GunCon. I loved the Excitebike reference in the Princess Derby game too, which took me all the way back to the 8-bit days. It still wasn’t enough to make me dust off my NES though, and blow into cartridges until I’m completely out of breath just to load a game. What this quirky finale did make me want me to figure out is how to pull off Keima’s secret technique to get my posts written in no time. Maybe I need more keyboards. Just maybe.
* As a precursor to the second season, the old lady Marui Yukie made a couple of cameos in this episodes.
ED8 Sequence
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ED8: 「集積回路の夢旅人」 (Shuuseki Kairo no Yume Tabibito) by 桂木桂馬 starring 下野紘 with Oratorio The World God Only Knows
(Katsuragi Keima starring Shimono Hiro with Oratorio The World God Only Knows)
Watch the ED8!: Download, Streaming ▼
Season 2 Preview
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Final Impressions:
With word of a second season green-lit for spring 2011 long before this finale, the announcement at the very end doesn’t come as much of a surprise other than emphasizing that another demon girl, Haqua, will be joining the mix with Hayami Saori voicing her. Looking back on this first season, I have to say that this romantic comedy has been a lot of fun to watch. It uses the idea of an omnibus format, except works it into the plot without having to rely on any sort of a reset when Keima moves from girl to girl. Much like the other series that have adopted such a format, this places a lot of emphasis on each of the girls in the arcs and keeps the plot fresh by making their intricacies the focus. What’s unique about this series’ approach is that it’s completely about the “love of the chase”, since Keima doesn’t seem to ever end up with any of the girls he wins over. There’s no happy ending or new challenges that arise afterward. From a viewer’s standpoint, that is arguably the most interesting part though, and is why I enjoyed the repeated use of this formula as much as I did this past season. Of course, it’s always fun to see Keima grow (degrade?) as an individual from all these encounters, during which a lot of my favorite moments came from Elsie’s interactions with him. We can never have too much Elsie.
Compared to the early chapters of the manga I skimmed, one change in this adaptation that I particularly liked was less focus on Keima’s systematic approach on each of the targets. My early impressions of it was that it was a bit of a double-edged sword, because it really stressed how his eroge principles are being adapted into his real world methodology, yet gave him a very haughty air of arrogance at the same time. The latter actually made Keima somewhat hard to like, which I didn’t any sort of problem with in the anime where his dumber side shows up more frequently. However, the obvious trade-off that I noticed ever since Ayumi’s story is that it really belittled his trademark “I can see the ending” line. Without ample depiction of exactly how Keima was going about things, such as a paper Elise discovers at the end outlining exactly how he anticipated a scenario would play out, most of the time it became just a line he had to say for the sake of saying it. This goes for Kanon at the end of her second episode as well as Shiori at the end of hers. In both cases, it felt like the writers held back a bit too much and kept me far too clueless to even see where they might be going with things, removing the fun of having some sort of a founded prediction. If there’s one thing I’d like to see improved in the sequel, it would definitely be leading on the viewer better in some of these arcs. Other than that, it’s been an entertaining series to watch and one I’ll be looking forward to the continuation of in the second quarter of next year. I enjoyed some arcs a lot more than others, so I’m curious as to what other female stereotypes they have lined up.
keima is a rich mother trucker
My cousin died like that! XD
Keima, the god of gaming has ascended!
Still no Yokkyun… oh well, can’t wait for the second season.
ROFL. Yokkyun is like the best girl ever.
The soundtrack made it epic! HAHAHA! XD
Keima’s stash of systems all came from M funds, he is loved way too much
well the second devil is one of my favorite characters i just hope this comes to the usa bundled together
Haqua as Hayami Saori FTW XD
“My early impressions of it was that it was a bit of a double-edged sword, because it really stressed how his eroge principles are being adapted into his real world methodology, yet gave him a very haughty air of arrogance at the same time.”
Well, I guess that’s the point, Keima is one capable a**hole and despite his arrogance, his screw-ups adds that comedic stint that made him more appealing/enjoyable to relate to.
Was there news about censoring those kisses? X_X
At first I a bit worried when I found out that Manglobe was to handle one of my favorite currently running manga series, which is kind of strange since they usually handle action series, but it turned much, much better than I thought, with some of the funniest moments this season.
Man can I ever relate to the gaming. The whole, “wasting your youth playing games” struck a particular cord with me, seeing as I have heard that before. Anyway, thanks for the write-ups Divine. Also I found it pretty funny when Keima ended up playing games when he was in the game world at the end.
wow… keima’s room is lika a command center and how much did he wasted for some hudreds of consoles and DVD/CD/cartridge?
well if 2nd season does really well(which I think it might, because of what ayumi will do), then a 3rd season might be possible.
if they only last for 2nd season, that means we will miss Show Spoiler ▼
which will be very diff from the usual plot of TWGOK.
1st Season covered the first 17 chapters.
There’s no way 3rd Season will cover the arc you speak of.
For the anime to do all of the manga that’s out now would take 7+ seasons, and the manga isn’t over yet.
what I meant more was that the Show Spoiler ▼
would be introduced at 3d season if they did it with a 12 ep anime.
besides, it would be much later before keima captures Show Spoiler ▼
Keima, you totally don’t know how to sing… XD
The series is entertaining, I like it a lot, thanks for the posts.
I wish I had that much money to get games and time to play them like that 🙂
can’t wait for the sequel!
The singing at the end… was lmao. I’m looking forward to the next season! I hope you end up blogging it, Divine. 🙂 Thanks for the recap again.
Oh the Nostalgia!
Keep up the awesome work Divine! You have our continual support and thanks 🙂
the super-saiya… erm, gamer mode was rofl
watching 13 series this season makes me feel somewhat related, though I certainly dont have anime girls exploding from my monitor
the scary thing is not Keima talking to the girls but girls talking back!
god or not, Keima cant sing
and thank tou, Divine for all the posts. I wish you a cute demon helper for xmas!
DIVINE don’t forego sleep for a whole week just for us!! if you end up in hospital then random curiosity WILL be on hiatus and that would just be ultimately horrible T_T
however, it’s okay for kiema because he’s KAMI-SAMA XD
Sweet, Keima is D.E.A.D.
Y-box360 took the end spotlight huh. Should have been other consoles.
OMG! I want this room!!!
I actually saw some games I played before parodied, like the SRW series and the princess derby on the famicom though it was a motorbike derby.
Keima pretty much had all the consoles available today, but what was that cassette tape player looking console?
2nd season will be the next arc, I wonder when the 2nd season will be released?
Early computers used data tape storage, even commodore 64s and such. could have been something like that, a tandy or ibm thing.
I had a Sinclair ZX81, it took 20 minutes to load a program from cassette..
my first was commodore 64 … ah the nostalgia
That sound the tape made was exactly the one those old tape devices made too 🙂
#Image 42,
o.O i saw ranka lee , did i?
Haqua is Ayase? I have only heard her in Ore no Imouto so I don’t know much of her but I hope she does a good work voicing Haqua.
This adaption is good but I feel Manglobe could have handled better Kami Nomi. Still, let’s see how the second adaption is, hopefully it is better than first season.
And thus, god’s in heaven, and everything’s right. (https://randomc.net/image/Kami%20nomi%20zo%20Shiru%20Sekai/Kami%20nomi%20zo%20Shiru%20Sekai%20-%20ED8%20-%20Large%2002.jpg)
Except the drunken Keima song. lol.
And Haqua? Yes please! Let the chaos ensue!
Show Spoiler ▼
I can see why they held off on this episode till now… It made for a hilarious ending.
I am so glad they actually went ahead and made that ending song for real.
Looking forward to more! 😀
The Haqua-pixel-image is awesome, by the way, great wallpaper material.
Dunno but this serie was a uber crap to me, boring, nonsense, no deep, bland characters. 3/10
While the anime as a whole was decent, the last episode blew it up for me, it was an utter waste of time, and I’ve come to hate the repetitive soundtrack…
Don’t know if it is possible to do 6 blogs at the same time, but i do know that it is possible to do 2 at the same time Divine ^^
Ah, this was the episode I was waiting for: activate God mode. Awesome way to end the first season. Yup, I agree with others, I can totally see why they waited till the end of this season (glad they didn’t skip it).
Keima reminds me of me when im whoring for achievements on xbox, except he’s on an entirely different level of gaming and plays multiple platforms at once to get things done.
What an awesome way to end this. I’m looking forward to the second season even if I know the story from the manga. This episode is so full of memories about games and hardware. I feel like showing it to my whole family.
Even if you enjoy it DIvine don’t overdo it, well huh I can’t really say th
What an awesome way to end this. I’m looking forward to the second season even if I know the story from the manga. This episode is so full of memories about games and hardware. I feel like showing it to my whole family.
Even if you enjoy it Divine don’t overdo it, well huh I can’t really say that can I, you’re already overdoing it for us. I hope you find someone like Elsee who can keep watch over you.
Say what you want about Keima’s arrogant attitude but at least he is a male lead who knows what he wants and takes defined steps to get there. Keima to me is the epitome of what most anime views are screaming for now and that is a direct reversal of this weak “I just want everyone to remain smiling” mentality most male leads have in this sort of genre. Keima doesn’t like reality so he wants to spend time in his games, no amount of heart pounding, life threatening, overly dramatic situations has changed that in him.
He might have a slightly better opinion of *real* girls over the course of the season but that doesn’t mean he necessarily wants to associate with them. Its almost admirable in a twisted, shut-in sort of way. To me leads like Kiema and Tomoki are what take, what is a genre permeated with mediocrity, to the next level of entertainment.
Im very pleased how the anime adaptation was handled. I felt it stayed very true to the manga and I cant wait for the second season.
Is that Shana with a ponytail in the 2nd ending screenshot? The one with the ponytail and uniform in front of the girl in white?
“The latter actually made Keima somewhat hard to like, which I didn’t any sort of problem with in the anime where his dumber side shows up more frequently.”
WTF. Anime Keima is a complete wuss, they made him a lot less Lelouch/Light and a lot more of a geek weakling which is pathetic. The seiyuu who did him was a massive miscast. And Japan certainly agrees with me; the series is tanking badly there and those hoping for season 3 are going to end up in tears.
Definitely one of my fave shows this season. The excitebike reference was just awesome too. Japanese being obsessed with horse racing is just one of the things I’ll never figure out.
oh the gukalt woman is already appeared.
Now this ending was some how amusing to see. seeing how keima do multitasking in the anime is very amusing specially with a good animation as backup.
the ending song somehow reminds me of Minoru Shiraishi
i wish nxt season they would put a route like effect when keima solves the girl(like conan solves a case)
I must be the only one that hated this finale. It was about as exciting as watching grass grow. Only decent thing about it was the nostalgia feeling with all the old systems. Overall I liked the series and the various arcs but not this finale.
You’re doing a great job, Divine! Don’t listen to anyone who wants you to pull all-nighters to finish posts and what-not(seriously, how selfish); it’s not good for you, just do what you can. And don’t worry about the winter preview, we know you’ll post it eventually. Everyone CAN WAIT.
OH THE MEMORIES
https://randomc.net/image/Kami%20nomi%20zo%20Shiru%20Sekai/Kami%20nomi%20zo%20Shiru%20Sekai%20-%2012%20-%20Large%2024.jpg
If Kemia thinks that kissing is beautiful, why don’t he get a girl and kiss her? He should play some RPG or some FPS games instead of dating games. His singing is probably the second worst I ever heard (Justin Biber is the first) and I hope the second season would be as great as the first one.
By the way, what’s the name of the song playing in the background? It sounds like an extended version of the opening song.
Download the Single. -_-“
Oh god, the day you find a way to pull off what Keima does, would cause the site to overflow with fans. If you pulled sychro on 6 post, we would all just flood in and the site would need to be readjusted lol.
I’m quite glad that there is a second season coming though.
Alternatively this episode should be called: My Older Brother Can’t be This Creeepy.
@ReddyRedWolf
You got in right. Multi-tasking have started with Kyosuke Kasuga, and end up failing. Naruto improved this problem due to clones.
At least I manage to study six subjects simultaneously (Cramming) before the exams during my high school days.
Mozilla Firefox made it possible for me to post simultaneously in different blogs.
Watch two anime series at a time.
I lol’d so much when I saw Princess Derby played as if it was motocross XD ftw.
I like how there’s an Xbox at the end and not a PS3. <3
One day, I will have a room like this. I will, I say. I will..
GODHandSpeed ! Berserk Mode ! LOL
his secret technique is from arcade gamer fubuki…