Hey guys Nitsuj here, welcome to another side blog the blogs between the blogs. In case you all don’t know yet, the 3rd season of The World God Only Knows is set to air in July and will be focusing on the Goddess arc of the manga. So this means that they’re going to be skipping a lot of other arcs to get to this point and I guess they assume everyone who liked and watched the 1st and 2nd season must have read the manga up this point by now and if you haven’t then shame on you. I’m kidding, I’m kidding, for whatever reason you haven’t read the manga yet or have read the manga and we a quick recap on how we got to the Goddess arc this blog is you. In this blog I’m going to give a summary of all the arcs up to the beginning of the Goddess arc so that when the anime premieres you won’t feel lost or confused. Also, I would like to point out that I’ll be skipping filler chapters. Let’s get started:
The Tsukiyo Kujyō arc
This arc takes place after the Jun Nagase arc, the target this time is Tsukiyo a 2nd year student who is part of the astronomy club and has dreams of one day going to the moon. Just like Jun she’s aiming for perfection but unlike Jun who wanted to be perfect so that she could help her students Tsukiyo is aiming for perfection to escape from the world. We find out in this arc that Tsukiyo comes from a wealthy family but her parents are divorced, we see she has no friends except her doll Luna which she carries with her, so because of this she comes to see people has imperfect because of their emotions so she closes herself off from them and creates her own world of beauty ignoring and disrespecting anyone she considers “not perfect”. Through the powers of the spirit she shrinks down to the size of Luna and Keima looks after her for a few days making her believe that she is becoming smaller by increasing the size of the doll house she’s staying in for safety. After overhearing his plan Tsukiyo gets mad and escapes through the air duct and makes her way to the roof where she’s about to jump where Keima stops her. She talks about the world being ugly because humans allow their emotions to control their actions but Keima assures her that the world can be beautiful when you’re with someone you love. She slips from the balcony but Keima catches her, they make-up and kiss, and the two get saved by Elsie. The next day Tsukiyo still remains the same except she’s showing a little more interest in the world and we end with her pointing her telescope and looking at Keima while blushing.
The Minami Ikoma
After a short filler arc centering on Haqua and her partner we go to the next target which is Minami a shy middle school girl who is part of the swim team. Her problem is she doesn’t really know what she wants to do. After being picked as a substitute for the last swim meet she thinks about quitting just like her friends but for some reason unknown to her tears start to fall from her eyes and she feels sad that her middle school life turned out to be nothing. When she returns to the pool at night to get her goggles she sees Keima swimming and instantly becomes interested in him. Out of all the targets Minami is probably the easiest person Keima has ever captured because he really does nothing to get her. He basically plays the senpai card and instead of pursuing her he allows her to pursue him, letting her dig up the rumors about him, follow him, and come up with her own view of him. Another good thing about this arc is that Minami actually does seem to have legitimately fallen for Keima. Unlike the other girls who started off not liking him or annoyed by him she actually had feelings for him. Even when she found out that he was videogame freak she didn’t look down on him or consider him out of place. The two meet on a bus and Keima reveals that he knows she’s been following him around and invites her to the summer festival. The two go to the festival where they have a pleasant mood but when the festival ends she begins to cry because she believes all of her fun times are over but Keima tells her that everything must end in order for a new world to open and that every ending will make you stronger. He ends this statement by saying that he will always watch over her, kisses her, and the spirit gets exorcised from her body. The next day she goes back to swimming saying that she’s going to continue swimming because she enjoys it. The arc ends with Keima holding a water yo-yo he won with Minami at the festival while looking sad. This scene makes me believe that Keima might have actually had feelings for Minami.
The Aftermath of the Tenri Ayukawa arc
Picking up where the 3rd OVA left off Keima helps Tenri and her family move in and has a chat with Diana and Tenri. Diana reveals herself to be one of the 6 goddesses who sealed the spirits of Old Hell and tries to get Keima to marry Tenri because in order to regain her lost powers she needs to feel love from Tenri so the more in love Tenri becomes the stronger Diana gets.
The Rieko Hinaga arc
This arc is probably the weakest out of all the arcs. It’s not bad it’s just that the moral of the arc is something a lot of the readers just don’t get. Keima and his family arrive in Yamaguchi Village for a family reunion, there, he meets a disturbing little girl named Airi who likes to say disturbing and horrific things such as “play with me or I’ll cut your limbs off” but she gets reprimanded by her grandmother Rieko, who is the target of this arc. On the nights they’re in the village Keima and Elsie see the ghost of a child that looks like Airi playing but Keima quickly pieces together that it’s a spirit and after doing some investigation finds out that Airi doesn’t have the spirit inside her but instead it’s Rieko who has the spirit inside her. Rather than use his usual methods to get the spirit out (which would be very gross and disturbing to watch) he has Elsie persuade the spirit out her saying that Rieko is too old and won’t reproduce an offspring. The spirit hears this and comes out of the body for Elsie to capture but the void in Rieko’s heart still remains. The cause for the void in her heart is because of her loneliness created by the deaths of her friends and loved ones and wanting to return back to her childhood which was filled with fun and happiness. The moral of this arc is that the older we get the more we begin to realize how good we had it when we were kids; not really having a care in the world, having fun with our friends, and just enjoying life. I guess the reason why this moral doesn’t get across so well with readers is because a majority of them are still in their youth enjoying life without a care in the world or are still hanging out with friends as young adults (like myself) and still enjoying life. This is an arc that I think readers will come back to when they get older and fully understand and appreciate the moral of it more. In the end even though the void in her heart is still there Rieko has learned to move on with her life and take care of what’s precious to her now, Airi.
The Sumire Uemoto arc
This arc centers on a girl name Sumire who works at her family’s small ramen shop. She constantly goes to other ramen shops to compare their ramen to her family’s and come up with her own recipe. The void in her heart is the disappointment of not being able to help her father in managing their ramen shop because the two are constantly arguing with each other about how the shop should be run. Sumire wants to help out in the shop but her father keeps belittling her and ignoring all of her efforts because he doesn’t want Sumire to work in the shop believing that she’ll be better off not working in the shop. Keima becomes a worker in the shop to get closer to Sumire where she uses him as a taste-tester to try her many different and disgusting ramens until she makes the perfect one. She tries to get her dad to taste but he just tosses it aside and leaves her room. But Keima setups an event where Sumire makes a ramen that is almost similar to her father’s and has him taste it. After Sumire finds out that her father was being harsh on her because he wanted her to find a better life outside the ramen shop she assures her father that this is where she wants to be and he hands the shop over to her. To show her gratitude she gives Keima a donburi (a bowl of rice with various kinds of toppings) and a kiss, releasing the spirit. At the end we see that Sumire and her father are both running the shop together and have developed a new ramen called sweet ramen which has become quite popular amongst the customers.
The Nanaka Haibara arc
The target for this arc is Nanaka a girl who goes to the same school has Tenri and is an expert at playing shogi (the Japanese version of chess). She also has an accent in her voice since she’s been living overseas for a while and just recently came back to Japan. The void in her heart is caused by Tenri (actually Diana) who beat her in a game of shogi. Because her pride doesn’t accept losing to her, she demands a rematch. When Keima and Elsie are walking home they see Tenri hiding behind the café signboard from Nanaka who spots her and demands a rematch with her. However, Keima jumps in and takes on Nanaka himself and wins. He immediately leaves and goes to Tenri’s house where he tells Tenri to beat him then he’ll help train Nanaka to beat Tenri and at the end have Tenri lose on purpose thus filling the void in her heart. Tenri and Diana agree to help but once Elsie slips up and tells them how Keima gets the spirit out of the girls in a fit of rage Diana beats him up and decides to give Keima divine punishment by playing him in a game of shogi seriously. So the two play a game of shogi seriously and despite Keima’s strong moves he loses to her in a humiliating way.After the defeat Keima sticks to his plan and for the next 2 weeks trains Nanaka to defeat Diana. In the match Diana takes the upper hand and crushes Nanaka to the point where she’s in tears but Keima stays by her and tells her to do her best which irritates Diana (you know for a goddess she’s very easily angered). This causes Diana to slip up by misreading one of Nanaka’s pieces and eventually loses. They celebrate at Keima’s house where she gets drunk off of root beer and has to be walked home by Keima. Along the way she says she knew she would win because she had a third knight by her side (Keima’s name is actually the name for the knight piece in shogi) and kisses Keima which releases the spirit inside her. Later that night Diana sneaks into Keima’s room where she comes with the request that she wants him to find the other 5 goddesses saying that they’re most likely in the girls he has captured in the past because he used love to fill the void in their heart. Yeah, for those of you who don’t know you don’t have to use love to get the spirit out of the target, as long as you fill the void in their heart your free to do anything you want. In fact, Keima is said to be the only person who actually uses love to fill the void in their hearts while everyone else uses safer ways because if the love method backfires it’s said that the void in their heart will grow even bigger. When asked how he’ll know which girl has the goddess inside her Diana replies by saying that the girl will remember all of the events she had with him.
The Yui Goidō arc
This arc is probably the longest it’s taken for Keima to capture a target. True, the Nanaka arc might have taken him 2 weeks but we just blow right through those 2 weeks and I think that if he had stuck with the initial plan it probably could have been done a lot quicker. Yui is a rich girl who comes from a traditional home where her mother is always strict with her. The void in her heart is caused by her wish to be independent and free. She loves music and can play the drums but her mother forces her to quit. After falling down the stairs onto Keima her mother attacks Keima thinking he tried to rape Yui. The next day, when Keima finds out that Yui is his next target he sets up a trap where she falls down the stairs onto him again and before he can make his move Yui’s mother comes in and attacks him again but Yui starts to become interested in him and starts to wonder about him. That night Keima tries to go to her house to confess to her but through the powers of the spirit the two somehow swap bodies with Keima being in Yui’s body and Yui being in Keima’s body. So for the next few days they live out each other’s life and through some unknown source Yui gets the idea that Keima is a model student and begins to act polite and respectful to everyone which confuses them greatly. Eventually, Yui starts to like being Keima and doesn’t mind being stuck in his body because she’s finally found the freedom and independence she’s wanted her whole life. She even befriends Chihiro and joins her band as the drummer. Meanwhile on Keima’s side, as days go by he starts to become more feminine. He begins playing SIM games directed toward girls and even starts to feel uncomfortable when guys touch him. Feeling defeated he wonders the street depress where he goes into a shop where Mio is working part-time. She also seems to a childhood friend of Yui. After seeing how much Mio has changed Keima gets his confidence back and using the knowledge he got from playing girl SIM games comes up with a plan to get Yui to kiss him. He goes to the infirmary at school where it appears that he’s sick because the spirit within Yui’s body is growing stronger and Yui begins to believe that Keima really is turning into a girl. He gets taken home and doesn’t come to school for 2 days where Yui decides that it’s unfair for Keima to live her unpleasant life and tries to go see him but the bodyguards at her house won’t let her. Keima finally delivers a letter to Yui saying that he wants to meet her and that night she sneaks into the room Keima is being held in, finally stands up to her mother, and kisses Keima to release the spirit and returning them back to their original bodies. However, the spirit has become too powerful for Elsie to capture and tries to escape but gets captured by Nikiado (Keima’s homeroom teacher) who is also a devil working undercover (please note: I’m not sure if she really is a devil but the manga hints that she is one). Out of all the captured targets Yui is the one who changes the most. The next day she goes to school with her hair tied up in a pony-tail, starts to wear a boy uniform instead of a girl uniform and is mistaken for a boy by Ayumi and Chihiro but after assuring them that she was a girl she’s let into the band and officially becomes their drummer.
The Hinoki Kasuga arc
Following the Yui arc we start the Hinoki arc who is an actress and the older sister of Kusunoki. The void in her heart is caused by the pressure of maintaining her perfect image for Kusunoki, she wants to be the perfect big sister that Kusunoki can always look up to and be proud of. Much like Kusunoki she too was trained in the family dojo so she knows karate but unlike Kusunoki who’s very serious about her martial arts Hinoki doesn’t really care for it so after high school she left the dojo and went to America where she became an actress and fashion designer. When she returns to Japan to check up on her sister Keima becomes her apprentice and through the power of the spirit sees that whenever Hinoki doubts herself she grows big. Keima pieces together that the spirit is feeding off of her ambitious desires to be big and successful in everything to please Kusunoki. Realizing he can’t solve the problem by having Hinoki fall for him he gets Kusunoki to help him fill the void in her heart. However, while he’s away from her another devil who disguises herself as Kusunoki insults her to the point that she feels so a shame of herself that she wishes she was dead. This causes the spirit inside her to become powerful and completely takeover her gigantic body and be visible to the whole city (before the giant body was only visible to Keima and Elsie, also). With no other choice Keima and Kusunoki rip-off Okami and dive into the beast to rescue Hinoki where the two sisters fight and settle their issues with each which causes Hinoki to calm down and release the spirit inside her. Feeling refreshed she decides to go back to the US and gives Keima a French kiss goodbye in front of Kusunoki. This is another arc where the target never really falls for Keima but instead is saved by something else.
The Akari Kurakawa arc
The final arc before the start of the goddess arc is the Akari arc who to be honest we’re not really sure if she has a spirit inside her and in fact it’s hinted that just like Nikiado that she’s a devil as well. The story starts off with Keima mocking the technology club’s robot and angering them. In the school they see a remote controlled box trying to go through a door. The door opens to reveal Akari who is a member of the biology club trying to create a human being and is constantly made fun of by the technology club. Showing a bit a curiosity in Akari’s robot Keima decides to help her out and through his help and Elsie’s drawing the robot starts to gain some respect and support from members of the technology club. After it failed to gain acceptance from some girls Keima suggest that the robot needs love which he demonstrates by kissing Akari who has no reaction to it. As time goes by they manage to improve the robot further while Akari keeps kissing Keima at every opportunity using the excuse of wanting to learn more about kissing. She reveals that she wants to create a “perfect human” that is not troubled by anything in the heart and after analyzing Keima she says that he won’t be able to help her because he is not a perfect human. Feeling insulted Keima continues to approach her using his philosophy of games over and over again but each one fails. After seeing some improvements on the robot Keima and Akari go into a talk about what the perfect world is and how imperfections are good, it’s actually a very good philosophical talk (http://www.mangahere.com/manga/the_world_god_only_knows/v12/c113/7.html). After their talk she kisses Keima which knocks him out and we end the arc with her talking to Nikiado saying that their plan to lure out the devil that caused Hinoki’s spirit to go berserk with a fake spirit failed because of Keima’s interference.
Closing
Well, there you have it, you’re all caught up on TWGOK and you should be ready to watch the third season of the anime when it premieres. As I said before I did skip some filler chapters and I would recommend reading them and I did just do a general summary of the arcs without diving into them like I do in my reviews so chances are I might have overlooked some things that could be important to the arc. I would highly recommend going back and reading them when you get the chance but just know that my summary pretty much covers all the major events in that arc. Each arc kept getting better and better and if you liked them I’m sure you’re gonna love the goddess arc. Thanks for reading, here’s hoping to another good season for the series, and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.
*All videos, music, and pictures used in this blog do not belong to me and belong to their respect owners. All rights reserved*
Thanks for reading, as always feel free to leave a comment, feedback, or request in the comment section below or send them to iamprojectnitsuj@gmail.com