Some quick summaries before I go …

Since I have a bit of time, like another day or two, I can post some more. But my computer setup is more frustrating, so it’s not going to be the usual routine.

Kuragehime 8 moved Shuu’s story along nicely, thanks to the greed of the chauffeur and a misdialed number. So not only is Shuu and the girl being tailed, but Shuu knows all about it. At the moment it feels like a completely different story from Tsukimi’s. Kuranosuke is getting more ludicrous in his money-making schemes and in the end announces he’ll make a wedding dress for Tsukimi and they’ll make millions. Tsukimi rightly thinks he’s out of his mind. On the other hand we get the sweet moment pictured above.

I don’t have access to any notes, or Google, I don’t know how I’m going to write about A Certain Magical Index 10 coherently. Um, Touma and Orliana fight. Orliana doesn’t use a spell twice, which will be her undoing in the next battle. Then, when we learn that Academy City is going to be claimed by the Roman Catholics when they stick St. Peter’s Cross into the ground, changing reality and everything. Touma responds to this by meeting up with Index and getting introduced to Misaka’s mother.

It’s more Shiori slowness in The World God Only Knows 10. Endless quiet bits where she struggles to say a word. And we get another waltz-music interlude; this time she turns into a naked fairy. That livened things up a bit. Keima rattles her by dissing books. And slow progress is made. She accidentally flips her inner and outer voices and actually has a conversation of sorts with him. Meanwhile Elsie is still enamored with fire trucks.

Shiki 18, God Only Knows 9

After several episodes of mounting hopeless and despair, Shiki 18 gives us some hope. Some of the victims refuse to lose. Another one is on the offensive.

And they have a knack for fashion and home design.

We start with a few who have already risen, in fact, it’s hard not to include them, since just about everyone has already done so. We get lots of scenes where Risen go about their daily nightly lives, one ironically saying that his temp job of burying corpses “gives life a purpose.” Heh. We get a friendly lecture turned death threat between Natsuno and Tatsumi, both werewolves. They can eat normal food, go out in daylight, but they need blood to, er, enhance their extra abilities, I guess. Natsuno is the same grumpy teen in death as he was in life, and though he has no obligations to anyone, Tatsumi takes his refusal to cooperate as an affront. Such is how this organization works. Also interesting is the Risen Ritsuko, who refuses to drink blood, because she can choose to do so. And it’s a zinger to poor Tohru, still gripped by guilt over what he did to Natsuno.

Up to now in this episode, apart from Natsuno and Tatsumi, who have their own issues, everyone, dead or alive seems happy. Toshio, bitten last week, is following Chizuru’s orders, seemingly at peace with his plight. He even invites Chizuru out to the local festival. This leads to most satisfying scene in Shiki that I can remember, even in spite of its cruelty. They greet people, smile, drift closer to the shrine that Chizuru can’t get close to, until they get too close. Chizuru begins to freak. And we see just what Toshio has been up to. I swear, I’ve been waiting for him to smile like that for ages.

Some of the scene doesn’t work. It’s hard to believe that the villagers would recognize Chizuru as a Shiki so quickly. I think it’s a lapse of judgement for the Risen to just bite a man who’s on to them and then not check back, especially when the man’s a doctor with access to transfusion materials. But otherwise the scene is superb. I love the twist they add when Seishirou tries to rescue her, using characters introduced but not used for a long time. On the other hand we see Chizuru suffer. Even though she is Risen and has few morals, seeing the mob turn against her was bittersweet. Still, it’s great when when I can watch and not wonder “Can this show get any more depressing?”

As for The World God Only Knows 9, I’m not sure what to think about the new story arc, or the new girl, Shiori.

Elsie is told she doesn’t know enough about the world, so Keima sends her to the school library to do research. And what a library! At least three stories tall! That’s an expensive school Keima goes to. Once there, she gets distracted by a book on fire trucks (I don’t really care for Elsie, but I find this endearing) and goes to the librarian, Shiori, for more. The subsequent conversation, or lack of it, is the first of many painful scenes where Shiori struggles to interact with others. It was a relief when Elsie’s loose spirit alarm goes off, like an embarrassing cell phone. Shh!

That's okay, Shiori. They think you already are.

And this is the problem. She’s like this to everyone, even co-workers she knows well. And when the show obliges us by letting us hear her thoughts, they’re all about what she should say to this latest person. She says almost nothing. Having nothing else to do, the show moves on to give us Keima’s take on the appeal of librarians in games, and an extended sequence where Shiori bemoans her fear of people and rhapsodizes about the joy of books while walking around the library, all to a waltz tune. Rather nice, but long. And the following scene, where she has to help weed the collection, getting depressed as she does so, even if they’re hopelessly out of date tomes about COBOL. As a former librarian I found that funny. It’s next to impossible to keep a computer software section up to date, especially on a budget, which this library doesn’t seem to have.

But the problem remains. Even Keima seems at a loss as to how to reach a girl who’s so painfully afraid of other people. When he approaches her with whatever strategy he has in mind, it’s the old “I can’t reach this shelf, oops I’m falling, who caught me?” routine, which leads to yet another painful scene where Shiori takes 45 minutes (my estimate) to get out the words to thank him. Keima looks more puzzled than anything else. So, can Keima break the ice? And can he do it without more impossibly long moments of silence?

Three Eights: God Only Knows, Arakawa, Arterial

The World God Only Knows 8 is a silly filler episode in 3-4 parts which intertwine, but it doesn’t work very well.

In part one Elsie has quite rightly realized she’s pretty useless and decides to counterattack by making Teima a delicious strawberry cake, using her own ingredients. I don’t bake much, but I can understand how frustrating it is when one of the eggs you were going to use hatches to reveal a fearsome mandragon which proceeds to wreak havoc.

We then follow Teima through the same timeline, wondering where Elsie went, playing his games and being harassed by his teacher. There’s nothing much to this. He spends a lot of time reacting to the residue of Elsie’s cooking adventures and wondering why the world keeps dumping on him. And we move on to his mother, who spots the mandragon and later hears a burglar and brains Keima with a vase. The mandragon chases away the annoying teacher, the mandragon gets eaten by Elsie’s bento, and that’s it. The series’ previous filler episode was much better.

Arakawa Under the Bridge x Bridge 8 reintroduces us to the tall, strong, yet girly Amazoness. At first Rec is overjoyed because no one believed he ever saw her. Then things take a troubling turn when her assistants hypnotize him into falling in love with her.

P-ko and Hoshi are appalled, though naturally Hoshi sees this as a way to break Rec and Nino up. Nino doesn’t get it. It takes the Amazoness’s next step to push things to crisis mode, as, under the hypnotism, he learns that she has been arrested, and that could only mean a cry for help, right? So he runs off to Amazon jail, rescues, and marries her. Here’s where it gets interesting. Nino rightfully punches him, then squares off against her giant rival. We wonder what sort of battle they’ll have. Naturally, it’s a weird one.

Nino then adds height to size and Rec’s lecture on volume in a container (which she attended) now makes sense. Her love is HUGE. Plus, she is too confident and big-hearted to hate the Amazoness, and proves it by giving her a hand when the Amazoness collapses. The Amazoness tells her that if she is sickly, Rec would protect her. Nino replies that she protects Rec. So we see another sweet angle of the Rec/Nino relationship.

Last week Fortune Arterial finally started working on the plot, and by the end of episode 8 it has tangled up much of what we’ve seen before into a bizarre knot. We start with Erika having unpleasant vampire dreams, and a girl spots a vampire jumping around campus. Soon the student body is frightened. Okay, so Erika is doing vampire-y stuff in her sleep, right? Even Erika seems to think this possible. But it’s not that simple. We learn who the vampire is.

Nice curveball.

Someone I did not suspect: Kiriha Kuze. Okay, she’s had some time in the spotlight, but mostly she’s been on the outside of events. A cold person, but decent. It didn’t occur to me to suspect her. What’s more, she isn’t just jumping around getting vampire exercise, she seems to be seeking a master, or something. We don’t get explanation, but since the next episode is named “Servant” I don’t think we’ll have to wait long. But the story’s just getting started. Haruna hears a noise, sees Erika chasing Kiriha, and, in typical horror-victim fashion, goes out to investigate, only to run into Erika in her glowing-eyed vampire mode. Erika is exposed as a vampire! Another complication! The series is making up for lost time.

And they’re STILL not done! As good a friend as Haruna is, the vampires know they can’t take the risk of being discovered. It’s one of the few times I’ve seen Lori so serious about anything. So it’s time for the memory-loss trick. Erika, if you please? And we get a new whammy. This isn’t the first time Erika has taken her memories away. In fact, it’s the reason Haruna cannot remember Kohei’s first visit to the island. Geez, the episode is dumping EVERYTHING on us! And then we have the moral dilemma. Erika doesn’t want to do it, but she must. Kohei pleads with her. How can she do that to a trusted friend? This leads to an absolutely lovely moment I won’t spoil here. I’ll just say that Fortune Arterial, to my surprise, can indeed deliver big plot points and make them work. I don’t know if it makes up for the wasted episodes but it’ll keep me watching next week.

Arakawa x 2 and God Only Knows 7

Once again, in Arakawa Under the Bridge x Bridge, the show works better when Ric cooperates with the other bridge folk, rather than just reacting to them. On the other hand, this episode wasn’t much anyway.

Shiro and the Mayor have an argument over who will live longest, and so Ric’s company brings in some diagnostic equipment. Everyone has a moment of predictable weirdness. It picks up a little when, in another battle to win Nino’s sympathy, Ric and Hoshi begin to fake illnesses. And this is turned upside down because, if they’re sick, they’ll be unable to go into space with her. So a typical medical exam turns into an astronaut preparedness session. The boys and girls will each spend seven days underground.

So I’m expecting the girls will get along great down there, and the guys will not, so predictably it will actually work the other way around. I was right. Jacqueline can’t handle being without Billy (so she sneaks into the guys’ group dressed as the Mayor), Maria snaps with no one to tease, Stella needs a body to test her new finishing move on, etc. The guys get through it either through mental discipline or going stark raving mad in a girly way. The show’s unpredictability has become predictable, with some small variations.

Really, the three-episode arc that concludes with The World God Only Knows 7 was more like 2.5 episodes.

Kanon's past self could be a little more reassuring.

And it was predictable to boot. We are told that Kanon has two problems. She doesn’t think she can entertain ten thousand fans at a concert, and if she doesn’t the world will turn its back on her and she will disappear again. The first problem seems to be simple stage fright. The second one is more of a danger to her happiness. To make it worse for Keima, she reacts to this double-whammy by disappearing anyway. We get a lot of scenes of people looking for her, Keima included, and then it turns out Elsie can track her down by sensing the lost soul inside her. Nice work, Elsie! I wish you could have thought of this before we had all those searching scenes (then it would have been a 2.25 episode story arc).

The subsequent scene between Keima and Kanon (surprise, she was just down the road!) is only partly satisfying. Keima tells her what her problem is, she moves in to kiss him, but he refuses it. He knows she’s still in danger of vanishing if she doesn’t see she doesn’t need other people to validate her. Another lecture. That part worked pretty well. What didn’t is that Kanon is instantly cured! Her lost soul flies out to get captured by Elsie and she happily returns just in time for her concert to begin. Well, maybe it was the lost soul causing the problem, but it seems to me to be more of a pathological need that you cant cure in one therapy session. But whatever.

The reason the story ended so soon is so they could bring us the concert, including two entire songs. There’s not much visually or musically to these scenes, but they’re enhanced by the fact that she’s happily holding her own in a solo concert for a huge audience. Not only that, but she’s overjoyed that her two former group-mates each sent her good luck flowers, a nice touch. The same when, after everyone’s gone, she goes onstage and sings a bit of a song her old group recorded. When you combine music and story together it usually has an effect on me, even in silly shows like this one.

God Only Knows 6, Amagami 19

By the end of The World God Only Knows 6, Keima announces that he has seen the ending to the Kanon arc. I wish he would tell us. Because I have no idea.

We start with the Keima and Elsie trying to figure out where the hell Kanon disappeared (literally) to. Kanon ruins the speculation by half-reappearing and threatening Keima with her cute stun-gun before walking off. I’m afraid we’re never going to get an answer to this rather mystical phenomenon as the story continues as nothing had happened, only now and then she gets a little transparent. We’re given a scene of her screwing up during a live song because an audience member was busy texting, and others from the past showing her being ignored, not out of meanness, but because she doesn’t stand out. But we had kind of figured out her motivations already.

So she’s afraid of being ignored, and that pathologically works in with her growing idol status. It takes Keima to take the next step. He slips her his phone number and suddenly she won’t leave him alone, texting him whenever something however tiny goes wrong. That’s good that Keima has become her friend, her only one, but bad because the constant messaging is driving poor Keima mad. Meanwhile he plays a PFP game where a singer character tells him she is singing only for him. Sounds good enough. Give Kanon a love she can devote her music to.

But it can’t be easy. There are plenty of people out there willing to praise her every move if she turns to them, and, unlike Keima, they wouldn’t be lying. And there are other clues, like the fans Elsie meets, the scene where Keima’s mother scolds Elsie for coming home late, stuff that doesn’t yet add up. And so, right before a big concert, she disappears again. That’s when Keima announces that he sees the ending. I wish I could. Still, it was a good episode. We see Kanon’s situation from a number of perspectives, including the superficial one the media gives us. It rarely slowed down. This is turning into a pretty good series.

Amagami SS 19 accomplishes absolutely nothing in terms of bringing Junichi and Rihoko closer together, but it’s not a bad episode.

The problem is that our would-be couple are already pretty close. They hang out with the tea club (giving us more quality time with Ruriko and Manaka), they go to Kaoru’s restaurant, there are countless references to the diet. Plus we visit other characters. Ai is assigned the duty of “maintaining the traditional flavor of the swim team,” (that always cracks me up), a great honor. Miya, Sai and Ai hang out. The teacher apologizes for her Founders’ Day drunkenness, which seems to be an annual event in itself. Masayoshi is tickled that Miya answered the phone wearing nothing but a towel. None of it meaning anything, all of it cheerful.

La-la-la-la-la-la La!

There are a couple of events. Rihoko asks Junichi out for a New Years Eve shrine visit, and he agrees. I guess this could be called a date, but Junichi says “yes” so matter-of-factly that it’s hard to think of it that way. Oh, and when she shows up he’s just come out of the bath and drops the towel. Even that moment of drama (if that’s the word) is passed by with no consequences. There’s a charming bit where Miya and Rihoko pretend to be idols. Junichi has learned to make good tea. Again, nothing is accomplished. Rihoko can’t even stay on her diet. Yet it’s all good. Maybe, as Junichi says, refined.

God Only Knows 5, Amagami 18, Arterial 5

The World God Only Knows 5 brings us Kanon, an idol singer, who, in an incredible coincidence, just happens to be in Keima and Elsie’s class.

Elsie and the rest of the school adore her. Keima couldn’t care less, and in a long sequence involving Nazi-style rallies, makes it very clear why he prefers 2D idols. The trouble is, while Kanon is nice and sweet to everyone, she has a desperate need to be, er, idolized, and she has weapons (the cutest stun-guns you’ve ever seen!) to make her point, which Keima painfully learns. It comes as no surprise who this week’s girl is. So while Kanon alternately threatens and sings to Keima to win him over (or as she says, to “defeat” him), he works out his own strategy.

Right now we don’t have any clear reason as to why Kanon acts this way. Her manager says she didn’t use to. It could be the lost soul. We see a lot of her at work; everyone praises her every move, and of course her fans adore her. Keima’s indifference certainly gets a rise out of her. But how is he going to turn that into love? It’s a good challenge for him, but then the episode’s end takes a turn into real strangeness, and it might all be moot.

I’m still not in love with the current Amagami SS story arc. But it’s livened up by a couple characters.

Ruriko and Manaka are seniors in the Tea Club, which is in danger of folding after they graduate. The only other person in it is Rihoko (someone I wouldn’t imagine in such a formal situation). In order to attract more members, and because they see Rihoko’s attraction to Junichi, they shanghai him into helping the club with the Founders’ Day ceremonies. It’s a good thing, too. Junichi and Rihoko are making no progress with each other. They’re not really trying. It’s like they’re not even aware. So the show uses other characters to push them together. It helps that the Tea Club girls have a strange but entertaining rapport, Ruriko is the snarky one, Manaka the cryptic one.

Junichi knows what to say to a girl, sometimes ...

But they can’t save the arc by themselves. Junichi and Rihoko do their normal things. They go skating, they talk about their childhood, they talk about the Tea Club. It’s just not very exciting. There’s a sweet moment when Rihoko gives Junichi gloves she knitted for him, but that’s about it. It’s not like I expect dramatics in every scene, especially in this show, but this arc just seems duller than usual. At least they got away from Rihoko obsessing about her weight …

I think the vampire story in Fortune Arterial gave up and went home. This episode is all about the athletic festival and trying to get one grump to participate. The festival goes off with only a minor hitch or two.

They run out of prizes and have to beg sponsors for more. There’s an amusing moment when Kohei is forced to announce a race. Everybody’s having fun, except for Kuze, who indifferently runs her races then wanders off to pet a cat. We get a lot of moments where Kohei just stands there looking at her. There’s a cryptic conversation where she says she doesn’t refuse to do things because she doesn’t like them, well, I don’t know what she’s thinking. Kohei just wants her to join in the fun. Finally she is talked into participating in the three-legged race (with a costume change at the end).

And we get a lot of her being embarrassed and fighting down the fact that she had fun and people had a good time with her. In other words, it was just another athletic festival episode. And it wasn’t bad, not on the level of the one in Toradora, or the Azumanga trilogy, but I’ve seen worse. But again, no vampires. They don’t even use the word. Are they setting us up for something?

God Only Knows 4, Kuragehime 2

There are no new girls in The World God Only Knows 4. Instead, in an odd, disjointed but often funny episode, Keima takes on the challenge of beating the unbeatable game.

You'll see this moment a lot.

It’s not that the game is hard, it’s just unplayable. It’s got so many bugs in it that it is impossible to complete. Keima takes this as a personal challenge. This is confusing because in the first couple scenes (after an atmospheric glimpse inside the game) it looks like business as usual. Keima playing his PFP, Elsie tagging along, concerned, just like the other episodes. We’re waiting for this week’s girl to show up. It takes a while to realize there will be no girl, except for the one within the game.

This is what happens if you order the curry.

But then we get a great scene. We switch to Keima’s view within the game and experience the loops and scene jumps with him. Quiet piano music plays, the girl says a line, he responds, something surreal happens, and they’re back to the quiet piano music. The girl never changes, but the bugs get more surreal, and Keima gets more beaten and frustrated every time it happens. It’s quite funny.

Keima’s motivation to get past the bugs and loops isn’t just pride. He sees the girl in the game as someone to be rescued. The gamemakers have gone out of business, there are no new patches coming. If he can’t get to the end and make the girl happy, no one will. You can call this either pathetic or sweet, or maybe both, but it suggests that Keima is kinder and more sympathetic to others than we were led to believe. By the way, I bet you can predict the ending.

Kuragehime is an amiable enough show but I hope each episode isn’t going to be about hiding Kuranosuke’s true identity.

The first part of episode 2 is all about that, as Tsukimi deals with getting Kuranosuke out of the building while not making the others suspicious. To complicate matters the wig’s in the hallway and the girls want Tsukimi’s attention. Kuranosuke is completely clueless as to what the fuss is all about. In fact, that might get a little old, too. And when he does get out, we don’t see it. He’s just out on the street with Tsukimi. But at least the scene is over.

Precisely the wrong thing to say.

Things get much better. The girls shop for their weekly hotpot feast, and we get to see what a close-knit group they are. They all look forward to the event and choose the ingredients together. Alas, Kuranosuke crashes the event and ruins it. In spite of every indirect (and in Tsukimi’s case, direct) message they send him that he’s not welcome he stays and makes everyone uncomfortable. I must say I am not warming to this character. It’s not just that he is unaware that the girls fear fashionable people as much as men. He just doesn’t see any problem with coming in, unannounced and uninivited, and eating people’s food.

Well, he does make it up to them, and we begin to see why he might enjoy spending time with them, or rather, the Tsukimi. As for her, the heartstrings are starting to play that melody. So she’s going to be dealing with conflicted emotions for some time. I just hope it doesn’t lead to more frantic hiding scenes with quickly made-up lies. This agreeable series is capable of more than that.

World God Only Knows 3, Arakawa 3, Shinryaku 3

The world God Only Knows 3 polishes off the Mio story. It starts well enough, but takes a dull turn. Frankly, I think every story arc will.

Keima and Elsee learn Mio’s secret, but she learns that they were eavesdropping. Normally this would be trouble but Keima is resourceful enough to use it to his advantage. Since her chauffeur pooped out on her (and why was he even bothering to drive her around in the first place?) Keima offers his services using a rickshaw, which gets more elaborate (and heavier) every morning. This sight gag works for just long enough for the romance to take shape.

The turning point comes when Keima escorts Mio to a fancy party that her late father used to take her to. Now, the point is made that Mio must forget about being rich, though she is afraid that if she does she will forget her father. Taking her to such a party won’t help. It’s only when a couple of party-goers mock her that she begins to turn. Sadly, it gets maudlin here. I said that every story arc will; there will be a moment where the girl’s inner troubles will come out and she will turn to Keima while violins play. Though I like the irony that the next episode he will start from scratch and woo a different girl. For Keima there’s a Sisyphus aspect to it.

Arakawa Under the Bridge x Bridge 3 also has a sentimental ending, but in this case I don’t mind. First, it’s not a girl of the week, but Nino. Second, Arakawa rarely does this sort of thing, and when they do they do it well. Basically, Recruit finds some tapes belonging to Nino and plays one of them. She’s upset about it.

We’ve never seen Nino this angry before. Their reconciliation takes up the entire episode. It’s not often the show devotes so much time to one thing. Half of the time is taken with coaxing Nino down, the other with Recruit continually crashing the girls’ slumber and commiseration party. Normally, Recruit is scrambling around acting stupid because he doesn’t understand the oddballs around him; here, he’s simply trying to make amends to the girl he loves. This gives the whole thing a weight the show normally doesn’t have.

When they finally come back together, after a touching speech by Nino, we see again that these two aren’t just weirdos living under a bridge, but individuals who genuinely love each other. All the other eccentric characters can do is stand to the side and watch.

Shinryaku! Ika Musume 3 isn’t bad.

I sometimes ask that while watching this show.

First Eiko decides Ika needs to be scared so arranges a test of courage. Ika’s obliviousness holds up well here. She sees no reason to be scared of ghosts, and when she encounters some she thinks they’re just nice humans. Said obliviousness holds up less well in the second part when she mistakes floating toys for killer whales. They do the annoying thing by having Ika act a certain way while the others misunderstand what she’s up to, leading to more complications. It’s a comedic technique that gets on my nerves quickly.

In the third story we meet Nagisa, a new employee, and the only one in this show so far who reacts to Ika with anything resembling terror. You know, she has a point. Ika can be dangerous, and she’s a squid girl who wants to take over the world. She vomits squid ink! Hardly anyone in the show thinks this is weird at all, only Eiko, because she’s usually relegated to straight-girl status. As for Ika, FINALLY someone up here reacts like they should. The story goes on with this a bit too much, but overall I found it refreshing.

Aww, look at the cute widdle object of terror!

Kuragehime 1, God Only Knows 2

Many seasons I’ll watch the new shows, some of them good, some of them not so good but still interesting, but hardly anything that’s different. I don’t mean weird, I mean something that doesn’t look and behave like the others. Often the noitaminA timeslot saves the day with diverse shows like Eden of the East, Trapeze or Honey and Clover, just to name three. I’m happy to say they’ve done it again with their new show: Kuragehime.

Kuragehime stars Tsukimi, a nerdy young woman obsessed with jellyfish who works as an illustrator in Tokyo. She’s hapless, frightened of crowds, and lives in a boarding house with other women who are just as nerdy in their own way. It’s clear from the start that her friendship with them keeps her going, but at the same time they seem to reinforce each other’s lack of social skills. But they’re happy enough. Then, in an attempt to rescue a beloved pet-store jellyfish from certain death (Did you know that if you put a spotted jellyfish in a small tank with an aurelia it will die from the aurelia’s secretions? You learn plenty about jellyfish in this show) she meets the kind of person she normally is terrified of.

This person takes a liking to Tsukimi and even crashes at her place, leaving Tsukimi to fret about what the others will say when they see this “princess” in their midst, not to mention the jellyfish in the bathtub. It will come as no surprise that things aren’t all they seem with this princess, and I hope the show doesn’t fall into a “hide the true identity” story. I’m not too worried. The show is cheerfully eccentric and deals with its odd characters with affection. And again, there’s not an ongoing series like it.

I thought last week that I would hate episode one of The World God Only Knows, and I didn’t. I thought the same before watching episode two—sooner or later it would dissolve into a cliché-fest, right? Well, it sort of is already, but again I’m beginning to find the whole thing intriguing.

We take a break from girl wooing to allow Elsee (Elci? Elsea? I’ll call her whatever the subbers do) to settle in as Keima’s little sister. Keima is against her living with him, and indeed with the embarrassment she causes him at school you can hardly blame him. But for Elsee to tell his mother that she is her husband’s illegitimate daughter goes a step beyond, and surprisingly, I didn’t mind a bit. Even if Elsee has innocently wrecked a household! Maybe it was the mother’s violent reaction. But Keima won’t budge, and Elsee has to go to great lengths to prove that she’s a real little sister, like accidentally blasting a whole in a wall, climbing into the tub with him, you know, the usual.

That takes up the first half. The second half concerns their next project, a spoiled rich girl named Mio, who shows her meanness at the school bread stand. You want to boo her. Keima snaps into action, tests strategies on Elsee, and tries one on Mio, and is rather violently rebuffed. What I like about Keima is that he takes this reaction in stride. He takes the failure as new information and refines his plans. He’s utterly confident in his abilities. There’s a twist at the episode’s end that will give him plenty to think over.

Two ones and a fourteen: The World God Only Knows, Amagami, Fortune Arterial

The World God Only Knows 1 is about Keima, a nerdy student who can win over any 2-D game girl he wants. And now he’s signed a pact with the devil to win the hearts of real girls. This raises a number of questions, first, with his reputation, how is he going to do it?

The uniform doesn't help, either.

He’s not exactly handsome or even social. But if he doesn’t win over Ayumi, a track team member, not only will he die but so will Elci, his adorable demon assistant. This is what happens when you click “Agree” on a message on your PFP. Let it be a warning to you. So he tries, using strategies taken from games.

The show might be able to generate some fun from Keima’s mistaken attempts taken from fiction not working in the real world, and to an extent that does happen. On the other hand his sheer persistence does soften Ayumi’s stance. And when she does turn to him it’s not because of his game techniques but because of his careful and gentle observations about her situation, even if the scene, and her situation, come off as unbelievable. Maybe the best bit comes at the end. After the loose spirit is captured (the reason Keima and Elci are targeting girls in the first place) Ayuma forgets all about the romance, certainly convenient for Keima and his quest. On the other hand, he shows a flash of frustration. For once he had a real girl, then he lost her. Maybe he doesn’t hate 3-D girls so much after all. Nevertheless I doubt that I’ll watch more than a couple episodes of this.

Amagami SS is also all about getting the girl. Those of you who think this show is an unrealistic representation of courtship ought to watch it after watching The World God Only Knows. It feels almost profound, even though in episode 14 Junichi sets all sorts of records for stupid behavior.

But it’s not entirely his fault. Girls aid and abet his actions. First in the library where he, Masayoshi (forever the sidekick), and Kaoru, of all people, go to the library to check out (get it?) the new assistant. It ends nicely as it gets Junichi and Ai together to study math. And we begin to see what it is about Junichi that is making Ai fall for him, the fact that he can act so responsibly one moment and like a child the next. The second woman to mess with him is his teacher, who tells him to shape up then slaps his fanny. Geez, lady. But the topper is sort of a two-parter. Junichi meets Sae for the first time and stares at her boobs, leading Miya, his sister, to go on about how big and soft they are. Poor Sae. But, see? It’s not all Junichi’s fault … well, the next bit is, when he tries to make it up to flat-chested Ai.

He's not just saying that to Ai, but to the ENTIRE SWIM TEAM.

At this point I’m wondering if he’s deliberately acting like a loon to prove some point, but no. It’s just Junichi being his honest self. Really, it’s hard not to like him nonetheless. And the two make it up in a park scene where Junichi teaches Ai some transformation moves, to the delight of some young boys watching nearby. As Ai is having trouble with his younger brother this comes as a nice antidote. And so the romance continues. I thought I’d have trouble getting into the series after a week off and the avalanche of new shows, but I fell back into the show’s leisurely, playful routine with no trouble.

Fortune Arterial 1 starts with vampire stuff but shifts immediately to your typical transfer student introduction episode before veering back in the last scene.

Transfer student stuff.

Kohei, our transfer student, transfers to Tamatsu Island to attend a luxurious school. We get the usual wacky introductions with one dark overtone. Erika, the vice-president touches him and freaks out. After that it’s all hijinks as Kohei meets one student after another. It’s another of those “I lived here briefly years ago” shows, so naturally a couple of the girls, Haruna and Kanade, remember him. He meets more while touring the campus (He has to follow a map and take pictures of the landmarks, a nice idea, actually): Little Shiro and her bunny, her older brother Sei, who warns him about visiting one particular building nicknamed “Pandemonium,” but it turns out his reasons are quite innocent. Indeed, between the vampire in the prologue and the one at the end the episode played with darkness only to turn it into a joke. There’s also the nun Amaike, so we know we’re going to get a gothic influence later, and Lori, Student Council President, who messes with Kohei’s mind by changing the signs in the bathhouse and sort of flirting with him. What happened to the vampire stuff?

Vampire stuff.

Even here they undercut Kohei’s discovery (in the church, of course) with a comic bit you’d find in any high school comedy. I rather like the contrast. They’ll probably start merging the dark and the comic starting now, but it was a not-bad first episode.