Series synopsis
The World God Only Knows, also known as 神のみぞ知るセカイ is a Japanese animation comedy drama sci-fi & fantasy television series that premiered on TV Tokyo on October 8, 2010. It ended on September 24, 2013. It stars Kanae Itou, Ryoka Yuzuki, Hiro Shimono and Kana Hanazawa.
Keima is a dating sim champion. Cute girls are rendered powerless by his irresistible game playing techniques. Too bad things aren't that way in the real world. That is, until his tempting game playing causes a real live—and very bubbly-cute—demon hunter named Elsie to materialize! Now Elsie wants Keima to help her free hot girls from sneaky demons who secretly possess them.
Premise
Keima is a dating sim champion. Cute girls are rendered powerless by his irresistible game playing techniques. Too bad things aren't that way in the real world. That is, until his tempting game playing causes a real live—and very bubbly-cute—demon hunter named Elsie to materialize! Now Elsie wants Keima to help her free hot girls from sneaky demons who secretly possess them.
Cast and characters
Leading cast
- Kanae Itou as Elsie (voice)
- Ryoka Yuzuki as Mari Katsuragi (voice)
- Hiro Shimono as Keima Katsuragi (voice)
- Kana Hanazawa as Shiori Shiomiya (voice)
- Saori Hayami as Haqua (voice)
- Ayana Taketatsu as Ayumi Takahara (voice)
- Aoi Yuuki as Mio Aoyama (voice)
- Nao Toyama as Kanon Nakagawa (voice)
Supporting cast
- Kana Asumi as Chihiro Kosaka (voice)
- Kaori Nazuka as Tenri Ayukawa (voice)
- Nozomi Chikamura as Miyako Terada (voice)
Episodes
This series spans 4 seasons with 41 episodes.
| Season | Episodes | First aired | Last aired |
|---|---|---|---|
| Season 0 | 5 | September 17, 2010 | June 18, 2013 |
| Season 1 | 12 | October 8, 2010 | December 24, 2010 |
| Season 2 | 12 | April 14, 2011 | June 29, 2011 |
| Season 3 | 12 | July 9, 2013 | September 24, 2013 |
| Episode | Title | Air date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Flag 0 Prologue Elsie receives from Docrow Skull, hell’s branch chief of “counter measures”, the task to go on earth and capture evil spirits that have escaped from hell. |
September 17, 2010 |
| 2 |
Four People and an Idol An OVA bundled with the 14th volume of the manga. Chapters 54 and 55 in the sixth volume of the manga will be animated. |
September 16, 2011 |
| 3 |
Ayukawa Tenri Hen, Part 1: Reunion Bundled with the 19th volume of the manga. |
October 18, 2012 |
| Episode | Title | Air date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
FLAG.1.0 Love makes the World go round Keima is bishōjo gamer who is called "The Capturing God" on the Internet for his ability to capture any girl in any bishōjo game but does not like girls in real life. One day, he accidentally accepts a contract with the demoness Elsie to help her capture evil spirits that have escaped from hell and have hidden themselves in girls' hearts with the only way to force these spirits out is to make the girls fall in love with him. Keima angrily explains to Elsie that he doesn't like girls and his "capturing skills" only work in games but is shocked to learn that both of them will be killed by the magical collars on their necks if he breaks his contract, forcing him to comply. His first target is his classmate, Ayumi Takahara who is training for the upcoming track-and-field meet. Keima cheers her on by displaying banners using Elsie's magical raiment at the field everyday. While Ayumi is annoyed by his actions, Keima believes she will eventually get used to him and like him. After a confrontation with jealous seniors, Ayumi sprains her leg a day before the meet. However, Keima confronts her that night as he figured out that Ayumi faked her injury because her meeting with the seniors made her question her confidence. Keima consoles Ayumi and tells her to believe in herself, which makes her fall for Keima. They kiss when Ayumi keeps Keima from falling down the stairs, forcing the spirit out of her body and allowing Elsie to capture it. Ayumi wins the meet but loses all of her memories with Keima, though she blushes when Keima congratulates her. Much to his confusion, Elsie has transferred to his school, claiming to be his sister. |
October 8, 2010 |
| 2 |
FLAG 2.0 Demon of a Sister Keima confronts Elsie on why she’s still here and he still has the magic collar on his neck which the latter reveals that their contract is still not finish and the collar will only be removed until they capture all of the runaway spirits in the city. After meeting Keima’s mother, Mari, Elsie claims she is her “husband’s illegitimate child” which Mari snaps on her husband on the phone for his “infidelity” and allows Elsie to stay with them. Keima however, refuses to accept Elsie as his little sister as in his view, she doesn’t have the requirements that qualify her to be one which she tries to impress him albeit unsuccessfully. But upon hearing her story on wanting to be successful just like her older sister, Keima reluctantly accepts Elsie as his sister. During lunch at a popular food stall, Keima and Elsie find their next target, Mio Aoyama, a rich girl who proceeds to buy all of the yakisoba sandwiches. Keima believes she is an easy target as she has all the characteristics of a Tsundere, and a love confession might break her hard shell. However, the confession doesn’t work as planned, and Mio has her chauffeur beat Keima badly. As Keima and Elsie follow Mio to her home, they are surprised to learn Mio lives in a shabby apartment. |
October 15, 2010 |
| 3 |
FLAG 3.0 Drive My Car Keima and Elsie eavesdrop the conversation between Mio and her chauffeur and learn that the Aoyama’s family are no longer rich since her father died and Mio’s mother has been working hard to make ends meet. The chauffeur leaves in disgust after the prideful Mio refuses to stop pretending to be rich. Mio catches Keima snooping around and quickly goes back to her apartment. Since Keima is the only one to know her secret, he can use it to get closer with Mio. The next day, Keima becomes Mio new chauffeur by riding her to school in various elaborate bike carriages made by Elsie’s raiment. On the fifth day, Keima, tired of riding Mio current carriage, almost gets whipped by Mio who smiles but quickly reverts to her cold expression and goes home. Keima now decides the next stage of his plans by bringing her to a ball she was invited. At the ball, a dressed up Mio is angry to learn that Keima, now in a tuxedo, actually brought them at the mansion gardens but later teaches Keima how to dance. But after encountering a few rich people who look down on Mio’s current status, Keima finally confronts her that she should stop pretending to be rich. Even though she keeps the act up to keep her father’s memory alive, Keima convinces Mio that she should let go of the past and move on and live her on life for her father and Keima’s sake. Keima kisses Mio and the spirit from her body is captured by Elsie. The next day, Keima and Elsie meets Mio, who now loses her memories of Keima, who has a change of attitude and has accepted her family's status and burns incense for her late father. Yet she still acts prideful and blushes when she sees Keima. |
October 22, 2010 |
| Episode | Title | Air date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
FLAG 1.0 A Lone Flower Blooming After a brief recap of the first season, Keima theorized to Elsie on why the spirits are attracted to the girls he helped before until they get into trouble with bulliess but are saved by Kusunoki Kasuga, the captain of the girls karate club. As Kusunoki berates Keima for being weak, Elsie's spirit sensor detects a spirit inside of Kusunoki. Despite learning from Elsie that Kusunoki is heir to her family's martial arts thus her hatred of weak/cute things and tough training which made most of the members of the girls karate club to quit, Keima asks Kusunoki to make him her apprentice to learn more about her. Kusunoki refuses at first but reluctantly agrees due to Keima's Bishōnen looks. At first Keima can't find anything useful until he catches Kusunoki cuddling a cat which reveals she does like cute/weak things. Embarrassed and angry, Kusunoki tries to throw the cat out from the balcony but a manifestation of her appears and saves the cat. Keima realizes Kusunoki's conflicted feelings to be masculine or feminine has made the spirit in her manifest her feminine side whenever cute, girly and weak things appear before her. In order to fully draw out her feminine side by doing girly things, Elsie tells Kusunoki to go on a date with Keima much to their embarrassment as they both reluctantly agree. |
April 14, 2011 |
| 2 |
FLAG 2.0 Problem Solved by the Fist Kusunoki is embarrassed on her date with Keima but still continues it hoping it will draw her feminine side out. After failing to connect themselves in their date, Kusonoki and Keima decide to do the most romantic thing: eating an ice cream together. After overcoming their embarrassments and eating it, Kusunoki's feminine side finally comes out where both Kusunoki and her feminine side fight for dominance. As both of them fight and explaining their reason with Kusunoki wanting to get rid of her femininity as it is a weakness in her martial arts and preventing her from inheriting her family dojo while Feminine Kusunoki wants to get rid of her martial arts as its preventing her from becoming a woman, Keima stops them and tells them they can just choose both and not sacrifice one for the other. Kusunoki protest at first but Feminine Kusunoki tells the former that Keima is correct since she did enjoyed her date with Keima despite her earlier denial. Feminine Kusunoki admits her defeat but makes Kusunoki promise not to forget her femininity. As her last act, Feminine Kusunoki takes control of Kusunoki's body to kiss Keima as a remembrance which Kusunoki does so willingly a she realize she likes Keima and kisses him which release the spirit inside of her. Kusunoki still continues her marital arts and now accepts her femininity. Later, Elsie tries to explain to Keima the powers of the evil spirits only to get trapped inside a Spirit capturing bottle used by her friend and fellow Spirit hunter, Haqua. |
April 21, 2011 |
| 3 |
FLAG 3.0 The Section Chief Cometh Elsie is glad to meet her friend Haqua, a genius who was one of the best students in their class and is now the Section Chief of District 32 of the Far East Division. When Elsie ask Haqua how many spirits she has captured, Haqua claims she captured ten and is in disbelief at first when Elsie says she captured five as she always known her as a klutz. But their conversation is interrupted when Elsie's boss, Chief Docrow, reports an evil spirit is on the loose in her area due to a failure of another spirit hunter. Haqua decides to capture this spirit by herself but Keima, after hearing her talk with Elsie and seeing her suspicious attitude, tells Haqua that he knows the spirit hunter who let the spirit loose was Haqua herself as she was chasing it before she meet Elsie and Docrow reported it. While Keima isn't interested on why Haqua is keeping it a secret from Elsie, he offers to help her find the spirit at school in exchange for telling him what the evil spirits are. Haqua explains the spirits are the souls of the Old Demons of Hell who were overthrown and sealed by like-minded Demons who were oppose with the former's wicked ways but managed to escapes to Earth and hide in girls hearts which the spirit hunters are tasked to capture them before they are reincarnated as their host's child. Since the spirit feeds on negative emotions, Keima leads Haqua to the most depressing place in campus, the school theater. Keima decides to leave everything to Haqua but she needs his help and admits to him that she hasn't caught a spirit yet and lied to Elsie to save face. Is then when Elsie reports to her that she has found the spirit in the theater. |
April 28, 2011 |
| Episode | Title | Air date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Flag. 1.0 When the Sun Goes Down Keima explains to the audience how he has captured fourteen girls and two unique girls after the last season. Meanwhile, Kanon is preparing for her school tests, but ends up talking with her split personality, Apollo, who claims to be a goddess. The next day, Keima and Elsie meet up with Tenri and within her, Diana. Diana wants Keima to marry Tenri as Tenri's love for Keima increases her powers, which he refuses. When asked to explain what she is, Diana reveals she is a goddess, one of the Jupiter Sisters, who helped the New Demons of Hell against the Weiss, when they attempted to take over the three realms of Earth, Heaven and Hell, and control all souls. After defeating them, the Jupiter Sisters sacrificed themselves by sealing themselves together with the Weiss, but they escaped ten years ago. Diana asks Keima to help find her sisters and reveals they reside in his past conquests, who did not forget their memories with him. |
July 9, 2013 |
| 2 |
Flag. 2.0 Scrambled Formation Apollo casts a warning in the sky to her sisters to trust no one before succumbing to her wounds. Lune attempts to finish her but is stopped by Nikaidō. Keima, Diana, Elsie and Haqua have Apollo taken to the Katsuragi household where they discover the magic dagger used on Apollo and Kanon is ancient Weiss magic and the culprits are Vintage, a group of demons who wish to resurrect the Weiss. With Kanon having a week to live, Keima must find the other four goddesses to heal her before Vintage gets them. To accomplish this without incident, Elsie disguises herself as Kanon and Keima tricks his mother to go to South America. Partnering with Haqua who is disguised as Elsie, Keima uses the rumor of Kanon's confession to see the reactions of his prior conquests, who will act jealous if they remember falling in love with him. Keima narrows his suspects to Ayumi, Chihiro, Shiori and Tsukiyo Kujyo, who were all embarrassed around him. |
July 16, 2013 |
| 3 |
Flag. 3.0 5 Home Keima plans to spend an hour each with the girls to raise their affection for him without any of them encountering each other with Haqua's help. He manages to succeed with Tsukiyo on the bus but compilations occur when the 2B-Pencils finish band practice early which leaves Haqua with Chihiro. As a result, he misses Yui but continues by walking home with Ayumi and Miyako. Unfortunately, Haqua and Chihiro are heading in the same direction which prompts him to take Ayumi and Miyako inside the mall. After making sure Chihiro is busy with Haqua, he has a private talk with Ayumi that he won't give up on her. Next, he meets up with Chihiro at the music store where he praises a song she wrote. Later, he heads towards the library to meet with Shiori where he finds a story written about them that resembles her conquest with the roles reversed but his character is killed due to the rumors with Kanon. |
July 23, 2013 |
Production
Release
| Original network/platform | TV Tokyo |
|---|---|
| First aired | October 8, 2010 |
| Last aired | September 24, 2013 |
| Runtime | 25 minutes |
| Status | Ended |
| Schedule | Wednesday at 01:35:00 |