Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai Season 2 – Ep 1

Screens:

Summary:

One day at school Elcea is counting the number of runaway spirits she has collected and is ecstatic to see that together with Keima she’s captured 4 spirits. Keima on the other hand is frustrated that he still has to capture sprits and wonders when this will end. Keima sketches out a theory that the runaway spirits exploit the weaknesses in a heart and uses that underlying weakness to start dominating the behavior of the girls they possess and shows it to Elcea, but Elcea can get past how bad Keima’s drawing is and starts laughing. Keima tries to take back the drawing, but Elcea runs away with it. While running away Elcea bumps into some rough looking guys. Elcea apologizes, but the delinquents aren’t so forgiving. Elcea hides behind Keima, and Keima calmly tells her that there’s nothing to be scared of since clichéd side characters as them may as well be parsley. The delinquents take offense to this and punch Keima, and Keima realizes that even if they’re parsley they’re still real and can inflict pain on him. As the “parsley” begins pummeling Keima, Keima tells them to wait and tells them that he’ll change the route and will choose “apologize” this time and tells them to give him a break. Unfortunately the delinquents aren’t so understanding.

While the delinquents are ganging up on Keima, a girl walks up to them and tells them to stop and further states that real men wouldn’t gang up on the weak. The delinquents start giving their attention to the girl and start picking a fight with her. The head delinquent takes out a baton and tries to strike the girl. Just as he’s about to hit her, she disappears and reappears behind him and strikes him. The air pressure from her punch knocks him back, and the “parsley” delinquents run away. Keima thanks the girl for her help and quickly picks up his PFP and walks off. The girl grabs Keima’s hand and tells him that bullies like that exist because weak people like Keima exist. Suddenly Elcea comes out of hiding and starts blindly swinging her broom yelling for the delinquents to leave Keima alone. Unfortunately she has her eyes closed and ends up hitting Keima. Keima understandably gets angry with Elcea and yells at her. The girl upon watching them gets miffed and walks away, but not before the runaway spirit detector goes off. Keima and Elcea notice it and understand that the next target is the girl that just saved Keima.

We find that the girl’s name is Kasuga and she’s the successor to the Kasuga School of martial arts. When Kasuga returns to her classroom she finds a kitten playing on the balcony and starts staring at the kitten intently and comments that there are too many cute things in the world and declares that she doesn’t need them to achieve her goals. Back in his classroom Keima is coming up with a capture plan, and comments in games for characters like Kasuga you normally have to fight them and win against them to clear their route, but feels very reluctant to go on that path.

After school, Keima and Elcea observe Kasuga and Elcea goes over her information; Name: Kasuga Kusunoki, 18 years old, successor of the Kasuga school of martial arts , and captain of the girl’s Karate Club. Elcea notes that 2 days after she became the captain, everyone in the club quit. Elcea tells Keima that there’s nothing to connect them, but Keima disappears and reappears in front of Kusunoki and asks her to make him her disciple. Kusunoki tells Keima that this is the girl’s Karate Club, and advises him to join the boy’s Karate Club. Keima tells her that her actions earlier moved him and he wants her to teach him the way of the warrior. Kusunoki questions if he believes the world of martial arts is so easily mastered and gives off an intimidating aura; Keima replies to her that he’s already mastered another world and gives off an aura of his own. Kusunoki can feel his aura, and Keima internally comments that the only thing they have in common is their dedication to their respective ways of life. Kusunoki recognizes that Keima’s seen his share of hardship and is about to dismiss him, but takes a good look at his face and blushes. She tells him that he appears weak and that she’ll have him fix that, particularly his face. Being Kusunoki’s disciple has entailed that Keima clean the dojo and Keima has noted that Kusunoki prefers hard senbei crackers.

One evening while Kusunoki is getting dressed to go home, when she notices the kitten from earlier in the locker room. Kusunoki tries to shoo it away, but it doesn’t budge. Keima in the meantime is cleaning up the dojo and Elcea is surprised at how clean the dojo is now. Keima comments that he played a game where you had to clean before. He goes to the locker room to put away the cleaning supplies with Elcea in tow. Elcea asks if he obtained the heart of a warrior yet and Keima replies that he hasn’t decided on a route to capture Kusunoki yet. He continues commenting that he devotes herself to martial arts and hates weakness, cats, and delinquents, but likes senbei crackers. Keima comments that something’s off and opens the door to the locker room, and is surprised to see Kusunoki peacefully hugging a kitten. Kusunoki notices Keima and gets flustered. She tells Keima to knock before entering, but looking at his face gets her more flustered and she kicks him out and runs away with the kitten in her arms.

Later Kusunoki looks like she’s about to throw the kitten over the balcony, but doesn’t realize Keima and Elcea are secretly watching her as Elcea’s hagoromo is making them invisible. Just as Kusunoki is about to throw the cat away, a voice insider her yells at her to not throw the cat away; in that moment Kusunoki reminds herself that she’s no longer a woman, and she has to become strong. Kusunoki throws the cat, but it’s caught by something that looks exactly like Kusunoki only ghost-like.  Keima and Elcea are surprised to see 2 Kusunokis and unintentionally give themselves away as they express their surprise.

Kusunoki and Keima meet in the dojo where Keima confirms with her that he did indeed see two of her. Kusunoki elaborates on it and tells him whenever her heart wavers her body feels like it’s being torn apart. Keima shows her the kitten from before and the 2^nd Kusunoki shows up, and comments on how cute the kitten is. Keima confirms his suspicions and tells her that her attraction towards cute/weak things has manifested itself. Kusunoki is shocked at this and blatantly revokes his theory stating she’s not weak, she’s a martial artist and that’s the way it has to be. Keima tells her it’s a once in a lifetime chance as it’s an opportunity to rid herself of her own weak heart as it has physically manifested itself allowing her to literally win against herself. Kusunoki agrees with the idea and Keima states they’ll need a catalyst to draw out her other self as the kitten didn’t completely draw her out. Keima questions Kusunoki if there’s anything more weaker she can think of that would bring out her other self, but she stares at Keima and blushes; telling him she can’t think of anything if he asks her like that. Elcea comes in and suggests going on a date together. Keima and Kusunoki refuse the idea, but Kusunoki’s other self materializes. Elcea takes that as Kusunoki’s other self liking the idea, so Kusunoki and Keima go on a date.

Opening: “Whole New World God Only Knows” by Oratorio The World God Only Knows

It’s an interesting opening in the sense it’s song that feels dedicated to reintroducing the series. The images appears to show that we’ll go as far as the Nagase Jun arc. The computerized images still remind me a lot of .Hack. If they wanted to tie in games they could have used some game CG. The song itself isn’t bad and the impressions I have of it are similar to what I had of 1st season’s opening and I ending up loving it when I heard the full version. Maybe it’ll be the same case this time, who knows?

Ending: “Ai no Yokan (アイノヨカン)” by Kami nomi Zo Shiri Tai

I kinda like this song, it’s probably because of the beats or maybe it’s because it’s the seiyuus sing this time. Rather than doing indiviual renditions the ending (at least the 1st episode’s) has all the female seiyuus singing the song as the “Kami nomi Zo Shiri Tai” a pun off of the series and a double entendre in there too. Images are a little low in the ending as they just show a few shots of the heroines on the PFP with Keima’s hands holding the PFP; which later disappears and we have the world in Keima’s hands. The song itself is nice and very pleasant, and I’ll probably have to listen to it a dozen more times to see if it’s decent or pretty good.

Opinions:

The second season of KamiNomi starts off pretty strong continuing where we left off and providing a brief synopsis for first time viewers. This episode covers chapters 18, 19, and some of 20 of the manga. I love the Kusunoki arc and I think they alluded to the basis of Kusunoki’s problems more clearly in the anime. I am wondering if they’ll put in more information regarding Kusunoki as she appears in a later story in the manga. I’d love it if they could connect it a little. As usual the seiyuu selection for the characters is impeccable. Koshimizu Ami is a perfect fit as Kusunoki! Her voice just ups her tsun tsun and dere dere parameters and just gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside! I loved the intro for the episode as it reintroduces back into the series and I loved the reference (Is it Dragon Quest or Zelda?). In either case it made me nostalgic for some retro gaming, so I think I’ll pull out the Wii and play a few old NES games like Zelda. The preview pick this time is an awesome picture of Hakua who we’ll most likely be seeing in 2-3 episodes. LOL, it looks like Hakua’s cosplaying (though that’s what she wears normally), love the added touch of Yokkun in the background!. I am so looking forward to seeing Hakkua, and it feels like a great lead-in with Keima and Kusunoki’s date!