Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai Season 2 – Ep 2

Screens:

Summary:

Keima and Kusunoki are on their date andKusunoki restates to Keima that they’re not on a date, and are doing this to help her overcome her weakness so she can become a stronger martial artist. She continues telling Keima that’s part of the plan and blushingly tells Keima not to get the wrong idea. Keima calmly tells her that he won’t, and Kusunoki punches Keima leaving him to wonder why he got hit. While walking down the street Kusunoki remarks that this is embarrassing and that she feels like everyone is laughing at her. Keima tells her that it’s because she’s so cute that everyone is staring at her. Kusunoki blushes at this and her other self briefly pops out; then Kusunoki proceeds to beat up Keima while telling him no to say such things. Keima takes Kusunoki to a game store and when questioned why by Kusunoki, Keima replies that it’s the only type of store he’s familiar with and suggests they go to a store Kusunoki likes. This leads them to a sports store where Kusunoki buys some tape (for wrapping your hands or feet with when fighting). They next go to the arcade where Kusunoki gets obsessed with getting a high score on a game after Keima beats her score by obtaining a perfect score. They then proceed to the movie theater. A sad movie involving a boy dying from the cold is playing. Keima is playing his PFP while Kusunoki is criticizing the main character’s weakness and declares that he can overcome the cold if he tries. The date continues with a trip to the amusement park where Keima and Kusunoki go on the rides, and get their picture taken in a Print Club (though the two have a stern and interested look on their face). The Date ends in the evening at the park where Kusunoki comments that she’s sure they did nothing but things that can be considered weak, but comments that “it” hasn’t come out, but thinks that normally they should be enjoying the date. Kusunoki suddenly declares that they won’t give up and they won’t stop until they drive “her” out. Upon watching a couple share an ice cream cone, Kusunoki tells Keima that they’ll do the same. After some hesitation Keima and Kusunoki lick the ice cream cone together and the other Kusunoki comes out. Now Kusuoki has changed to her dojo gi and prepares to do battle with herself declaring she recognizes her other self as the feminine side of her that she cast aside. Elcea arrives on the scene and Keima comments that he doesn’t know who will win, but he can already see the ending.

Kusunoki starts battling herself stating that being feminine isn’t needed to be strong while her other self states that she’ll be living her life as a girl from now on. As they’re fighting Elcea  tells Keima that they should stop them. Keima tells her that he’ll die if he gets involved, and Elcea tries making Keima a suit of armor using her Hagoromo. Elcea presents Keima with the armor that supposedly can probably survive an explosion, but Keima quickly declines telling Elcea that the opening in Kusunoki’s heart can’t be filled unitl this is over. Kusunoki starts remember that for as long as she can remember she was always treated as a boy as her father didn’t have a male heir to the dojo and Kusunoki was stronger than the boys in the dojo. Kusunoki comments that she has to be like a man. Kusunoki starts to lose to other self, and comments that she needs to stay strong or the Kasuga school will collapse, but her other self tells her that the dojo should be destroyed and knocks Kusunoki back. Keima manages to catch her and comments that she’s having a hard time against someone of her own level. Keima asks her if she wants him to tell her how to win. Kusunoki refuses, but Keima tells her not to be so stubborn and tells her it’s simple. He puts a flower in her hair, and asks her if she needs to fight with herself in the first place. Then he tells her it’ll be fine if she accepts her feminine side and work to bec0me more lady-like and strong and become a cute martial artist.

Both Kusunokis get angry at Kiema and start pummeling him and asking him if he’s asking them to give something up. Keima tells them that there are things in this world that are both strong and cute and cites a kitten as an example since it’s cute, but also a skilled hunter of mice. This doesn’t convince them, so Keima has Elcea show up in samurai armor to make his point. Elcea jumps from the monkey bars to the ground and causes a fissure. The Kusunokis still aren’t convinced and say that his idea is pointless, but Keima tells them it isn’t pointless and tells Kusunoki that something gained through sacrifice will always be incomplete. Then he asks Kusunoki if she shouldn’t be searching for a stronger kind of strength. Keima continues asking her if today’s date was also a waste of time. Kusunoki’s other self replies that it was fun, but when Kusunoki frantically asks her what she’s saying the other Kusunoki tells her it should have been fun for her as well since they’re the same person. The other Kusunoki walks over to Keima and agrees that his idea for a strong and cute style of martial arts is good, but tells him that they’re clumsy. She tells Kusunoki that she’s giving up and that she’s satisfied and will leave Kusunoki in control, and asks her to call on her once she’s become strong enough in martial arts; to which Kusunoki agrees. There is one last thing that she wants before she goes and she merges with Kusunoki, takes control of her body, and tries kissing Keima. Kusunoki tries to resist, but her other self asks her if she hates Keima. She then pauses and willingly kisses Keima. The runaway spirit comes out and Elcea chases after it.

In the aftermath Kusunoki is still practicing martial arts, but has accepted cute things into her life; made evident as she hugs a kitten and the flower with her senbei and tea. Later Elcea and Keima are sitting on a bench at school and Elcea expresses her surprise that people could split apart. Keima tells her that she should’ve known, and Elcea is reminded that something like that should have been mentioned in the manual and takes out a tablet. Keima is surprised and annoyed to hear that there’s a manual, but it seems that Elcea left the manual in the Demon world and brought a demon cook book by mistake. All of a sudden the runaway spirit detector goes off, but Elcea and Keima don’t see anyone or anything. Out of the blue, someone tells them to get out of the way. Suddenly Elcea gets sucked into one of the same jars she uses to catch runaway spirits. A girl wearing a Hagoromo and wielding a scythe appears and tells Elcea she got in her way. After careful inspection, the girl recognizes Elcea, and Elcea takes a look at the girl and happily says her name “Haqua”!!

Opinions:

This episode covers part of chapter 20 and chapter 21. The events regarding Haqua’s appearance is a little different, but I don’t think it’ll affect the overall story much with how they did it. The episode did a faithful job at following the manga as usual. Despite taking up a little less then half the episode, the date portion was slightly extended from what it was in the manga. Not that it was a bad thing. Koshimizu Ami was really the perfect choice to voice Kusunoki. I was a little surprised they didn’t work in more of Kusunoki’s background into the story; especially since those of us who are up to date with then manga know there’s more there.  Regardless I enjoyed the episode and feel I overdosed on cute just watching Kusunoki. What is it about a girl blushing and not being honest with herself? If you’ve been keeping up in the manga, I was kind of hoping Kusunoki would play a part in the current are, but I don’t think she will since she was already a big part of a second story arc; though considering the goddess arc and the names of the goddesses it feels like it would make sense to include Kusunoki. Well I’m super psyched for next episode where we’ll have more Haqua! We got a glimpse of her this episode, and we’ll see more of her next! All the little tastes we’ve gotten from the short clip at the end of season one, all of it was to prepare us for next episode!