The World God Only Knows: Goddess Arc - 01
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No matter the reservations and worries I have, seeing the The World God Only Knows back in animated form is still very enjoyable.
First of all, we might as well address my and possibly others' concerns about the chunk of the story we skipped. With its 12 episode constraint, the good people of Manglobe decided to skip Tsukiyo and Yui's conquest arcs, as well as a few other minor characters. Fans of the manga, such as myself may be disappointed by that but I must admit it's not the worst of ideas when your task is to compress such a big arc into a mere 12 episode season. This does raise issues as to what will happen in future episodes, where context would have been helpful however that's an issue for another time.
As for you anime only fans, you didn't miss out on too much besides the conquering arcs for Yui and Tsukiyo. If you're curious, you can go read manga chapters 43 to 115. It remains to be seen if any content from those chapters will be used, but it can't hurt to read them and fill in some of the blanks that are more than likely to pop up.
Getting back to the episode, it's clear this season of The World God Only Knows won't be anything like the other two. What we have here is a set up for a continuous story throughout the season, as opposed to the episodic style of the first two. A relatively big change for The World God Only Knows and one, as I said, that comes with so little background information, Ignoring any feelings of confusion you might harbour, you can at least expect something considerably different.
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Kicking of the series' return is a sole focus on Kanon. She takes the spotlight in this episode for good reason - don't think she'll be coming back any time soon - and she pushes the romance along rather quickly. Starting of season three with a confession would probably classify as an unexpected turn of events, and that's just fine. Whatever your preference is when it comes to the girls of The World God Only Knows, you can at least agree things are off to an exciting start.
In between Kanon's shots of pining, the moment all fans were swooning, Diana payed a visit to enlighten us about the situation. Just a reminder for those who missed it; the Tenri OVA is an important watch to get what's going on with the new girl in Keima's life. She didn't take up too much time in telling Keima about goddesses and we learn that the Jupiter sisters are hiding amongst the girls he's conquered before. Then of course she went back to pimping out Tenri, because this is in fact a harem comedy.
Diana's info tied in nicely to the ending where we see Kanon's goddess (Apollo) being attacked by Lune of Vintage. Things moved pretty fast as expected, and now we have a bunch of mysteries to go drive the season, including the identity and purpose of the goddesses, the identity of Vintage and what needs to be done. Seeing as how Yui and Tsukiyo's conquests were not animated in full but mentioned, one can bet with confidence that they have something to do with the story. Even so, there's a lot to find out and not enough time to do so.
The World God Only Knows: Goddess Arc Ending Sequence
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The World God Only Knows: Goddess Arc OP
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The World God Only Knows: Goddess Arc Episode 2 Preview
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