The World God Only Knows: Tenri-hen (OVA) - 01

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Absence does make the heart grow fonder and whilst I'd love to see another season of The World God Only Knows, for now I'll settle for a two episode OVA.

Here's a look at episode 1.

The anime adaptation of The World God Only Knows was all fun and games. Rarely a serious moment, the series did what it did on an episodic basis, delivering laughs and satisfying romantic conclusions along the way. The first episode of the Tenri OVA has a much more serious tone.

With the OVA's first episode we get a few new characters. One is Tenri, the heroine of this arc, and the shy girl with a "runaway spirit" inside of her and the other being Nora, a more sadistic devil than we're used to.

For those of you not familiar with the manga, this arc signals the start of something more plot driven and less formulaic and happy. Disappointing I don't think so. We've seen enough of Keima conquering targets to be satisfied for life, and a new development in the plot was exactly what the manga needed after a certain point. Here we have an opportunity for a deeper story - bear in mind, deep for 2 episodes - but the comedy still remains.

All those moments of Keima loosing his cool for otaku reasons are still here. In this episode he got pissed off with Tenri, with Elsie (that's a given) and Nora also for one reason or another. My personal favourite was when Yokkyun was murdered by Nora, simply because whenever Yokkyun is involved Keima becomes even more hilarious. The other moments were also good but they didn't having laughing as hard as any of the more comedic episodes from the anime. The biggest reason for that is most likely Elsie's role being diminished so much, and the lack of comedic chemistry between Keima and the other characters.

Episode 1 has set down the groundwork with little background information to aid our understanding. All we know is that Tenri has some special spirit inside of her and that Nora has come to take care of it. We also know about the past between Keima and Tenri, which will undoubtedly be the focus of the next episode.

I really couldn't get that into the OVA. It didn't feel like The World God Only Knows that I love, and I'm not talking about the OVA doing something different from the first two seasons of anime. On it's own, I don't episode one could be enjoyed that much, so let's hope that episode two will include enough content for a good conclusion.