Review: The World God Only Knows II 4

*serious face*

I must apologize for being so late with these reviews.  Last week was finals week, so I had to put all my time into studying, which left no time for anime.  Seems I didn't miss much, so here we go. Demons and spirits and galge, oh my!

This, and more, after the jump!

  One thing was readily apparent when this episode started: when it's crunch time, Haqua means business.  The header screenshot is proof of that.  But why's she so serious?  The loose soul in question for this arc is the one Haqua let escape.  Seriousness justified.  Oh, and loose souls apparently have levels, said in Engrish, a la Raildex.  How strong is this loose soul? So strong it starts using nearby students as puppets to attack Elsie and Haqua.  And Keima is "just an innocent bystander".  Well, at least these puppet-students are more competent than the protaganists in Highschool of the Dead.

At last, a very nice change of pace.  I like that the writers decided to shake it up a bit in episode 4 by revealing more about how loose souls work.  I'd also like to state that the loose soul's face looks vaguely like that of Charlotte, of Madoka fame.  Doubt that it was intentional, though.

I found Haqua's insistence on going alone, despite being obviously incompetent on her own, rather annoying. Addtionally, this arc was noticeably more serious than previous arcs, possibly due to Haqua's grudge/f*ck-up/whatever.  I hope having Haqua around doesn't bring down the rest of the series, because I want to sparkle really like this series.  The series does well with its light-hearted humor, and if having Haqua around means abandoning what made the show enjoyable, then I want no part of it.

 As mentioned above, straying from what worked is this arc's major flaw.  The campy, light-hearted humor worked for 14 episodes, so why the sudden mood change?  Other than that big flaw, nothing really jumped out at me.  It was otherwise more of the same TWGOK formula.  Just an average episode in my book.  Despite that, "average" is not what I am expecting from this show, and am hereby dropping it.  Two straight rushed story arcs made the series hard to enjoy, and Haqua came off as VERY depressing.


The World God Only Knows II 4

Animation Quality: 4.5/5
 Dramedy: 2.5/5
Characters: 3.5/5
Plot Advancement:  3.5/5
Episode Plot: 3/5

Overall: 3.5/5

Status: DROPPED