Headscratchers / The World God Only Knows

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Real Girls and dating sims

• One of the biggest reasons Keima dislikes real-life girls is because they aren't "logical" the way game girls are. In effect, they don't respond to his dating sim tactics in ways that make sense, because real girls are more complicated and Reality Is Unrealistic. However, right from the beginning of the story he has no trouble translating his dating sim skills to seducing real-life girls.
  • It's been aaages since I last read a Keima 3D rant, but I seem to recall reading it as more like "real girls aren't as impossibly Moe as VN girls", which... doesn't hold very true in the TWGOK universe either, but I try not to think about it too much. Maybe the point is that Keima's just been oblivious to all the Truth in Television before Elsee forced him to open up to Real Life?
  • Check chapter 108. Real girls are, as Elsee puts it, complex, and he doesn't seem to like vague flags like that. Additionally, when Keima went to the amusement park with Hakua and Tenri, he deems the entire activity inefficient, unlike in the games. Basically, even if the real girls are as moe moe as their digital counterparts, they're still more taxing.
  • Impossibly High Standards perhaps? You can't save before a real conversation. No magical aids in real life?
  • Sounds about right. Here, have a cookie.
  • Think of Real Girls as Bosses. Although they might be more difficult than Game Girls, they're still beatable by the same skills.
  • In real life, while drawing the early TWGOK, the author was too scared of the fact that the manga would be canceled due to the lack of popularities and didn't want his manga to have a awkward ending (like his previous work) so the first captures are very quick and simple. Later, when the manga is more popular, we can see that the arcs are more complex and hard to beat.
  • Yep. Just like gamers dislike difficult first levels, pretty much the best way to sell a story is to have the hero beat cannon fodder first. You will pull out your teeth wondering how can the hero beat an overpowered enemy right at the start.
  • There's also the fact that in games, you don't have to deal with all the stuff in between achieving flags and the "good stuff."

Firetrucks

• For Elsee....why firetrucks?
  • Why not firetrucks?, Ok now really, Guess they are a novelty for her, being from Hell and all and don't forget the last thing she knew about Japan before meeting Keima happened waay before firetrucks.

Spirit Resurrection

• Runaway spirits are reborn as the child of the girl they're possessing, right? But some of the possessed girls, due to social problems, are pretty unlikely to get in a realationship, let alone have sex. (Like say, that one girl Yukie saved who wouldn't leave her house.) Runaway spirits don't seem very bright, but you'd think they'd recognize if a girl was unlikely to get any. (Of course, they could just be desperate.)
  • It looks like Fiore plan is to revive them using a method that involves making a run away spirit grow to level 5.
  • Remember Rieko's spirit? Keima captured that one by effectively telling it that there was no chance for it be reborn since Rieko's too old to give birth anymore. Besides, it doesn't seem like the demons know much about the human world. Plus, as stated above, there seem to be other ways of reviving runaway spirits.
  • The Second Method was not really known until the Freaky Friday Arc. There were Hints, but nothing definite.
  • The spirits may not be bright, but they gain more power as the girls' problems grow. It wouldn't be far-fetched to say that if the girl isn't making enough progress in a relationship, maybe the spirit can entice or trick her into going into a seedy neghborhood and getting raped. Squick, I know, but these guys are devils.
  • Or they could just convince them to get a sperm donation. Considerably less creepy, and the girl would be less likely to get an abortion for something they agreed to.
  • The problem with that one is that the spirits can only influence their hosts, not say outright "hey, you should really get pregnant." Maybe they can talk when they get stronger. Any of these work.
  • Two words: SPIRIT HORMONES.
  • Wouldn't the bigger problem be that when they actually do get into a relationship, as soon as they experience true satisfaction or love or whatever the spirit gets driven out? Any children the girls could have would pretty much have to come from either rape or an unsatisfying relationship of some sort, because falling in love exorcises them. Overall, it seems like a very poorly thought out plan.
  • First, there're plenty of people with emotional problems who get married and have kids fine. Second, the marriage might not be a happy one, and therefore, the girls might still be affected by the spirit. Third, if it's too easy for the spirits to come out, then the world might've already been taken over, hence it would be more difficult to explain why nobody has seen the spirits yet. It's good that it's difficult for the spirits to get out.
  • There has been no clear indication that the spirits need the girl to have sex in order to be reborn (that and I'd rather not think of this series as another eroge plot where everything is an excuse to make love). This is probably more of a case of Body Horror. Maybe, once the spirits grow enough (possibly level 5?), they will just materialize inside the girls' wombs and be born. None of this is confirmed.

Keima's Reluctance

• Keima, I'd think would be a reluctant hero as portrayed in the anime about how he never wants to get involved with the real world, but all in all, once he starts doing something, the reluctance vanishes... would this be a subversion of a reluctant hero, or a new sort of indifferent to the call... maybe it's just how he acts towards Elsee, after he finds out that her archetype is demon girl, that's how he knows to react. Also, were they going for her name as Elsee Demon, as in LCD?
  • It's probably getting this real world interruption out of the way as quickly as possible. If ignoring it doesn't solve the problem, get it done and it goes away.
  • More over, Keima is by nature a thorough person. If it's something he needs to do, he does it to the best of his ability. Take his schoolwork for example; it doesn't interest him in the least but he does exactly enough to ensure he aces every exam.

Goddess Detector

• If there are goddesses in the current candidates, why hadn't Fiore detected them before she detected Apollo in Kanon? Surely, it'd have been easier since Kanon isn't always at school, while the other girls are.
  • Does Fiore even hang around that school at all? I can't remember. Regardless, two reasons: One, she lost the sensor, and doesn't seem to have received a replacement, and two (as Keima tested on Diana), if the goddess is "inactive," the sensor can't detect them. Note that Apollo cheerfully admits she's an idiot, so maybe her sisters are smart enough to hide.
  • She lost the sensor after she'd detected Apollo, so that's not a valid reason as to why she had not detected a goddess inside the other girls before she had Apollo. The same for the second reason. And yes, Fiore does hang around the school.
  • Maybe the sensor was only recently modified. Or the other goddesses simply didn't dare to "activate" in public.
  • It has been shown (chapter 118) that the sensor has an incredibly short range and requires the goddess to be active in some way. Outside of Tenri and Kanon, the other goddesses didn't have enough power to manifest detectably before Fiore was captured. Conceivably, if they did, it would probably have been when the girls were at home and far away from Fiore. It was unlikely that Fiore would catch anyone in the first place. Kanon was caught before them because Apollo, the most reckless of the goddesses, happened to manifest in the bathroom mirror while Fiore was present. Basically, Kanon was first because the other girls didn't have idiot goddesses and Fiore got really lucky.
  • It is possible that the other goddesses didn't have enough power to manifest, but I find that highly doubtful as Vulcan seems to have appeared before or at the same time as Apollo (since Tsukiyo is quite familiar with her and seems to have accepted her existence, and her power has come back to her as well while Apollo is still weak). Vulcan might even be more reckless, since she is the only goddess so far who actually uses her power in the presence of a normal person (it's lucky that Keima isn't actually normal, but what if he is? Rumours will go everywhere). Also, the sensor has a fairly long range seen in chapter 115. Therefore, I still believe that the other goddesses (esp Vulcan) should have been detected before Apollo
  • That range doesn't have to be long at all; Kanon's outside getting into a car and Fiore could be very close on the street, the following page even has her lit up by the light coming from the building. It's actually said straight out that the sensor has very poor range seen in chapter 118. Also Vulcan likely appeared as a result of Tsukiyo's anger in reaction to Kanon's confession. Given that Vulcan communicates through Luna, it would not be surprising at all for Tsukiyo to accept and become familiar with her in a relatively short time. The quick power gain on behalf of Vulcan as opposed to Apollo would just mean that Tsukiyo has more affection for Keima than Kanon does, not that she's been there longer (Tenri/Diana has less power than the others despite Diana having been conscious for the past 10 years). Keep in mind also that Vulcan is on the roof of the school, well out of distance of the radar where Fiore stands on the ground.
  • Note that the Diana Vs. Vulcan example is not valid since Diana has a point: a girl who has loved Keima for 10 years has obviously more love than a girl who's loved him for...what, a couple of months? Vulcan explicitly mentions her special power is to manipulate inanimate objects, which is why she could do so much flashy stuff. Apollo had not even manifested a halo until Kanon confessed; the reason Vulcan already had one is probably because Keima "reciprocated" in Tsukiyo's conquest, whereas he "rejected" Kanon in hers, even though he said it in a way that let her know he was "reluctant". Diana later deduces the exact reasons for why her power doesn't return despite Tenri's long-held love for Keima, so there's that too. The issue with the range is probably the above explanation that Fiore really just got lucky, and that Apollo is, by her own admission, an idiot. If Apollo hand't run off and had stuck with Keima, the Goddess Arc could have gone any different number of ways though, including ones where Keima did not develop as splendidly as he did, so...

Kanon's Fans

• On the day after Kanon's confession, Keima gets several different reactions from the students, from prank calls to death threats. That, I can deal with. But one thing that really confuses me is why a bunch of Kanon fanboys asked Keima what Kanon's favourite kind of juice is. No matter the circumstances, asking is pointless. I'll be making the assumption here that the general public doesn't now that little bit of trivia about her favourite juice flavour. That being the case, if he did indeed know, that would mean that he's probably going out with Kanon, and thus there is no benefit to the info. But if he's not going out with Kanon, he wouldn't know and thus they wouldn't get an adequate response. On top of that, the people who gave him a death threat were a bunch of Kanon fanboys within 10 steps of Keima's current location. If he was dating Kanon, giving them more information about Kanon may help them get closer to Kanon after they would dispose of Keima. Keima, being as smart as he is, wouldn't fall for a cheap trick like that and end up helping people who threatened to kill him, and thus no adequate answer would be given. There are several other scenarios too, but most of them end up with the askers of the question either getting a worthless piece of information or no information. Why bother asking?
  • Why bother asking this question?
  • You've seen/heard how Twilight/Justin Beiber fans act, have you not?
  • Given Haqua's reaction, seen in chapter 119, I think they're asking a liiittle bit more than just what her favorite juice is, and in this way, bullying/mocking him...

Shiori's Job

• If Shiori always had such a problem talking to people, how did she manage to get her job as librarian? And you'd imagine that the other members of the library staff would know her better, where they wouldn't adjourn a meeting when she's trying to say something.
  • It's likely she got the job through a teacher, or an older student who's since left, who may have been a better listener. As for the others adjourning the meeting, at that point she barely spoke at all. She never gets the words out, so they assume she never actually has anything to say. It's their fault for rushing her, but it's not intentional - they've merely misunderstood her.
  • Probably the way a lot of quiet, shy girls get stuck with duties like class rep and whatnot that no one else wanted to do (in anime and manga)... someone said she should do it, she didn't have the guts to speak up, and the teacher just said "Alright then." Just that in this case it turned out to be something she wanted to do anyway.
  • Which is actually often true in real life as well - at first the duties are assigned to those that want them to the point of nagging, and then after some time the teachers realize that it's better to get somebody more mature for the job. Granted, in children it's very easy to mistake "quiet" for "mature" if the teacher isn't paying that much attention. Besides that, it's possible that Shiori did ask to become a librarian - after all, she knows how to write petitions - and the teachers agreed, possibly thinking that this way she'll have to deal with more people and become a little less shy (of course, we now know it wasn't due to her shyness that she was quiet, but that's another story).
  • Having the role dumped on her seems unlikely - in a classroom it might work, but there's a whole school of people who could volunteer, and probably some who find it easier to socialise but are still pushovers who could be handed the post. It's more likely that she either filled in a form or was asked to join because she was around the library all the time and whoever asked actually gave her time to get her answer out (perhaps expecting her to want a moment to consider it) or just wouldn't take no for an answer.
  • Or maybe you could volunteer in writing?

Invisible to Normals

• At the climax of the Goddess arc, Chihiro makes it clear she couldn't see the devils flying around or the goddesses wings or anything like that. But then when she's on the stage singing with Kanon, she sees their wings (not to mention Diana and Minerva hanging out on the scaffolding), and it's obvious she's the only one. Was this ever explained?
  • Chihiro could see the devils just fine. That's how she figured out something weird was going on in the first place; She saw Haqua thwack one of them on the head with her scythe and stuff her into a jar (although it was explained to her that it was a rehearsal of the Special Effects Club at that time). As to the goddesses, it was never explained, but most likely, the goddesses are invisible by choice and simply chose to reveal themselves to her.

Hinoki's Dress

• From chapter 96, Hinoki can't revert to normal form, and remains naked as a giant (because she's still in the bathtub) until Keima gives her something to wear made from Elsie's hagomoro. Then she moves around just fine and even goes on a "date" with Keima to the seashore. The fridge logic here is that Hinoki isn't wearing any undergarments.
  • Unless Elsea gave her underwear to wear with the dress.

2 D in 2 D

• Kanon draws a picture of Keima in her sketch book, does that mean she drew him perfectly realistically? If 2D is 3D for them that is...
  • I. . . I don't understand the problem.

Runaway Spirits, Love, and Revival

• Another thing to point out, while the threat of a growing Weiss in a girl with a runaway spirit may be real, the point about runaway spirits coming back to the real world as the children of the women they inhabit is actually not as large of a threat as it sounds. The spirits can be kicked out of their host simply by their hosts falling in love, thus, unless the host girl's child is the result of a rape or love-less affair, any girl who had a runaway spirit will no longer have it anyways by the time they have kids, assuming they have kids with a husband who they married because they fell in love.
  • It's possible that it's not quite that easy. Haqua mentions that "love" is rarely used to chase off the runaway spirits both because it's easy to mess up and make the spirit stronger, and because very often it's not fixing the crack in the host's soul so much as putting a patch over it. Falling in love wouldn't outright fix Ayumi's performance and anxiety issues, Kanon's fear of becoming invisible or Shiori's shyness, and the girls may very well be able to overcome it in time (though with the spirits inside them, it's very, very unlikely). Keima's approach is so successful because he targets their issues as well (telling Kanon that she isn't invisible because there's so many people who were moved by her light, or telling Mio that her father would be proud of her and accepting the situation doesn't mean disrespecting his memory and so on). Even if falling in love would push the spirit out, it doesn't mean that at the first serious argument the crack won't be back and bigger than before, ready for the spirit to nest in. Then again, it's completely possible that the rebirth plan is just a convenient lie fed to the grunts and that the danger really is the spirit becoming too strong.
  • Later revealed that a device used by vintage in the past was used by Keima to open the gaps in the hearts of the girls he was going to conquer years later, so it is possible that Keima's methods work as the girls may not have had the gaps in the first place.

Yui Yaoi

• In the all boy's school alternate reality... just how the hell (no pun intended) did that version of Yui's capture go?
  • It most likely did not occur, due to the all boy's school reality have the Runaway Spirits/Weiss posses only males there and Yui is female. Prime-Yui's boyishness did not manifest in her until after Keima captured her in the prime reality(also note that Keima and her also swapped bodies during her capture); so in the all boy's school reality she logically should also have the same personality before her capture.

Elsie at home

• I've admittedly only seen the anime, but shouldn't Elsie's odd behavior raise a lot of questions with Keima's mother? At the very least, the fact that she keep calling her brother god should pose some interesting questions about their relationship. Not to mention all the lovecraftian food she keeps cooking.
  • It will be sort of a non-answer, but yes, there is actually a reason for that. Due to the way Japanese families work, after learning that Elsie was an illegitimate child of her husband she had to take the kid in, because she had the capacity to do it and because they were her closest relatives. And for the same reason, she is supposed not to ask about the girl's deceased mother unless she starts talking about it on her own. From there it's pretty simple - the girl's late mother could've imprinted certain sorts of behaviour into her and, not being her real mother, Keima's mother can only hope that the girl will change but can't force her to and is supposed to treat it as if it was normal. It's a generational thing, and something tied in to Japanese traditions and culture. Of course, that requires evidence that she really is who she claims to be, but for some reason the devils were able to forge such evidence so there we go.

The game Keima couldn't beat

• You know, the one with Aki Sora as the heroine. If Keima got so frustrated with the game's bugs, couldn't he have just got the iso off the internet and learned to hack it? You know, to remove the bugs. It should be a cinch for someone as capable of absorbing knowledge as him, and as a gamer, he must've been at least vaguely familiar with the hacking scene. It'd have saved him so much headache and time, and would've allowed for some tangential learning on how game hacking works, allowing for a more interesting plot for the episode instead of the annoying repetition. It just bugs me how much potential was wasted.
  • This is the same guy who was playing the game in the first place because he wanted to "save" a poorly-written fictional character. He probably would think hacking the game would be "cheating," and wouldn't count.
  • Also, it later says that there were rumors that someone had beaten the game, but nobody else ever managed it. If Keima beat the game, why wouldn't he post it on his website? You know, the one that's canonically insanely popular and dedicated to explaining how to beat difficult games? As far as we know, all it took to beat it was a simple combination of choices, so it should be easy to verify, unless nobody even bothered to play the game again.
  • In that episode, Keima said that he can't save the game because his PFP will stop working. If so, why not use his other spare PF Ps?. A later episode showed him pulling off six of them at once.

The Heart of Jupiter—WARNING: UNMARKED spoilers and MASSIVE wall of text ahead!

• I'm honestly not sure what's going on anymore. The arc opened with Keima randomly visiting parallel universes after a week of not going to school, but then cuts to show the goddesses converging on a comatose Keima, who is giving off the black aura of a Weiss. This never gets explained. They then send his mind to the past so that he can create a Stable Time Loop. The goddesses get warned to not fight, because if they fight, a lot of people will suffer and the enemy will win. The plot makes a big deal out of Satyr. Ok, bound to get messy because of Time Travel, but understandable so far. The Urara and Kaori arcs happen. Fastforward to the Lune vs. Nikaidokuro fight, and it starts losing coherency fast. TIME BREAKS, Elsie vanishes without a trace in the past (which completely stops in its tracks), then the goddesses plus Kid-Keima-in-Teen-Keima's-body end up in a white void. They then manage to somehow jumpstart time in order to speak with Keima in the past, then make a big deal of Keima's letter to Tenri before cutting it off at what could have been considered the big reveal of the letter. The contents of said letter have never been mentioned again a few chapters later, with the manga nearing its end. Keima creates his loop, the goddesses summon him back, but he doesn't regain consciousness. He then wakes up in some kind of mental plane to talk with Elsie, who reveals she's a freakin' Weapon of Mass Destruction reincarnated as a New Devil. Then she removes Keima's collar, and then Keima wakes up in the beach, surrounded by the goddesses' hosts. All throughout this, Haqua, Nora and Rimyuel manage to roflstomp Satyr offscreen. Cut to Keima waking up in his room. Surprise, Elsie, now Eri, has now always been his little sister. We even get a panel of Haqua showing that she's forgotten about Elsie. And then Keima goes and confesses to Chihiro. ||||| I seriously don't know what's happening any more. There's quite a few plot jumps in the arc, and a LOT of things that got rushed or were left unexplained. For example, we never learned what Tenri was talking with Diana about near the end of the Goddess Saga that allowed her to gain her wings immediately. We don't know how Dokuro managed to become Nikaido. We don't know exactly what the whole deal was with Satyr, since they were made out to be the Big Bads but then got taken down offscreen with a few steps of the process being shown to us. We don't know how Elsie managed to pull off the stuff she did. I hope Wakaki will at least explain some of these stuff in the final chapter, or at least address it via Word of God. As it stands, I can't believe I'm actually considering a whole chunk of my favorite manga as potential Fanon Discontinuity. Now, I have been reading the arc in chunks, so forgive me if I messed something up in my summary of why I don't quite get what's going on in the arc.
  • I won't answer everything here. But I will say this: who says we have to know absolutely everything? Some details can be left out, really, and the stuff about how some things were done that you ask about is something that could be left out without us really losing anything there.