god's route

"Me...I fell in love"

Watching the new TWGOK season I'm reminded of why I love Keima so much. Megami-hen is bringing the story of the goddesses and the Mai high festival arc (I'm hoping) which is really a great arc to adapt because it really gets into the meatiness of the whole devil and runaway ghost plot, even as it went on for so long. Though I don't understand why that had to come at the cost of just skipping over so many great heroines. TWGOK is pretty much all plot driven story arcs, and while it was interesting going through the history the series does it at such a slow pace. My favorite arc is the beginning when Keima is getting all the random heroines. When I watched the first episode of the goddesses arc I was so distressed I kept looking all over for an explanation:

I mean come on you're going to deprive me of 

-a girl's pov of the conquest. As a girl reading this series, I loved seeing Minami's take on everything because if you don't know anything about Otomega he's actually a pretty cool guy. (And if you really knew everything about him, he's the coolest guy.)

-conquering goddess. He conquered Yui as a girl. As a girl, he conquered a girl. He played otome games and used it to conquer a girl I am not even 1% done with this boy. 'No, I am the heroine. And the heroine only has to trust and wait.' What a boss. 

-acknowledging that the gap in the heart isn't so easily filled. Reiko herself was forgettable, but seeing the grandparents, realizing that people move on and are happy despite hardships was one of the best things.

-Hinoki and Kusunoki and Keima recognizing the important of their sibling relationship. Not every kind of gap needs a romantic love. But 'everyone needs someone'. 

-even though he's a walking rejection of the real world, Keima has a conversation with Akari about the perfect imperfection of the real world. Also dude a demon.

-Keima taking Elsie out on a date. And it's not just because I ship the two kay? He might be stupidly obsessed with games and talks in a different language and complains about the disruption of his daily life but he's the one Elsie has absolute faith in and he's the one who gets worried if she's hurt or sad because they're partners. You can't have one without the other. It was the destined meeting and it wouldn't have worked out any other way. 

There's so many things I love about Keima because he's made up of so many different sides. Like when Kanon is first attacked and he gets serious, that was my reminder for this series. He's a really silly guy who's enamored with his games and rejects reality...but when it comes down to it, he knows the value of real life. He's not socially inept, in fact he's the opposite. That's what made Chihiro's arc so memorable, because he realized that he hurt her and he ran to help her. Like he said, he might have given up on reality but he hasn't given up on himself. If you believe in him, he's the type that absolutely won't let you down. It's not just a one dimensional love for games that makes up Keima. It's also when he recognizes the seriousness of the runaway souls or the threat of Vintage to innocent girls or when he realizes the part he has to play in all these. At the crucial moments he's someone who will pull through. And through his interactions with the girls he changes too. They pull him out of his world of games and push him into the real world and he starts to see that the 3D isn't as one dimensional as he makes it out to be. He saves them and they save him too; relationships work both ways. If it was a series that focused entirely on the girls, that would've made it forgettable. But it also looks at this completely ridiculous guy who's obsessed with games, but who genuninely takes into account people's emotions. Put the world and the god together, and you get one hell of a series. It's everything, so I don't like how the anime is skipping over bits. It takes some serious balls to put what you've learned from games into actual practice, but not anyone who plays games can do that. It takes someone greater. It takes a god.

The Capturing God.