The World God Only Knows: can true love exist outside the real world?

The World God Only Knows started out as another light comedy series that pokes fun at an aspect of the otaku world. However, as the series progresses, the arcs involving each of the girls that Keima encounters became increasingly more involved and complex – Ayumi’s was forgettable, Mio’s was interesting but still typical, and Kanon’s was quite dramatic. I felt that Shiori’s arc however, was the most compelling and brilliantly conveyed an overall message that the series itself is trying to tell, through Shiori and through Keima himself…

At first glance, Shiori seems like a cliche, shy bookworm girl, much like the archetypes that Keima finds in his games. But before too long, we’re treated to a brilliant monologue in episode 9 about exactly why she loves books so much, after which we find it hard to fault her. To her, books are literally everything – each one contains a life, a piece of art, a place, etc., woven together with words that allow you to go anywhere and be anyone.

To Shiori, books are all she needs and all she spends her time with. They’re her companions more so than any person in real life. Coincidentally, this is not unlike how Keima feels about his game girls.

Just as books are Shiori’s entire world, dating sim galgames are Keima’s. To him, the girls in these games are better companions than real people because their emotions make more sense to him and are more logical. To Shiori, books are better companions than real people because they can tell so much without one having to talk with them (since talking is something Shiori is bad at).

In a sense, both Keima and Shiori truly love these “portraits” of people as if they were real when in fact they are not real. What I mean by “portraits” is that the books that Shiori loves and the dating sims Keima loves both contain elements of people in reality and are created by real people, but aren’t actually real people – books convey stories about real or fake people through words and dating sim girls somewhat emulate human emotions and relationships. But neither of these passions involve having a real flesh-and-blood human companion.

Which brings us to these important questions – is such a way of life good? Is the love that Shiori possesses for books and Keima for dating seems truly love? Do they really not need an actual, physical human being in their life in order to be truly happy?

To begin answering these questions, we need to see if their lifestyles bring out anything negative. For Shiori, obviously her shyness and lack of articulate skills are not helped by her obsession with wanting to be in the library with books all day long. But by the end of episode 11, we see that she really does want to talk to people (about books of course!) and that her bad verbal skills resulted from a few past mishaps which were nurtured by her love for books, not caused by it.

Thanks to Keima, she’s now able to talk to real people normally while still retaining her love for books. Does that mean her life is complete now? Since we don’t see much of her after her encounter with Keima, it’s hard to say.

For Keima himself however, the question of whether his way of life is good or not is much more focused on, especially in episode 12. Elsie actually tells him that such a way of life is machine-like, and while other guys his age are enjoying physical activities with real friends, all he does is push buttons and stare at screens.

But Keima calmly replies that he’s not suffering, he’s lived a very enjoyable life, and he truly loves his games. Unlike Shiori who finally confessed that she wanted someone to talk to about books, Keima didn’t express such a yearning to share his love for galgames with others. After watching him throughout these twelve episodes, it’s hard to deny that his love is true. It seems that a person like him doesn’t need another human being in order to experience true love.

Of course we have seen the negativity of his passion. His cold and calculating personality to people in the real world and ignoring those who care about him, like Elsie and his mother. So for my interpretation, I think that Keima has a love that exists in the “digital world” rather than the real world, but it’s definitely a true, passionate love nonetheless even though it doesn’t involve another person. If he just wants to mind his own business and play games all day because that’s what really makes him happy, he should be able to. We live in a modern world that’s quite different from the past – people don’t necessarily have to fall in love and have a family in order to live a full, enjoyable life. Even if the majority of the world doesn’t share it, Keima has found something that truly makes him happy and I feel that that’s what life is about. However, the one thing I would criticize is that, as much as he wants to be in the digital world, he is still a human being who lives in the real world and should therefore try and be more thoughtful of those around him and shouldn’t always let his gaming take priority.

Sometimes I feel that I love anime as much as Shiori loves books and Keima loves galgames, and while I’m content to indulge in anime by myself instead of most other activities people like to do, I wouldn’t be happy never being able to share my love with a person in real life. So that’s where I’m like Shiori in that I want to express my interest with others but I’m just not good at talking to them out of fear of what they would think of me, and unlike Keima who doesn’t care at all about dealing with real people.

In conclusion, out of all the girls, I feel that Shiori’s dilemma with books was amazingly well-written and subtly mirrored the show’s main premise of Keima’s obsession with galgames. Through these two characters who have an unbridled love for things that exist outside the real world, The World God Only Knows brings up the interesting proposal of whether one can truly be happy loving such things as books or games without needing any real human relationships.