7th Time Loop – 09 – Branching Point

Prince Kyle didn’t arrive from Coyolles alone: he brought his kingdom’s foremost scholar, Michelle Evan. Evan was Rishe’s sensei in the life she lived as a scholar, and here he approaches her of his own accord, fascinated by her herbs and her painted nails. After just a few minutes of chatting with her, Michelle wants to recruit Rishe as his apprentice.

Rishe is happy to receive instruction from him for the duration of his stay. Michelle also deduces that she is preparing to present the prince with a medicine made from herbs from her garden. She later meets with Kyle and Michelle, who vouches for Rishe on the potential efficacy of her medicine. Kyle admits he’s always been ready to do whatever is necessary to improve his condition, which includes enduring the medicine’s thoroughly disgusting taste.

Prince Arnold surprises Rishe by arriving as her escort home, perhaps due to his discomfort with her hanging out with Kyle and Michelle, two not unattractive men. Then the soiree celebrating Kyle’s visit arrives, and Rishe puts her focusing ability to detect Count Lawvine. Fearing he’ll blow her cover, her goal is to avoid him without looking like she’s avoiding him.

When she sees Arnold and Kyle heading to the balcony, Rishe follows them and listens in. Kyle gets down to brass tacks: he seeks a military alliance with Galkhein, in exchange for all the gems and metals Coyolles can provide, with no regard for profit.

Arnold sniffs out Kyle’s weakness and desperation, and rejects his proposal out of hand. He also correctly presumes that Coyolles’ once vaunted mineral reserves have already dried up. Kyle knows his request is foolish, but not knowing how much longer he’ll live, he’d do or say anything to secure the future of his kingdom.

Kyle thought Arnold would at least listen to an appeal based upon the welfare of the people, since his research into Arnold revealed a prince who through his deeds truly cares about his people. But Arnold, perhaps set off by the praise, reverts to his Bad Boy persona, telling him it would suit him better to simply invade Coyolles than extend a helping hand.

Kyle’s proposal of an alliance never happened in previous loops; once he rose to Emperor, Arnold invaded the rest of the world, including Coyolles. Rishe identifies this as a “branching point” in the history of this loop that will change the course of the future.

It’s the first sign that a war gripped by war that claims her life within ten years may still be on the horizon. But while still likely, that future isn’t set in stone, and there’s still time for Rishe to work to avoid it.

7th Time Loop – 08 – Ice, Ice, Baby

Rishe calls in a favor from Theo to get on the list of knight recruits, training as a man under the name “Lucius” so that she won’t get preferential treatment. One of her fellow recruits is Fritz, from the Kingdom of Coyolles, who greatly admires Prince Arnold. The two also meet Count Lawvine, an important northern retainer who Arnold executed as a traitor in Rishe’s previous loop.

The day of their secret jaunt into town arrives, and Elsie makes sure Rishe looks as lovely as possible without looking like the crown prince’s fiancée. Arnold expected her to show up in far plainer clothes, but it’s not like he minds how magnificent she looks. They tour the vast and lively marketplace, where Rishe has Arnold taste a scary-looking but healthy fruit.

Arnold then swiftly leads Rishe to an unassuming store that happens to be one of the finest jewellers in town. They have a test for Rishe to identify a fake among three gems. She says she cannot tell, but then asks for appraising tools, and determines that they are all imitations, thus “passing the test.”

She then learns the purpose of their visit: she is to choose a stone for the wedding ring Arnold intends to give her. When the proprietor asks her favorite color, she gazes into Arnold’s deep icy blue eyes and asks for a gem of the same color, not realizing how romantic and lovey-dovey she sounds making such a request.

Rishe and Arnold view the sunset from the top of one of the gates to the city, with a view of everyone entering and exiting. Combined with the fact Arnold is no longer periodically looking at his watch, Rishe has deduced that he is here waiting for someone to arrive, which is correct. That person happens to be someone who cannot make their wedding, but is coming to celebrate and offer congratulations beforehand.

That someone is no less than Prince Kyle of Coyolles, the very same prince Rishe served under as an apothecary in a previous loop. He’s a hottie like Arnold, but much fairer of skin and frailer of constitution; indeed, Rishe developed medicines to help him in that loop, and intends to help him here as well.

In that loop, Arnold destroyed Coyolles and everything in it, and in this loop, Coyolles is just as wealthy but militarily weak. When he meets Rishe and gives her glowing praise, Arnold flashes a look that could kill, but not because he thinks Kyle is up to something. He’s simply being jealous.

Arnold is hoping a meeting between the prince and Count Lawvine will help shed some light on Kyle’s true intentions. That would be fine, except for the fact Lawvine has already met “Lucius” and will see a lot more of “him” during knight training. Will he recognize Rishe and blow her cover?

7th Time Loop – 07 – A Matter of Pride

With the diligent work of the novice maids (including a reinstated Elsie), Rishe is able to prepare a room for Prince Arnold right beside her own in the villa. While he thought she wanted to live alone, her intention all along was for the two of them to live together. Not only is he pleased with the room, but also the fact Rishe is so good at bringing out the best in people (see also: Theo, who is recommitting himself to helping the slums).

Rishe also asks if she can take up Arnold’s offer to spar with her, and the next thing you know they’re standing in a yard together with wooden swords, sensible clothes, and one hand tied behind their backs. Arnold also has an eye patch and weights on one leg in order to simulate battlefield conditions, when a knight must keep fighting even when one or more limbs or eyes are gone.

While Arnold is clearly holding back, his skills are still plain to behold, as are his real-time instructions to Rishe as she comes at him. Since she already has quite a bit of combat training, this serves as an advanced lesson. He also comes at her with the same combo that kill her in her past life, and the way she dodges it makes him think she knows of someone more powerful than him.

He’s right, because the him of five years from now will be stronger than he is now, but she can’t say that. Ultimately she impresses him by making him take a step to dodge her last strike before he disarms her; he had planned not to move at all but he underestimated her.

When she can’t get up due to her arms and legs shaking, he gathers her into a princess carry, as he wasn’t about to just leave her out there in the yard. Since she agreed to do one thing he asks if she lost, he asks her to keep her schedule clear in two days so they can go into town. She also learns his birthday: December 28th.

Whether that trip is postponed or takes place off camera or is yet to come, the second half of the episode consists of Rishe trying to get a sleep-deprived Arnold to relax. To that end, she sets him up in his darkened room and employs the little tricks she used when she was a maid to help him sleep.

While she’s not particularly embarrassed to lay beside him in his bed, she does get flustered when he looks at her with those deep blue piercing eyes. She’s seemingly successful in getting him to rest a little, but she’s the one who ends up nodding off, which speaks to her trust in him.

But while Rishe insists she’ll be lazing around at some point, she has obtained a wig from Aria in order to pose as a candidate in the imperial knights. It will be an intensive ten-day training period that will no doubt polish her skills and also help acquire more stamina and endurance.

She’d be the first to admit her body isn’t in the same shape it was in her knight loop, but she seems determined to return to that condition, thus eliminating as many possible threats to her survival as possible. That said, I do hope we get to see her and Arnold out on the town at some point.

7th Time Loop – 06 – The Princes Who Wanted to Disappear

I figured Theo using Elsie and Kamil to kidnap Rishe wasn’t going to go well for him. What I didn’t necessarily see coming was Rishe facilitating cathartic reconciliation between the two brothers, estranged on purpose by Arnold.

But I’m getting ahead of myself! I can’t tell you how cool it is to see a smiling Rishe barge in on Theo, just when he thinks he has Arnold on the ropes, not five minutes into the episode.

We actually began back at Rishe’s villa. She was only pretending to feel the effects of the sleeping drug, and confronts Elsie and Kamil. She realizes they’re not doing this because Theo threatened them, but because Theo is the slums’ top benefactor.

Then the episode uses Rishe’s detailed 3-point lesson in how to properly imprison someone to Theo as a framing device for showing her totally badass escape, which was inevitable considering her past lives’ experience and Theo’s failure to check any of the necessary boxes for a successful capture (including breaking the captive’s limbs and keeping at least two sets of eyes on them at all times).

Theo may have though he had this grand plan, but seeing it all turned to dust so quickly should be a hint to quit putting on the Unhinged Evil Younger Prince act. Rishe has already seen through it, just as his brother has: Theo doesn’t hate his brother, nor does he want him to suffer.

Rather, this whole overblown act was to create such a commotion and disgrace himself, giving him cover to abdicate his place in the line of succession. She’s done a little research, and can tell while his public acts of charity in the slums have cease, he continues to funnel his own money there. The Theo we’ve seen isn’t the real Theo: a kind an generous prince who also has a major brother complex (okay, that part we saw).

Ise Mariya does phenomenal work voicing the young prince as he insists that his brother hating him, despising, him, casting him out, even killing him is preferable to not being accepted. To this, Arnold only coldly repeats what he’s already said: he doesn’t care about Theo one way or another.

After Theo runs off, it’s time for Rishe to call out Arnold’s BS: he does care about his brother, otherwise he wouldn’t have ordered her to stay away from him. She also finally understands what he meant by her not needing resolve to be his wife—he intends to abdicate and disappear.

Arnold finds it “adorable” that Rishe can’t read his intentions, and that he’s better off not understanding, but whether he likes it or not, Rishe is someone who will never seeking understanding. She asks him to consider a possible future in his brother disappears, and to live a life where he has no regrets.

As for her, she fully intends to live her life (even if it’s her last) as his wife, with no regrets. And while her body is starting to give out after all that running and fighting, she still feels she has one more thing to do before going to bed, and climbs to the top of the tower where she finds Theo.

Theo was thinking about the one time Arnold praised him, after he used his own body to protect his vassals in a field hospital. Arnold is proud of him, but warned him never to put his life at risk like that again. Rishe confirms her suspicions to the one who has watched Arnold more closely than anyone: he’s trying to leave the throne to Theo.

Ever since that time he was praised, Theo watched his brother for the express purpose of determining the best way to be useful to him. He believes Arnold disappearing rather than ruling is a mistake. Even if it means disappearing before Arnold can, he’ll do it.

Rishe doesn’t believe that, and says she’ll need his strength as Arnold’s only little brother to keep Arnold from disappearing. But Theo’s mind is already set, and he falls backwards over the tower. Rishe lunges out to catch him, but her muscles finally gives out. It appears that Theo will fall to his death, but his brother catches him.

Once Theo is safe, Arnold slaps him, then repeats what he said in that field hospital: Don’t put your life at risk again. That his big brother remembered that moment brings tears to Theo’s eyes, and he reverts to a sobbing mess.

When Rishe sees that all is now well with the brothers, she finally lets herself pass out. Theo is concerned, but Arnold simply smiles as she rests in his lap, the scar from the wound he sustained saving Theo’s life fully exposed.

Moments after Theo sees his brother looking happier than he’s ever seen him look, he also gets to hear his brother say “I leave it to you,” referring to arranging the carriages. Becoming his big brother’s strength starts with making sure his fiancée gets home safe.

When Rishe wakes up the next morning, Arnold is writing at her desk, having stayed with her the whole time. He delivers a letter from Theo apologizing for how he treated her and telling her he’s in her debt. He’s also agreed to join forces with her (with the power of the slums at his back) her in ensuring Arnold doesn’t fuck off somewhere, but ascends to the throne, because he’s the best man for the job.

The episode ends on a cute romantic note, with Arnold asking her to think of something else he can do for her since he couldn’t resist kissing her in the chapel. This makes a flustered Rishe retreat within her sheets, and Arnold thanks her for looking after “his little brother.” Rishe smiles and tells him not to worry about it, since he’ll be her little brother too.

This was another fantastic midpoint episode that gave Theo a lot more dimension and further deepened Arnold and Rishe’s bond. We also got to see Rishe not only be a badass fighter, but use the interpersonal skills she’s learned to mediate the conflict between the brothers. All of this bodes well for a future where she’ll live beyond the limit of her past lives.

7th Time Loop – 05 – Chipped Nail

Theodore invited Rishe to the chapel to tell her that her brother is a murderous monster who even killed his own mother, and his killings aren’t limited to war time. Rishe responds that she’s “fully aware of the facts” and has still chosen to be Prince Arnold’s bride. Before Theo can protest, Arnold arrives, no doubt tipped off to the meeting by Rishe.

Arnold shoos Theodore away, then tells Rishe he warned her to stay away from him. When Rishe asks why everyone says he’s so cruel when she’s only seen him as a kind and considerate man, Arnold hisses that he’s looked after her too well. Putting his hand around her throat, he orders her to disabuse herself of that false notion. But she won’t. She trusts what she’s seen, and can’t see him as a cruel person.

Arnold sees in Rishe’s eyes the resolve of someone on the battlefield, prepared to stay true to their convictions even if it leads to her death. He’s killed others with that resolve in the eyes of others, and they’re the ones he feared most. Rishe decides to frame her situation as having dreams that she’s been killed, and the lingering fear she’s already dead and just living in a long dream after her death.

She tells him that whether this life is a dream or not, she’s not running away. If there’s resolve in her eyes, its the resolve to live as his wife. Stunned by her words, Arnold moves his hand off her throat to her chin, pushes her close, and kisses her, saying “there’s no need” for that kind of resolve.

The meaning of those words eludes Rishe, who is working herself down to the bone developing the product she’ll use to win over Chief Tully and Aria Trading Company. That product is nail polish that protects and strengthens nails. Her maid Elsie is enchanted by the look of Rishe’s sparkly, smooth nails, and Rishe applies some on her hand as well.

While doing so, Rishe learns that Elsie can’t afford to live her life for herself; it’s all she can do to put food on the table for her poor family. Poverty seems to be a deep-seated problem in the empire; Rishe wants to do something about that, and being the crown princess-to-be, she actually can.

In the meantime, she offers Elsie a bottle of the polish in whatever color she likes. Rishe’s kindness brings tears to her eyes. They’re tears she insists are of happiness, but we learn later it’s more than that.

Rishe knows going into her meeting with Tully that simply presenting the product of nail polish won’t be enough to persuade him. She’s not a fellow merchant but a customer, and Tully says the finest merchants choose their own customers.

Rishe proposes building upon the prince’s establishment of a minimum wage and hiring labor from the slums. Tully dismisses this as needless charity, but Rishe uses his own words from one of her previous loops to ask him why simply choose customers when they can produce them.

Giving the poor jobs will give them money to spend, thus making their employees their customers as well. Inspired by Elsie’s story, Rishe is determined to turn the slums from a place of despair to a place of hope and opportunity, where the common folk don’t have to give up their dreams, big or small.

When Tully sees how badly Rishe wants to work with him, he tells her he could use that fixation to wring her dry, but that’s when she whips out her trump card: she knows that Kaine’s little sister Aria, namesake of his trading empire, has an illness, just as she did in her previous loop.

In loops since then she’d become a skilled herbalist and scholar, and discovered a medicine that can cure Aria within a year. When Tully bends to one knee and basically surrenders, Rishe tells him she’ll give him the ingredients and formula for the medicine without conditions.

Rishe would only ask that Tully consider that the families in the slums care about their families as he cares about his, and humbly asks if he’ll help her. Tully again bows and tells Rishe that her words have moved him to think about the people of the slums for the first time. If he can help their families as Rishe is helping his, then they can do business together.

Rishe should be proud for finally defeating Tully in a business negotiation, but she’s not one to rest on her laurels. A lot of logistics and planning will be needed, both for the nail polish concern and her wedding. But as was previously established, Rishe had barely slept for days. When she collapses out of apparent exhaustion, it comes as no surprise.

What very much does come as a surprise is the fact that once she collapsed, her trusted maid Elsie and her guard Kamil, two of the people she’s come to trust most, betrayed her by kidnapping her and handing her to Theodore in those very slums. Perhaps Elsie’s tears were more about guilt than happiness.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Theo threatened her and Kamil’s families in order to make them work for him. If he didn’t, then even someone as shrewd as Rishe wasn’t able to see the traitors among her. Regardless, their betrayal is a brutal gut punch after such a well-fought victory.

7th Time Loop – 03 – A Match Maid in Heaven

Oliver has served Arnold for a decade, and even he was surprised by the prince’s decision to ask for Rishe’s hand in marriage. He’s also never seen the prince happier. While wedding preparations are ongoing, there’s also a big party to be thrown that sends the message that the crown prince is still searching for a bride.

But while Arnold decries its pointlessness, Rishe holds out her (gloved) hand for Arnold to take, and gives him leave to go ahead and reveal her as her fiancée, turning the search party into an engagement party on the fly. As always, Arnold is surprised and impressed by Rishe’s reply.

After her previous princely fiance dumped her in front of the entire court back home, the attention, curiosity, jealousy, and likely scheming that surround her after she is revealed feel like “nothing at all.” She’s had her trial by fire in this environment, while also having fought actual martial battles in her past knightly life, after all.

When she asks why Arnold announced so quickly, he says it’s better to make it apparent now that he will protect her, no matter what happens. This surprises Rishe, who is so used to holding in her mind the image of him slaying her. She comes out and says she thinks he might be the most dangerous person to her, for one because she can’t match his swordplay.

After he invites her to spar with him and agrees to give her training in the near future, the two engage in a dance in the center of the ballroom. Each time Rishe tries to surprise him by taking the lead, he counters with a twirl, resulting in a dashing display of footwork and shifting tensions.

I love dance scenes, and this one did not disappoint, not only because it looked great, but because it’s a dance only two swordsmen could pull off. Delighted witnesses even mention how it felt like a sword dance. It’s also the closest Rishe has physically been to Arnold since the night a life ago when he killed her.

In effect, the dance is their first sparring session, and there was no need for swords. As expected, the women who had come specifically to present themselves as the crown prince’s potential wife don’t use swords either to  express the frustration with his choice. One such woman offers Rishe a very obviously glass of wine as a gesture of goodwill.

Sure enough, it contains red pepper. Rishe knows because of her herbalist past. Knowing what’s in it, she has a sip and shows no discomfort. When she steps out to the balcony, Prince Arnold joins her, and finishes off the wine she didn’t want to waste (her merchant past shining through).

Arnold, who is no dummy, wants to confirm if Rishe was thinking of someone other than him while they were dancing. She can’t say it was his future self in another life, so she pivots to her medical experience, saying she was worried for his health, asking if he had ever been wounded where the neck and shoulder meet.

Sure enough, he unbuttons his collar to reveal a nasty scar made form multiple vicious strikes with the intent to kill. She noticed he had trouble moving that shoulder while dancing, but it is also the same spot she was able to draw blood from during their swordfight in her future past. He is clearly impressed she noticed it, as he’s never revealed it to anyone, but he’s not ready to tell even her how he got it.

With the party over, the maids anticipate who among them will be chosen for the crown prince’s fiancée’s household staff, completely unaware that Lady Rishe is right among them doing her own laundry. The maid’s queen bee, Diana, scolds Elsie and her fellow newbie, saying they don’t have a chance at being chosen.

Rishe asks them about Diana and learns she came from a wealthy merchant family that drowned in debt and necessitated her going to work as a maid. She also observes Elsie and the other newbies closely and concludes that they know what they’re doing, they’re just doing it at a slower pace, and there’s a good reason Diana is frustrated with their inability to retain her instructions.

Rishe makes things extra-dramatic as Oliver announces her and she slowly descends her staircase. At that point, Diana is certain she has this in the bag, while also observing that Rishe’s villa is awfully clean, and wondering who did it. When their lady turns out to be Rishe, Diana is shocked. She’s even more shocked when all the newest maids are selected to be her maids, while she and her more experienced colleagues aren’t.

She breaks protocol to protest—not surprising considering her previous well-off status, and receives another shocker: as of today, she’ll no longer hold the position of maid. Diana falls to her knees, bereft, but Rishe asks her directly if she always knew what to do when she first got here. Diana said she didn’t.

Then Rishe points out why she was able to learn faster than her new maids: she can read and write, and thus could study what was told to her without bothering the more experienced maids. Diana gets teary-eyed as she admits her family had nothing and there was no one to protect her, but she worked her ass off to become a maid, only to fail to teach the newer ones properly.

Watching her genuine remorse, Elsie and the other newbie come to her side to comfort her, but they are all mistaken: Rishe isn’t firing Diana, she’s promoting her. She chose newbies because wants her villa to be a training ground for new maids. Teaching them to read and write will not only make them better maids, but make them more quick to adapt to changes in their lives, should they come about.

To that end, she asks Diana to create teaching materials for the other maids. Diana agrees, and the next we see her, she’s no longer in her maid outfit, has syllabi in her arms, and is super motivated and excited. She’s having fun. Diana was only ever nasty to Rishe, but once Rishe learned where that bitterness came from, she decided that helping her was more beneficial to her than casting her off.

That desire, that urge to avoid conflict and try to bring people together, is no doubt borne from all of the different lives she’s led so far in vastly different stations. She’s been all of the people she encounters in this life, and so is better suited to knowing how to unite them. And I truly believe that attitude and drive will continue to influence Prince Arnold, who was far more pessimistic and even misanthropic before meeting her.

With her household staff in place, Rishe dons her gaudiest and most expensive dress for her first meeting with the Aria Trading Company. She explains to Elsie that the dress is her battle garb for her talks, and in her head she knows that wearing something so loud will give them the impression of a mark, even though in another life they taught her everything she knows about trade and economics.

Her meeting with Aria’s leader Kaine Tully is auspicious, and has a similar feel to her first meeting with Prince Arnold in this life. She finds herself in the strange position of meeting someone she’d known, in this case for five years, meeting her for the first time.

Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai: Megami-hen – 12 (Fin)

Haqua battles Lune, while Keima (and Chihiro) race to Seaside Park, where Ayumi is waiting for him. She tells him she doesn’t care about his flags or strategies; she decided to fall in love with him on her own. Upon kissing him, Mercurius is awakened from within her. They’re instantly surrounded by Vintage agents, but Akari appears with a loose soul team squadron, while Diana carries Mercurius away. As the goddesses and demons battle Vintage at Point Rock and destroy their loose soul nursery, Keima and Chihiro walk home to grab her guitar.

She asks if he took her on a date because she had something inside her; he says she wasn’t involved. She’s relieved, and they exchange very heavy goodbyes. The next day, the school festival closes with a concert, including the “2B Pencils”, consisting Chihiro, Miyako, and a late Ayumi, Yui, and Elcie, plus Kanon joining in. Chihiro sings straight from the heart, and the concert ends with her in tears. Five days later, Elcie reports that everything is back to normal, including her exalted brother, but he still seems troubled…

In an episode laced with epic battles between goddesses and demons trying to literally bring about hell on earth, it’s the solemn, quiet little conversations between Keima and Chihiro that had the most impact. Once Mercurius had been awakened from Ayumi, Keima’s job saving the world was complete. All that was left for him to to was go home and let the others take care of business. But Chihiro just happened to leave her guitar at his house, so she comes along too. By the time they’re home the sun is coming up, and in their final encounter of the series, things don’t go according to plan for Keima. In fact, he didn’t have a plan. He says something that makes Chihiro think he wants nothing more to do with her, now that the game is over.

But the next day at the concert, and then five days later, Keima doesn’t just hit a “reset” button on his feelings – like the previous two seasons. He looks more like he wants to apologize; that what he said to Chihiro wasn’t what he meant to say, and that he can’t leave things where they did. Even when we see him up in his room playing six games at once, and Elcie says he’s back to normal, there’s something about his body language that tells us he’s still in love with a real girl, one who genuinely fell in love with him without the circumstance of goddess possession. He may have found the ending to the Goddesses Arc, but the Chihiro Arc remains unresolved.

Rating: 8 (Great)

Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai – 01 (Revisited)

Antisocial high school student and self-styled dating sim “God of Conquest” Katsuragi Keima unknowingly signs a contract with a demon from hell, Elucia “Elsie” de Lute Ima, to assist her in the retrieval of loose souls, which embed themselves within the hearts of troubled girls. To release the souls (and for Elsie and Keima to keep their heads) he must take their place in the girls’ hearts, i.e., make the girls fall in love with him. Their first target is his classmate and track team hopeful Takahara Ayumi, who looks down on Keima, calling him a “dweeb.”

Keima commences a campaign of intensive cheering for Ayumi, who initially thinks he’s mocking her. When her senpai accuses her of getting cocky after a fluke performance, Ayumi trips on a hurdle intentionally to take her out of the meet, so she won’t cause them trouble. Keima encourages her and confesses his love, and when he starts to fall down the stairs, Ayumi catches him and they embrace in a kiss, releasing the loose soul, which Elsie captures. Afterwards, Ayumi wins a medal at the meet, but has no memory of the “conquest.” Elsie enrolls in Keima’s class posing as his sister.

With only one week until the completion of its third season, we thought we’d look back on the episode that started it all. We first watched and reviewed this episode way back on 8 October 2010, and gave it a 3 out of 4 on our old rating system, but aside from that date and rating, we decided not to read what we wrote back then until writing about our impressions this time around. From the perspective of those now very familiar with the franchise, you’d think we’d find highly introductory (by necessity, as it’s the first) nature of this episode would make it a bit of a bore to watch. Not so. On the contrary: we enjoyed it more the second time.

We were always impressed by the guile and confidence with which this series got out of the gate, which parallels Keima’s confidence in throwing himself into his very first mission, despite having never even held a real girl’s hand. We forgot that Ayumi was first conquered in just this one episode – a breeze compared to Keima’s present struggles in the Goddesses Arc. We also forgot that Elsie was prepared to give up and die with Keima after learning his experience was limited to dating sims, but Keima said ‘screw that’ and stepped up, not just to save his own head, but Elsie’s too. And the rest is history.

Rating: 8 (Great)