The World God Only Knows is a Japanese rom-com manga series written and illustrated by Tamiki Wakaki.

The manga series was serialized in Shogakukan’s weekly Shounen Sunday from April 2008 to April 2014. It’s individual chapters were compiled and collected into 26 separate volumes. This series received great reviews, with its 3rd volume being the fourth best selling volume on two separate occasions. Two spin-off series and a light novel named “The World God Only Knows – God and the Devil and an Angel”, were also released.

Three anime television seasons have been released by Manglobe Studio, with the first season consisting of 24 episodes and the other two consisting of 12 episodes each. Several OVAs based on the series have also been released.

The story begins in hell. Dokurou, chief of spiritual countermeasures, assigns Elsea de Lute Irma, a cute demon, the task to capture runaway spirits. And to do so, she will need the help of “The God Of Conquest”, a human capable of playing with any woman’s heart.

On earth, Keima Katsuragi, the protagonist of this story and a hard gamer, is seen playing games where he has to win women’s heart. He thinks of himself as a real player, but in real life, he has never even held a girl’s hand before.

After being whacked by his teacher for playing games in class, Keima is roaming the school hall, when Ayumi, a girl he knows from childhood but doesn’t like much, runs into him and tricks him into taking her duty of cleaning the roof.

As he is cleaning the school roof, he gets an email, challenging him to conquer a girl’s heart. Thinking that it’s an invitation to a new game, he presses the “respond” button and from the sky, drops down Elsie, the Demon.

He somehow manages to comprehend that a girl just fell from the sky and claims to be a demon. He finally losses it, when Elsie revels that clicking the “respond” button, Katsuragi is now bound in a contract to help catch the runaway spirits, else his head will blow up.

She explains how the runaway spirits hide in the gap in human heart. That gap if filled by love, the spirit has nowhere to run and has to come out. That is when Elsie can catch it.

She shows him that the runaway spirit in their school is hiding inside Ayumi’s heart, and to save Ayumi, he must make her fall in love with him.

Katsuragi is very underconfident when it comes to women, but since his life is on the line, he somehow has to make her fall for him. He uses the tactics he learned from years of playing video games.

Ayumi has a race competition coming up, so for straight five days, Katsuragi keeps placing banners on the school walls, cheering for Ayumi. This embarrasses her and she even smacks him for it. But after a few days pass by, Katsuragi stops coming to cheer her. This is Katsuragi’s tactic to change hate into love, which he uses while playing games.

One day, while practicing, Ayumi’s seniors come up to her and criticize her for taking their spot in the race.

On that same day, Ayumi trips on a race course obstacle and sprains her knee, resulting in stepping down from her position in the race.

Katsuragi finally realizes what he must do to win this game. He sends her a fruit basket with a letter saying, “Gift for the sick”, and calls her to the ground.

There, Katsuragi tells her how she is faking the knee sprain to avoid her seniors criticism. Ayumi starts crying, saying no matter how much she practices, she can’t get any faster.

“If your worried about rankings, you’ve already placed first. In my heart”. And with this, his final trap is completed.

He turns around and starts walking away. Having touched her heart with his final words, she runs after him and grabs his wrist. The two look each other in the eye and Ayumi leans in for a kiss. Their lips touch, and the runaway spirit is cast out of her heart and captured by Elsie.

The next day at school, Ayumi has no recollection of the previous night. But for some reason, she feels differently around Katsuragi.

The class settles down as the new teacher arrives. Katsuragi’s jaw drops, as he sees Elsie enter the class as her new teacher .

What awaits Katsuragi now that he’s forced to help Elsie catch runaway spirits?