[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Sackett

Interesting.

I consider TWGOK to be a light-hearted parody of moe, not anti-moe, and not pro-moe. More of an affectionate mockery of moe. So we get to have our cake (moe girls) and eat it too (laugh at the silliness of it all).

That may be an accurate assessment of the anime. There's certainly touches here and there of this anime parodying some prominent moe character archetypes. I would say that it's like the anime demonstrating and saying "These moe archetypes can be pretty silly and simple at times, can't they? But still, there's also a certain appeal to them that can't be denied".

I see this anime being to moe what The Incredibles movie was to classic spandex-clad superhero comics. The Incredibles parodied its subject material a bit (what with jokes about the drawbacks of capes, how supervillains tend to monologue too much for their own good, etc...) but it was also a celebration of that same subject material.

I will admit the anime so far has toned down the mockery quite a bit, but it is still there. For example in this episode when Keima was complaining to Elsie about the proper traits of a sidekick character and Elsie replies that it makes Keima the perfect sidekick. Keima then gets angry at Elsie making herself the main character.

Except, that you could easily see this as Elsie being the main character. She has a quest. She's a bit of a bumbler, but is making up for it through determination and by recruiting a competent sidekick...

That's some good meta humor there about the silliness of the "normal" male main character at the center of the Unwanted Harem genre. Why is he never interesting himself? How does such a boring character become the center of a show? It's always the sidekick characters that are interesting. But not in TWGOK.

Good example! I also liked this juxtaposition we saw here. It made for a clever joke that you don't see often in anime. In fact, this might be the first time I saw this joke played the way it was.

Still the second season is already planned, so we'll have to wait for that to set the hook- it's just I'd prefer for the hook to be set in the first season. I think even people who are enjoying the current arcs can understand this concern.

Yes, I do. If you're going to have multiple seasons for a show planned, it can be very good to end on a bit of a cliffhanger to create interest for the next season. A lot of TV shows in North America operate like this, and it's a very effective way of carrying interest over for the next season while the show is temporarily on hiatus.