The World God Only Knows Season 2 - Episode 4

Haqua may be the "perfect demon" and top of the class in the eyes of many of her colleagues, but the real world has provided her with some rather cruel experiences so far (or, perhaps you could say, a lack of experiences) - something which she's trying to keep a secret from fellow demon Elsie despite her responsibility for loosing a rather dangerous Loose Soul.

As last week's episode ended, the soul in question had been found floating around the school's drama club... the next question is, how the Hell do they go about catching it?  The static Loose Soul seems like it should be easy meat, but once Haqua tries to bring it into her position it uses the lifeless bodies of anyone around as a human shield, which eventually allows it to make good its escape - another moment which leaves Haqua shame-faced; a shame she then takes out on Elsie as she goes off to try and fend for herself again.

Unfortunately for Haqua, her despair at recent failures and her inability to even find a partner in crime leaves an emptiness in her heart... an emptiness capitalised upon by our errant Loose Soul who quickly takes over Haqua's body to further assist its own self-preservation.  With Haqua out of the picture in terms of being helpful, it's up to Elsie to decide how to tackle this problem... something that she eventually succeeds in, courtesy of a little teamwork with a newly freed Haqua.

For a moment I was worried that this particular story arc was going to get pulled into a third episode, so I was thankful to see it slotted neatly into two as that would have been pushing it somewhat.  Essentially, I enjoyed this particular arc simply because it broke up the monotony of the The World God Only Knows thus far - it gave Elsie's character, and the world of demons in particular, a bit of space to breathe and grow while pushing Keima to the sidelines without allowing him to monopolise things.  I now actually feel ready to return to more normal Loose Soul-hunting duties next week - something I didn't particularly expect to be saying after finding myself occasionally frustrated by such affairs.