The best thing The World God Only Knows has going for it is confusion. With its anti-social protagonist and dating-simulator slant, the series can't make up its mind as to whether it's an acerbic take on the two dimensional approach to dating-simulators, or a parody of the spate of story-reset-repeat visual novel adaptations that have spawned recently. Equally though, it could end up as neither and result in bland drivel that the first three episodes skirt dangerously close to.

It all starts so promisingly with Keima who, despite being obnoxious and reclusive, somehow isn't instantly repulsive - likely the effect of his dandy cravat. After a bubbly spirit girl drops into his life the story spanks along and seems to eschew common staples like the moving in ritual or the transferred into school ritual. Then the first episode ends with the girl transferring into his school and the next episode starts with her moving into his house. The series doesn't so much ignore genre tropes as delay them, then air them half apologetically.

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By the time I had sweated out all of the water I had drunk the evening before, it was 3am and I found Matt still not back from his escapades in Holguin. At this point of the holiday I was still painfully aware as to how nervous I was at being in a foreign country where I didn't speak the language and didn't rightly know exactly where I was; scenarios of having to phone the British Embassy (carefully noted down before coming to Cuba) and explain that my friend had disappeared flashed through my mind until I heard the comforting sound of the casa owner let him in. Satisfied I was not going to have to phone the embassy or expatriate Matt's body to the UK, I went back to sleep.

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