Anime: Kamisama no Memo-chou: It`s the Only NEET Thing to Do.

God's Memo Pad is essentially about a "detective" group of NEETs who solve cases for clients. The memo pad refers to the ability to symbolically determine God's notes through the group's incredible fact-gathering abilities. As it is a detective story that deals with murder/suicide/drug abuse, etc. do expect the underlying themes to be a bit dark and depressing. I was a bit confused by this as the story also contains a lot of comedy or moe moments that seem to contradict the underlying theme. In any case, if you're looking for a simple and short detective story with a tsundere/moe hacker then this is your show.

Animation:
J.C. Staff did a pretty good job with the animation of the series. Backgrounds are adequately detailed, lighting effects are nice, and colors are appropriately used based on the theme/current mood. Character design is also fairly good, the only really plain-looking character is our main protagonist Narumi. There are a few fan service moments but these are few compared to the amount of fist fights in this show. These NEET detectives and their friends aren't exactly the cleanest detectives ever as you'll see more than a series worth of fist brawls here. As mentioned above, some of the cases are quite serious so expect to see some bloody scenes, though as with Kamisama Dolls, the camera angle will spare you the most bloody parts.

Sound:
The OP is a fair piece that fits with series. The two EDs, being rock pieces, don't seem to mesh so well, perhaps possibly with the fist fights, but they aren't used as insert songs. The BGM is for the most part forgettable though the insert song Teddy is used whenever a case is about to be solved, giving you warning that you have a few scant seconds to try to solve it yourself first, usually not a very hard task.

There are some veteran VAs on board such as Daisuke Ono as well as some very new VAs; Alice, a moe/tsundere girl is voiced by 16-year-old Yui Ogura. If you've watched the other Kami sama series this season, you'll note that Ai Kayano also plays one of the primary heroines in that series. Voice talents were used well overall, but they couldn't make up for a poor character script.

Story:
Narumi Fujishima is your typical nobody main lead who moved often due to his father's work. By chance, he meets a classmate, Ayaka Shinozaki, and is soon introduced to her NEET friends. The group of NEETs is led by Alice, a chibi genius who uses her hacking abilities to try to prevent future mishaps and help people find closure as a detective.

The story is told in short one to three episode long arcs where a client requests Alice's help, and the group of NEETs along with Yondaime's group proceed to unravel the mysteries. The cases themselves aren't terribly complicated and have plenty of foreshadow, so you should be able to predict quite a few of them. Each arc builds to a mini-climax followed by the Teddy song accompanying Alice's explanation of what she believes happened.

While the actual cases aren't bad, the progression within each arc isn't all that convincing. A lot of times, a character happens to be in the right place at the right time to discover something, or to save Narumi's butt. It's never explained how any of the NEETs gained their abilities and connections (and it's a total mystery why don't employ these elite skills in oh I don' t know a real job). Unlike some deeper detective stories, I just wasn't drawn in by many of these arcs. As 8thsin pointed out, the first arc has the best execution.

Character:
I do emphasize with roriconfan's comment on Narumi. There are way too many bland male leads that somehow gain the attention of the girls. Even Alice herself comments that he's pretty much useless for everything other than his pure guts. What happened to the good days of Sasuke (FMP) or Onizuka (GTO)... Believe me, you're going to grow tired of his inability to do much.

I also feel that a lot of the character interactions were superficial. Specific examples in the spoiler after. This significantly detracted from the series as it gives the series a clunky feeling, the relationships were just not organic.

Furthermore, the group of NEETs play a significant role in solving each case, much more so than our protagonist Narumi, yet their backgrounds are completely ignored in the series. I truly believe any one of the NEETs would have made for a much more interesting protagonist. I echo roriconfan, there is much wasted potential here.

Value:
This is an OK watch. It would have been much better if the character development and plot progression got as much attention as the animation.

to the reviewer who rated this a 3 congrads on jumping to conclusion on the series within it's first 5 minutes. :baka:
while Eightsin got it pretty much right in his review I would like to focus on the drama and cases themselves, along with some other stuff.
this is not your typical mystrey series and while there are obvious compressions to gosick, they have entirely different focuses. I enjoyed gosick (which suffers from the same problem of making the detective smart by dumbing people down, occasionally shaky logic and cutting into the time needed for cases, to make room for romance and action, or in God's notebook's case drama and charcter development). however this was a lot more like kindaichi case files/ kindaichi shonen no jikembo minus the fantastic cases and focusing more on the charcters, in particular the "criminals" I say that in " " because of how some of the cases play out. god's notebook's case are a bit refreshing when compared to what you normally see coming out in terms of mystery series (which is a major reason for my high rating of it, not because of pedo-bait like some would have you believe. thought there is plenty of eye bait and insight into humanity to be found in many episodes (1 and 3 in particular come to mind). and while most of the actual detectives (minus narumi) don't get much development, I actually felt that even if they where generic that they where great, and that part of the reason why it works is because the series celebrates them in it's own way. one problem that is fairly obvious though is that this series needed a better adapter because the actual manga and Light novels have very different versions of the cases in atleast one of the cases. I have enjoyed this show in a very different way then gosick but I am very happy that they turned out so differently and that they are both getting released in the US.

The word "NEET" is used almost interchangeably with "bum" and "hikikomori" in Japan. KamiMemo is about NEET detective Alice and her so-called assistant Narumi solving various cases in Tokyo with the help of three other NEETs and a Yakuza group. While the premise and the main characters are strikingly similar to that of Gosick, they are very different shows in that KamiMemo is more about the drama than mystery.

The story is arc-based with at most two characters for every case. This ensured great character development for the featured characters, which is the driving force behind this series. Unlike your typical detective show, the cases are often simple. They're often very much solvable thanks to the abundance of hints planted throughout each arc. KamiMemo was far more engaging than Gosick to me as I found myself thinking about each incident with the characters rather than just watching a detective story presented to me. The downside of simple cases is that the story seems dull at times, though it makes up for it by adding drama and inspiration to the story.

Despite being a detective anime, KamiMemo is filled with themes typically found in shounen (especially battle or sports) anime such as friendship, determination, justice/morality, belonging, search for a purpose in life, and love. There's also quite a bit of action, and like in the real life, many things are settled by brute force in the end rather than intelligence alone.

The characters are rather stereotypical, but the anime spends a significant amount of time developing each person involved with each crime. Though Alice, Major, Hiro, and Tetsu were underdeveloped and functions almost exclusively as case solvers to advance the plot. The focus is on Narumi's growth as a person and clients of the NEET Investigation Firm. Their past, hopes, and desires are carefully presented to build up for the climaxes. While it can difficult to accept the corniness of Alice's speech and the convenience of the buildups at times, you are always rewarded with touching drama and inspiration by the end of each episode.

The art and animation quality is absurdly high for a series of this type. Characters designs are very generic, but everything is detailed and maintains extraordinary consistency (even in a baseball filler episode). There are some sloppiness when characters are shown from distance, but this is only noticeable because of the amount of detail and fluidity in regular scenes. Overall, the visuals are far above par.
OP/ED are very addictive songs that fit the show perfectly (I didn't even skip them!). Voicing is a perfect match for every character, and BGMs were decent.

Episode 1 (double-length) was an original story specifically written for anime by the author of the novel, and in my opinion it was by far the best, most well thought out arc. I think this shows J.C. Staff's inability to properly pace and adapt novels. Everything was summarized pretty well in the final episode despite it being volume 1 out of 7 in the novels though. There were many instances where I felt the anime was saved by the inherent strength of its source material, but I found it to be very enjoyable overall.

PROPER MINDSET
It didn’t take more that a few days for Gosick to end and VOILA yet another loli detective rose to take its place. This one is a NEET shut-in too… who likes to spy on people through cameras… and films teen prostitution movies for extortion purposes… and what’s with the pedo-bait main picture here?
… Only in Japan.

SCRIPT
This is a detective show that has to do with mysteries and murders and extortions and…

… Hey wait a second; how can she be a NEET if she is a detective? Or how is she a hikikomori if she keeps talking to numerous people that come in her room? How does she even get out of the room? This show is contradicting its own premise! Doesn’t take a genius to figure out how intelligent it’s going to be. Oh whom am I kidding; it’s a JC Staff production. Nobody watches their loli shows for the story or the substance; it’s all about the lolis. And this one is a NEET shut-in stalker so I bet thousands of males will understand her problem and have their parents go buy a huge pillow with her on it.

… And don’t wait for it to actually build on the concept and show some development and excitement over extortions and murders. It’s an aimless, dull, stupid moeblob with some people talking as dead time.
- The cases are simple to crack, as if they were a joke. We just need to accept Alice knows everything and has super technology that helps her analyze everything without ever leaving her teddy bear filled bed (I am not thinking of detective solving when imagining that).
- The plot is mostly moe comedy and human drama; there is very little actual detective work going on and even less interesting action scenes. It all plays out as calm as possible to the point you don’t even feel there ever was danger somewhere in all this.
- The ending goes for a last moment tragic event that is nullified with no effort thus again leaving you in complete apathy. The ending is just like the rest of the show without any actual conclusion (or purpose).
- And there is fan service. We can’t have a JC Staff anime without it; it would be an insult to their standards!

PRODUCTION VALUES
Very good for such a show; they did a very good job no only in making the girls moe but also in making stuff like the computer room to feel natural, or the night-time scenes to feel like it’s really night. If you ask me, it’s wasted effort to have that many cinematics and attention to lighting for THIS type of show.

CAST
The main duo is very generic; the usual bossy loli cooldere that has as her personal slave a fail of a male specimen boy who for some impossible to understand reason all the girls have the hots for him. Add some moe cardboards and delinquents and you have a fully boring cast of people you will forget the second the episode is over. And yes, many are supposed to receive character development during the show but two episodes later they are rendered unimportant and are forgotten.

LEGACY
It had potential to be good but then JC Staff did its usual and created yet another poorly written show for 2D pedophiles with elements such as “detectives and mysteries” being nothing but useless wrappers for moe-moe crap. Total phail.

And now for some excused scorings.