young girl who resembles the carving is in its place. The girl, calling herself Nagi, claims to be the resident god of the shrine and chooses to live with Jin, who has summoned her to reality through the carving. Jin is dumbfounded but tentatively agrees to help the mysterious girl out if for nothing more than to find out whats going on. Once Nagi finds out that Jin is sensitive to the supernatural she enlists his help in banishing the impurities of the land. Jin tentatively agrees but once her existence can no longer be kept secret he has to scramble to fabricate a lie about her identity. The first person to find her, at his house, is Tsugumi, who is instantly suspicious and jealous; she has a crush on her childhood friend. Jin and Nagi convince her that they are long lost siblings and that she has been kicked out of his far off posh house to live with her half brother. Soon fighting impurities brings Nagi to Jin and Tsugumis school where she pretends to be a new student. With this opportunity she begins to build her power by getting people to worship her, in order to better fight the impurities. When Nagis sister, Zenge shows up, it becomes a sibling rivalry to amass the most followers. Jin now has to maintain his story about Nagis identity, help her fight impurities and fend off the unwanted advances from Zenge while trying to keep his relationship with Tsugumi. In the end the stress pushes him to his limits and he demands to understand the true nature of Nagi, her sister and their purpose.
With this description you could formulate a couple of ideas about how this series rolls. At once you have the pathetic and over played mysterious magic girl coming from some odd beginnings to live with the hapless high school kid scenario. Then you have the magical being fighting the good fight with the help of the normal high school student. You also have the 3 way love triangle harem thing going on between all 3 main female characters. None of these definitions really tap into what this show is all about. Sure you have the non-human girl who comes from mysterious origins to live with the socially inept high school student who just so happens to live alone. Said supernatural girl does enlist the inept student into helping her with her supernatural duties. Yes there is some level of competition between the 3 main female characters for Jins attention. The series doesnt linger on these ideas or even make them the main focus of the show.
The best way to describe this series would be to call it a slice of life high school comedy fish out of water tale. Nagi, whose consciousness has been asleep for a while, at least a few decades, is unaccustomed to modern conveniences. She is quickly drawn to TV and convenience store food. The first thing she sees on TV is a magical girl anime, which instantly grabs her attention and she tries to use it as her identity for fighting impurities, right down to fashioning a magical wand and posing while purifying. The funniest example of her lack of modern knowledge is in the first time she answers a phone. Jin tells her not to answer the phone while he takes a bath. During his bath the phone rings and he runs out, naked, for fear of the consequences of a mysterious girl answering it. He finds he in the hallway staring at the receiver in her hand as his childhood friend is saying hello. He quickly grabs it and apologizes for the wait. When questioning Nagi about disobeying his request she exclaims in shock and wonder that that was what he meant by .
While Nagis mission is to fight the bug shaped impurities and she relies on Jin to pick them up so she can banish them, the act of hunting them and banishing them is a very minor part of the series. In about half of the episodes there are no impurities at all. They dont even turn the purifying of them into a big ordeal, its just something they do, like hey look theres one get it and Ill whack it with my magical wand. Where the whole fighting impurities really comes into play is as a focal point for Jin questioning Nagis existence and the truth in her being a god. He questions why she fights them and what the purpose of doing so is.
As to the harem aspects, it is border line at best. There is little in the terms of a sexual relationship between Nagi and Jin. Nagi shows no interest in Jin other than using him as her assistant and house keeper. Jin shows little in the way of sexual interest in her, aside from the idea of being with a girl all by himself in his pubescent ways. There is one episode that deals with his problems in Nagi working at a cosplay café, aside form that, its barely sexual in nature. The relationship with Tsugumi is one sided. They are childhood friends and she harbors deep and hidden plutonic feelings for him. Her jealousy is held in check in front of Jin but manifests its self blatantly otherwise. She never confesses her feelings for him and mostly believes the story of Nagi and him being siblings. Zenge on the other hand is actively trying to seduce Jin, much to his horror. He finds her personality frightening and tries to fend off her aggressive tactics. Zenges true motives are never really explained but it seems she is more interested in stealing him from her sister than actually wanted him for himself. I always feared that the show would degrade into a harem story but the relationships between all of the characters never amounts to much more than what it was in the beginning.
The story is good, not great, but enjoyable. The characters are odd, especially the members of the art club, which are social misfits and otaku. The head of the club is a tsundere lesbian and another member is nick named Akiba for obvious reasons. There was one particular episode that was painful and unnecessary. They spent the entire thing singing at a karaoke box. The episode did nothing aside from showing the battle between Zenge and Tsugumi for Jins attention. The episode where Nagi works at a cosplay café could also have been left out, but it did serve its purpose to build upon Jins feelings of wanting to protect Nagi as well as confusing everyone as to Jins feelings for her, thus causing more tension. The funniest event is when Tsugumi accidentally thinks out loud that Jin may harbor homosexual feelings for Daitetsu, which becomes a wildfire of gossip in the school and even escalates to a 4 way bisexual struggle with Jin at the center.
With all of its down falls, odd character designs and penchant for fan service shots, this series is actually enjoyable.

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