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.
For instance, why would Yondaime agree to become "brothers" with such a wimp of a main character? When did Ayako start liking Narumi? The development between the two was beyond weak makinig the final arc completely unbelievable for me.
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.
