Elucia de Lute Ima (エリュシア・デ・ルート・イーマ, Eryushia De Rūto Īma), more commonly referred to as Elsie (エルシィ, Erushī), is the deuteragonist of The World God Only Knows. She is a New Devil from New Hell and is an agent of the Runaway Spirit Squad, an organization of New Hell Devils whose purpose is to capture actively dangerous souls.
At the end of the story, Elsie later officially became part of Katsuragi's family and changed her name into Eri Katsuragi.
In Elsie's first appearance in the oneshot, her hair was held in a high ponytail while she wore a dark kimono with a sash that partially revealed her cleavage. She also had a scythe.
Elsie has long, dark hair that is frequently kept in a ponytail and becomes wavy when loosened. Similar to many Runaway Spirit Squad members, she is almost always equipped with a hagoromo — a multi-purpose raiment that serves as the primary tool of the Runaway Spirit Squad, a runaway spirit sensor (usually on her head), and a contract collar on her neck.
At home or outside, Elsie wears a short, violet kimono complemented by lavender thigh-high toeless socks and wooden sandals. When at school, she wears the standard Mai-High uniform for girls, along with pink thigh-high socks. In later chapters, Elsie wears purple ribbons in place of her socks.
During Elsie's time as Kanon, Haqua assists her in imitating Kanon's appearance, the notable difference being Elsie's dark hair, which remains so. Even though Elsie's hair remains dark-colored, the cloaking magic cast upon Elsie still makes her appear just like Kanon, according to Haqua.
As pajamas she wore a pink shirt with pink pants.
Personality[]
Optimistic Elsie.
Elsie is an overly optimistic individual with a playful personality. Despite claiming to be over 300 years old, she has the mentality of an incompetent teenager, and is in many aspects conspicuously immature. Although earnest and hard-working, Elsie has become infamously inept at virtually everything save cooking and cleaning, but she only owes her skills during her post as a custodian.
Yet, with all the insults and derision Elsie receives from Keima, she usually does not dwell on them for very long and continues to make mistakes anyway. Though whether it is because of a strong will or her inability to comprehend the verbal abuse is unclear.
Furthermore, Elsie has the tendency to stay positive and persevere regardless of her flaws, demonstrating that she is at least the type of person who is determined to succeed while she still has chances.
Elsie after being insulted by Keima
Elsie is very loyal towards Keima and cares about his well being and opinion of her.[1] She is often seen trying to help him and please him.[2] Though she is not always useful on quests, she works hard in her own way. However, after being criticized by Keima, Elsie was shown to be extremely upset.[3]
Elsie's fixation on Kanon
Elsie also possesses a comedic obsession with fire trucks[4] as well as with the popular idol, Kanon.[5] She was visibly shocked to see that Keima had no idea who she was. She calls Kanon by name with the suffix "-chan" and has called her "cute".[6] Elsie even fashioned and bought the same ribbon as Kanon.[7]. Though Elsie is usually very respectful to Keima, she defended Kanon when he called her only a mere relic of a previous age and called her prettier than the girls of Keima video games that he adores.[8]
Abilities[]
Intelligence[]
Although she claims to have become a scholar on Japan, it's revealed that she only knows of Japanese history up until Perry's expedition to open Japan's ports in 1853. As such, Elsie initially has no knowledge of the modern world, although she does come to adjust, for example when she becomes a fan of Kanon, or when she takes a sudden liking to fire engines. Aside from her knowledge on Japanese history, Elsie is notoriously poor at academics, further complicated by the fact that Elsie is still learning Japanese.
Additionally, Elsie makes basic mistakes with amazing regularity. Some of these blunders include switching the Spirit Squad manual with a cookbook, mishandling of her broom, and cleaning Keima's PFP with water and soap.
Despite having her intelligence being insulted on multiple occasions, Elsie has developed a certain level of adaptability that she displays in dangerous situations, like when she manages to confine a Vintage member with her detention bottle in spite of being constrained by her enemy.
Hagoromo Usage and Capturing Skills[]
Elsie possesses some skill with her hagoromo, though not to Nora or Haqua's extent. A list of her abilities are as shown below.
Object creation and manipulation —
The hagoromo's cloaking ability.
The trademark use of her hagoromo is to create copies of a person to act as decoys. Even though the copies Elsie creates are of low quality, they seem to be powerful enough to fool regular people. Additionally, Elsie has used her hagoromo to create drills durable enough and strong enough to pierce through the roof of the school library. She has also produced a train engine/carriage capable of being pulled by a bicycle and has even reconstructed a piece of paper that was previously ripped to shreds.
Optical camouflage — Elsie is able to use her hagoromo to render herself along with a companion invisible to those around her. The number of companions she can have with her is currently unknown.
Flight — With the help of Haqua, Elsie has managed to fly using her hagoromo, though she still has difficulty with it from time to time.
During conquests, Elsie usually helps Keima by creating extravagant props to aid in the conquest when necessary (sometimes unnecessary):
Ayumi: flags and banners inscribed with words of support
Mio: bicycle-carriages that range from a normal carriage — pumpkin — train engine
Kusunoki: reinforced samurai armor
Jun: an exact imitation of Jun's admittance ticket for a wrestling match
Tsukiyo: an enlarged dollhouse used by Tsukiyo as a sanctuary while Keima resumes the conquest
Domestic Abilities[]
Elsie's powerful cleaning.
Elsie is able to clean nearly anything to immaculate conditions with her trusted broom in hand, be it a small object or a large room. However, her ineptitude occasionally leads her to cause accidents with said broom, such as the time when she unintentionally raises its power setting and consequently annihilates the house of the Katsuragis' neighbor. Elsie eventually assists in regularly cleaning the Cafe Grandpa whenever she is at home.
Elsie's home-made bento.
Furthermore, even though Elsie is regarded by Haqua as an excellent cook, the ingredients Elsie is used to dealing with all come from Hell and are undoubtedly dangerous for normal humans like Keima. In spite of that, Elsie continues to cook for Keima, often producing recipes that are still alive and somewhat murderous in nature. Some of these dynamic recipes include a bento creature that devours a dragon and a giant hell-fish Elsie left marinating in oil for a year that attemps to swallow Keima's head.
Miscellaneous[]
Aside from her everyday skills, Elsie also has a variety of talents acquired during her time on the surface world. For example, she has managed to memorize all of Kanon's songs and dance routines, allowing her to successfully take Kanon's place as an idol while the latter stays indisposed in a magical coma. Since Elsie is capable of producing Kanon's songs without any suspicions, it is implied that she is a competent singer as well.
Elsie tries to learn about her instrument.
Furthermore, Elsie is able to fit in any social environment relatively easily. This is shown when she is quickly accepted as a member of the Katsuragi family and when she makes friends with her classmates without much effort. Even Keima has praised her ability to fit in with others and has admitted that Elsie could even succeed as a regular human.
She is also a member of Chihiro's light music band, the 2-B Pencils, where she plays left-handed bass.
Trivia[]
Recent example of "spirit-counter" (Ch. 213, p. 10)
Elsie has a tendency to say small cries such as "Hau~" or "Awah~" whenever she's troubled.
On an official global web poll hosted by the mangaka himself, regarding the favored Kaminomi female character, Elsie came out first and was placed on the cover of Volume 11.
Elsie is one of the few Kaminomi characters that is left-handed. This can be confirmed with the fact that she plays the left-handed bass guitar for the 2-B Pencils.
This is also apparent with how she uses/sweeps with the broom. The dominant hand is usually on top of the non-dominant hand, and Elsie's left hand is always on top.
Elsie marks the end of her broom with "spirit-counters". One stroke represents a single capture while a much thicker line represents ten. This was present ever since the beginning of the Kusunoki Kasuga Arc, but is sometimes forgotten by the author in the magazine release.
A good example can be seen in chapter 102, page 7 in the upper-rightmost panel, where she has already captured 13 spirits, shown by one thick line and three regular strokes.
Elsie's original appearance.
Ironically, despite being bad at virtually everything, Elsie has gotten the most number of spirits among the Runaway Spirit Squad members almost solely due to Keima.
She acts as Kanon's double in the Old Conquest Arc due to her being one of Kanon's hardcore fans and her ability to shapeshift. It is also shown in the extra that Kanon's popularity decreases somewhat due to Elsie's unorthodox replies.
In the one-shot of TWGOK, Elsie had a more buxom body and wore more revealing clothes. Her hairstyle was a little different from her current look and she carried a scythe instead of a broom.
She competed in the ISML league where she got the most votes among the first four girls from TWGOK representative.
In Volume 16, Elsie's full name was written as Elysia de Lute Ima instead.
Elsie's name in German means "Noble" while the English context means "My God is a vow" or "God's oath". [9]
Elsie as Eri Katsuragi.
Quotes[]
"Uhh, I don't get it, but that's so samurai, Kami-sama!"[10]
(To Haqua) "I'm totally useless so I think nii-sama is amazing."[11]
(To Keima) "Even if you say they lose their memories, that doesn't mean they'll return to the same as before because the crevice in their hearts are filled."[12]
Kanae Itou
Luci Christian
