Happy World is the quintessential example of wasted potential in an anime. Semi-interesting characters, the possibility of an interesting romance story akin to Ah! My Goddess!, and enough backstory on the main character that could have made for a ton of development. Unfortunately, none of these elements are ever used over the course of this series.

Happy World has a premise not unlike Ah! My Goddess! A supernatural being of some sort descends from heaven in order to help a guy who is down on his luck. By some bizarre twist of fate, the two end up living together as the female learns how to live like a human. Yes, it all sounds similar, but it becomes much different after the beginning is established.

Although the cast of characters in Happy World is rather small, each and every one of them is completely different. Unfortunately, a couple of those personalities are really irritating, such as Takeshi's "sister" (the pervert) and Takeshi's "friend" (the other pervert). Thankfully, the just about all of the other characters were far more likable and managed to carry the load. Many of these characters also have some very mysterious background information that made me giggle with delight. However, nothing, and I mean *nothing*, is ever done with any of it. Characters remain the same in the end as they do in the beginning, and we know nothing more of their history or relationships with other characters. In the middle of episode three, for instance, a new character name Neru just pops in out of nowhere and it's the last we hear of her. Although she appears to be some sort of mentor to Elle, that's just an assumption I had to make due to no explanations being given.

I suppose I can't really complain about there not being an ending since there wasn't really a story either. The three episodes despite being somewhat connected, still have self-contained stories. Thankfully, the ending didn't feel rushed at all, mostly due to the fact that it wasn't actually a conclusion to the story. The third episode was just another episode.

Fortunately, there are quite a few funny parts in the anime, even the ones that ecchi-centric. Much to my lament, however, I discovered that most of the jokes are pretty much repeated to death in the three episodes. Elle is always losing her clothes, Takeshi is always getting hurt, and Takeshi's "sister" is trying to get in bed with the two. Surprisingly, the amount of these jokes really diminished in the final episode, which revolved around drama a lot more than the other two. I personally didn't like this change of pace, though. It became a drama story that I had seen tens of times already, and only managed to waste an episode while still introducing more characters.

Though it managed to do absolutely nothing in three episodes, perhaps a thirteen episode television series would have benefitted Happy World a bit more. If it could just tap into its well of unused potential, I think I could expect some great things from it. Of course, it could just do in thirteen episodes what it managed to do in three: nothing.