Heaven's Memo Pad (Kamisama No Memo-chou, or "God's Notebook", in Japanese) is a mystery Light Novel series written by Hikaru Sugii and illustrated by Mel Kishida, which was published under the Dengeki Bunko label from 2007 to 2014 for nine volumes. A manga adaptation was serialized in Dengeki Daioh from 2010 to 2012, followed by an anime adaptation which aired in 2011.
An Ordinary High-School Student named Narumi Fujishima is mostly a loner in class. But one day, after catching the eye of classmate Ayaka Shinozaki, he ends up following her into the school's Gardening Club. She then introduces him to an odd girl named "Alice", a self-described NEET and Hikikomori who runs a one-girl detective agency above the ramen shop where Ayaka works.
Alice is helping Ayaka on a case involving a new drug called "Angel Fix," but when Ayaka ends up in a coma, Narumi decides to take her place at the ramen shop part-time and help Alice's budding detective agency. While trying to find the person responsible for Ayaka's condition, Narumi acts as a go-between for Alice and other NEETs with varying skills and obsessions.
This series contains examples of:
- Accidental Pervert: Ayaka starts stripping Alice since she hasn't taken a bath in two days, not noticing Narumi was there.
- Badass Crew: Unmotivated as they normally are, when the group finds something to work for, they can pull off miracles.
- Batman Gambit: Alice in the baseball game. To elaborate, her small frame drastically reduced the size of the strike zone, which caused the pitcher to overcompensate on the third strike, resulting in a uncaught third strike
. The subsequent fielding errors and delayed reaction from the catcher and pitcher allowed her to push two of her team's players onto second and third.
- Bland-Name Product:
- Towel Records in episode 1.
- Abababa Photostudio in episode 10.
- Doubling as a background gag, one of the games seen in the arcade is Stneet Fighter, with a logo that puts emphasis on "NEET".
- Brand X:
- DoKuPe. Averted in the Light Novel where it is actually called Dr. Pepper.
- Alice's computer is obviously a late-model iMac and has what looks like a couple of Mac Pro towers behind as well. Even the icons on the Mac OS X lookalike's dock are easily recognizable programs.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Hitoshi is supposedly smart enough to be in university, but plans to drop out and become a NEET. The only reason he stays is because their library has all the books on military and political history he needs. He puts more effort into just barely passing the minimum number of required courses to remain a student than some people put into actually graduating.
- But Not Too Foreign: Meo is half Vietnamese, half Japanese. In the anime, she's half-Japanese, half-Thai.
- Compensated Dating: Shouko's chosen outlet for stress, and one of the eventual reasons for her suicide.
- Disappeared Dad: Narumi, Ayaka, Min-Li and Meo's dads all left them or are otherwise MIA.
- Shouko, the victim in the first episode.
- Ayaka in episode 10. She survives.
- Drugs Are Bad: An oft-repeated theme within the series.
- Angel Fix is an especially nasty concoction, mixing some of the effects of MDMA (better known as Ecstasy) and LSD for a potent and dangerous trip. It causes the euphoric feelings common to MDMA, along with the increase in heart rate and blood pressure, along with a variety of other minor effects. It also makes one hallucinate as with LSD, which is heavily influenced by "(mind)set and setting" and recent experiences. Users also have extremely heightened sight and hearing, almost painful and disorienting depending on the dosage. Narumi's trip, for example, is primed ("set") by hearing about the angel wings and Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," which are the prompts to draw others to the dealers; as well as Ayaka's recent suicide attempt, a reminder of which nearly plunged him into a very bad trip. Most of its health risks it shares with MDMA, only more so. It's also very psychologically addictive, especially to the poor and downcast who are its target market. Finally, some people are biologically predisposed towards a bad reaction with the drug, leaving bruises on their faces and causing them to come down and crash into a feeling of despair and depression.
- Expy: Alice is basically a black-haired modern day Victorique.
- Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Alice's room is full of them and is rarely seen out without her giant bear. She will go into a panic if her favorites are damaged.
- Gun Porn: Hitoshi is never seen without a rifle in his hands or wearing military camouflage.
- Hates Baths: Alice. At one point, she called Narumi and told him it's an emergency when Ayaka bathed her.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Episodes are referred to as "Pages".
- Indirect Kiss: In episode 6, Alice sips from a DokuPe can, then gives it to Narumi, and he sips from it. It's not commented on.
- In-Series Nickname: Souchirou is known as the Fourth. Alice gave him the nickname because he hates it and can't stop her from using it, and she thinks that's hilarious.
- Let Them Die Happy: Inverted, when Alice tells Hakamizaka a few parting words to ensure that he will die in despair.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Ayaka considering her brother's drug activites. It doesn't end well. She finds out and tries to solve matters on her own... and things get worse from there.
- The Magnificent: Narumi has just been collecting nicknames.
- Vice-Admiral by Hitoshi
- Gardening boy by Souchirou
- God hand by Souchirou's/his computer illiterate henchmen
- Mr. Assistant by Meo.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Ayaka takes it upon herself to be this for Narumi because she sees herself in him and is using it to project and manage her own problems through someone else. And then run away from them.
- Missing Mom: While the mother is either deceased or never mentioned.
- Mistaken Age: People occasionally mistake Hitoshi for an elementary schooler. He's in university.
- Modesty Towel: Narumi seems to catch girls coming out of the bath constantly, and so has seen this more than a few times.
- NEET: Some self-employed, but still NEET nonetheless. Several of the characters make a sort of life philosophy about it, and proudly explain that the ability of a nation to support a population of NEETs is a sign of the nation's abundance and well-being.
- Neighbourhood-Friendly Gangsters: Souchirou is taking his group in this direction, pointing out in Page 5 that they can't survive on shady stuff forever. Though they're not above doing some very family-unfriendly things to people who cross them and the lines they set for their territory (like drug-dealing). Souchirou in particular has more than a little blood on his hands, in the past and from current events.
- Never My Fault: A large part of the humor in the anime is based on this trope. Frequently, people either strong-arm Narumi into doing things he'd prefer not to, or he innocently blunders into the middle of situations that he had no idea were happening. When things inevitably go sideways, the other person involved (usually Alice) always gets excessively angry with him, as if he was the person who created the situation in the first place.
- Ominous Multiple Screens: Alice's room. Her computer monitors and screens are her window to the outside world.
- Ordinary Highschool Student: Narumi... for now, anyway. The others consider him a "NEET-in-waiting" no matter how he protests.
- Power of the God Hand: Parodied, Narumi is called "God Hand" by Souchirou's gang members because they are fantastically computer illiterate and he knows how to run a virus scan, so he inevitably has to fix their computer after they visit too many sketchy porn sites.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: The story is largely the same, but events have been rearranged into a different order and interleaved somewhat for the anime. The first volume of the LN covers the Angel Fix story, but in the anime it's not the first case Narumi goes through while working for Alice. As Angel Fix is one of, if not the, darkest story of the series, it makes a far better late-series climax than introductory arc to the anime.
- Put Me In, Coach!: In the Baseball Episode, Alice, as the coach, subbed herself in. While completely failing to actually hit the ball, she managed to steal a base, which directly led to a one-point victory.
- Serious Business: Pretty much everyone gets their share of this.
- For Alice, just about everything is Serious Business... except for stuff that tends to matter for most people, like hygiene or eating properly. Rather, its avoidance is Serious Business, particularly whenever someone else thinks she should do it. The rhetorical webs she will spin to get out of something she doesn't want to do...
- Stepford Smiler: Ayaka is a Type A, crossing into a painful Deconstruction of the
Purity Sue. The novels are much more up front with this about her, compared to the anime which takes its time to present her as anything but a happy, high-spirited Genki Girl. - Surrounded by Idiots:
- Souchirou's henchmen are incredibly computer illiterate, to the point where Narumi's basic computer skills have earned him the nickname "God Hand."
- Alice generally considers herself to be this, just because nobody can keep up with her intuitive leaps and constant data-digging.
- Trademark Favorite Food: DoKuPe, the Brand X version of Dr. Pepper.note
- Wham Episode: Episode 10, when Ayaka tried to commit suicide.
