Commentary on Episode 8: 'The God's Report Card'

—Abilities that cannot be measured by numbers, and what lies beyond the textbook

*Free to read from 2026/7/30 to 2026/8/3

Episode 8, 'The God's Report Card,' is, on the surface, an episode that exposes the Ebisu God's work performance in numbers.

The number of prayer requests is the lowest in the country.
Sales of amulets and talismans are also the lowest in the country.
The evaluation for Shinto rituals is a D.
The prayer fulfillment rate is also significantly below the national average.

The only high rating, an A for cleanliness, was actually a rating of the performance of the automatic cleaning robot. On top of that, the God-Eye AI comments relentlessly pile on. Even though he is called a useless god, Ebisu God's Report Card (Revised).docx

However, what I wanted to write about in this episode is not just the humor of a 'god who cannot do his job.'

A report card can only measure a part of a person.

In my own work, I have seen many times that evaluations based on numbers do not match the abilities actually felt on the ground.

Sales, number of cases, achievement rates, performance evaluations.

Numbers are easy to compare and easy to explain.
Therefore, in organizations, numbers are sometimes treated as the person's ability itself.

However, what can be measured by numbers is only the part that was set as an evaluation item from the beginning.

Ebisu God is the lowest in the country in general shrine management.
He does not recite prayers seriously.
He makes mistakes in the kanji on talismans.
He even sends strange prayer requests to the heavenly realm.
He shows no sign of wanting to improve himself.

However, he has abilities that other gods do not have, such as inventing curses not found in textbooks and using mirrors as doorways.

In other words, his performance evaluation is low.
But that does not necessarily mean his ability is low.

A report card is a result based on set items.
It does not prove the person's entire ability.

This 'report card' is a tool to laugh at Ebisu God's uselessness, but at the same time, it is also a tool that shows the limitations of the evaluation system itself.

The flip side of 'respecting freedom and individuality'

Regarding Totomi Shrine, Ebisu God proudly says,

Our company's motto is to respect freedom and individuality.

It sounds impressive, but in reality, he is just not doing the troublesome work.

Even in the workplace, words like 'freedom,' 'autonomy,' and 'individuality' are sometimes used to abandon management and guidance.

An organization that truly respects freedom is different from an organization that simply decides nothing.

Ebisu God does not understand that difference.

That is why, even though he is satisfied, his numbers are the lowest in the country.
This gap between his self-evaluation and external evaluation is the center of the humor in this episode.

However, I have not depicted him as completely incompetent.

When asked about the number of prayers, he calculates the monthly average in his head before comparing it to the national average.

When asked about sales performance, he immediately calculates the daily average.
The direction in which he uses it is wrong, but his mental agility is not slow.

Useless parts and strangely excellent parts coexist.

This is the basic structure of the gods who appear in this work.

Bringing the world of gods closer to reality by including numbers

In this text, I have dared to include many specific numbers.

Rather than just writing 'performance is bad,' writing

* Prayer requests: 58

* Amulet/talisman sales: 426,800 yen
* Prayer fulfillment rate: 38.4%
* National average: 61.6%
allows the reader to specifically imagine the management state of Totomi Shrine. Ebisu God's Report Card (Revised).docx

The stage is the divine realm, but what they are doing is no different from performance evaluation in human society.

Instead of distancing the gods from reality, I am bringing them closer to human workplaces.

By doing so, the setting of 'even though they are gods, they are being given report cards' is established.

The more fictional the world, the more realistic elements like numbers and business content are mixed in, the more the world gains a sense of daily life.

Made the AI comment a third tsukkomi (straight man) role

In previous conversations, the Shikigami Rabbit mainly made tsukkomi to Ebisu God.

But this time, God-Eye's AI comments have been added.

While the Shikigami makes tsukkomi with emotion, the AI cuts down Ebisu God with only numbers and facts.

'Don't put 'worst luck' in the fortune slips'

'Get serious already'

'Do it yourself instead of relying on the automatic cleaning robot'

Even though it should be a system without human touch, it is more emotional and direct than anyone else.

As a result, a three-stage structure was born:

Ebisu God makes excuses.

The AI crushes him with facts.

The Shikigami adds further commentary.

By treating the system as a character rather than increasing the number of people in the conversation, I have increased the types of tsukkomi without breaking the tempo.
Inserting the core of the story in the middle of laughter
Another axis of this episode is the mystery of God-Eye and the Great Heavenly God.

Taira no Masakado teaches the Shikigami,

'Don't investigate the data, investigate God-Eye itself.'

It means not what kind of information is inside, but

Who made it?

Where is it being operated?

What kind of mechanism is it?

That is what he means by investigate it. Ebisu God's Report Card (Revised).docx

After that, it is revealed that God-Eye was designed by the previous Great Heavenly God and was initially a common database for streamlining the work of the gods. On the other hand, for some reason, the personal records of the current Great Heavenly God and the previous Great Heavenly God have disappeared from the materials. Ebisu God's Report Card (Revised).docx

In this scene, I am advancing the vertical axis of the entire series a little.
However, if I explain only the mystery for a long time, the tempo of the work will stop.
Therefore, I have placed serious talk and silly talk alternately, such as:

The mystery of God-Eye.

Ebisu God demanding cake.

The air freezing at the mention of the Great Heavenly God.

The mirror curse.

An invitation to severed-head bowling from Masakado.

It is a structure that lets important information pass while the reader is laughing.
'Not in the textbook' does not mean it does not exist
In Episode 8, the word 'textbook' appears repeatedly.
Seeing a technique not in the textbook, the Shikigami thinks,
'I don't know such a technique.'

'The professor didn't know it either.'

But Masakado explains about the textbook,

'It's something that teaches up to here, but doesn't teach any further.' Ebisu God's Report Card (Revised).docx

The head priest also says that the textbook is just a basic part, and because one's way of thinking is fixed by the textbook, one cannot come up with new techniques. Ebisu God's Report Card (Revised).docx

This is not denying textbooks or basic knowledge.

Basics are necessary.
However, just because you have learned the basics, do not think you have understood everything in the world.

In my own actual work, I feel that there are more things that do not go according to textbooks or manuals.

On the ground, there are human relationships, budgets, time, the other party's circumstances, and past history.

Just memorizing knowledge is not enough.

You need to apply knowledge to the field and use it according to the situation.

Ebisu God has low ability to do work according to the textbook.

However, he comes up with methods no one else thought of.

The Shikigami understands the textbook accurately.
However, it takes time to accept things outside the textbook.

It is not a story of which one is correct.

It is precisely because the parts they lack are different that there is meaning in combining them.

About this writing style
This time, too, I am focusing on conversation rather than explanatory text.

However, instead of just continuing the conversation, I am mixing in:
* Performance evaluation by numbers

* Short comments by AI
* Shikigami's inner voice

* Onomatopoeia and half-width katakana

* Realistic scene descriptions that enter suddenly

* Meta-remarks that touch on the author or the main story itself

Especially in the latter half's severed-head bowling, I specifically describe the image that floated in the Shikigami's head once, and immediately after that, Ebisu God denies it by saying 'It's just like that.'

It is a form of crushing the escape route just when the Shikigami and the reader are trying to escape by thinking, 'Surely it must be a metaphor.'

Also, in the bonus part, the characters talk about 'I didn't convey it in the main story' or 'Does the author not know about compliance?'
The characters are inside the story, yet they also understand the structure of the work.
This slightly broken sense of distance has also become one of the writing styles of the 'Useless God' series.
The god's failing report card becomes the entrance to the story
This time, Ebisu God is a complete failure in terms of numbers.
However, as you read through that failing report card, information that leads to the core of the series comes into view:

Ebisu God's special abilities.

The designer of God-Eye.

The erased records of the Great Heavenly God.

The LEVEL 5 authority given to the Shikigami.

The report card was supposed to be for evaluating the gods.

However, as the story progresses, God-Eye, which is doing the evaluating, becomes more suspicious than Ebisu God, who is being evaluated.

Who is evaluating, and based on what criteria?

Is that evaluation system really correct?

Why was authority that cannot normally be obtained given only to the Shikigami?

Episode 8 is an episode that laughs at the god's grades, but at the same time, it is also an episode that begins to doubt the evaluator called God-Eye.

Numbers do not lie.

However, numbers do not tell the whole story of a person either.
And just because it is not written in a textbook does not mean it does not exist.
I created Episode 8, 'The God's Report Card,' as a story where those two things remain a little after finishing reading while laughing.