I've been reading the manga for a while, so I tried out the anime, but it's such an exact recounting of the manga it's impossible for me to tease the two apart, and I can't even judge how the anime stands on its own.

In the manga, I'd say about half of the girls-to-be-conquered are interesting and about half are blah, but the manga has slowly drifted from girl-of-the-week as the mythology and Keima's character have developed, but who knows what the anime will do.

That said, is it really character-of-the-week? My vague recollection of the anime structure is:

ep 1: first girl

ep 2,3: second girl

ep 4: no girl

ep 5,6,7: third girl

ep 8: no girl

ep 9,10,11?: fourth girl

It's still an episodic "character of the week" structure in one sense, but there's enough time spent on each one that, I dunno if that's maybe oversimplifying.

- nothings

This is the point where I wave my hands, because what it comes down to is that it feels like a 'girl of the time interval' show (sensibly broken up by episodes where we do not have to be dealing with someone's angst). I think that a good part of this is that the girls don't stick around after their episode(s), and they seem to basically be interchangeable in terms of what's wrong with them. Yay, another girl that has another daemon because she has some hidden angst or trauma.

I kind of want to write something coherent comparing this aspect of TWGOK with Bakemonogatari, which partly has the same structure but is, to me, much much more interesting. My current short summary of the differences is that first, the girls in Bakemonogatari stick around and (vastly) influence further stories, and second, what's 'wrong' with them varies a lot.

I think that a good part of this is that the girls don't stick around after their episode(s), and they seem to basically be interchangeable in terms of what's wrong with them.

Both of these become less true over time in the manga, though. (Unfortunately just saying this is technically a spoiler, but hopefully not a significant one.) But it seems like it would take many seasons of anime to get there (i.e. never). So if you don't like it as is it certainly wouldn't be worth waiting for.

And certainly the basic structure of a new-girl-of-the-interval with some problem for Keima to tackles remains common for quite a while, even if the way he tackles them gets some variety, and the excursions from that structure last longer. (A quick checkpoint: the third girl arc ended in manga chapter 10 and anime ep 7; scanlations are up to chapter 124. I really don't remember when we started getting things like the girls returning somewhat, the backstory, and the other less girl-of-the-week elements. It could have been chapter 20 or chapter 50 for all I know.)