By Daniel DiNatale
Do you believe in Gods? Do you want to see those Gods fighting underworld creatures to become the most powerful God ever? Do you like comedy thrown in with seriousness? Then have I got a show for you. Noragami has all these elements in it.
Noragami is a story of a God named Yato, nicknamed the God of Calamity (which still no one knows why), who is trying to build his own shrine and become the most powerful God ever so that people will recognize him. There's only one problem. His regalia, which are souls of the dead brought back to life to be used as a weapon for a God, all hate him, and he has no money to build a shrine because no one believes in him. The only way he can get money is if people call him to do a job for them, basically praying to him while paying him at the same time.
Yato, God of Calamity
While looking for his cat named Milord, he walks into the middle of a street, and at that moment, a girl named Hiyori who is walking with her friends, calls out to him to watch out for the truck. Thing about Gods is that nobody can see them besides other Gods and regalia. The girl, not caring about the consequences, runs into the middle of the street and pushes Yato away, ultimately being struck by the truck and killed on impact, or is she? She starts yelling at Yato about how he should be more careful, but she is shocked to find out she has a tail and her body is laying in the middle of the street where she was hit. No one can even see Hiyori outside of her body. Yato explains that she is not living nor is she dead. He further explains that she is a living Phantom, which is very uncommon considering all Phantoms do not retain their human forms unless they are possessed by hatred and transformed into a monster, therefore to be struck down by a God and never exist again since they are already dead. Even I am not sure of all the details, as this can get confusing at points, but this is the main jest of it. When Hiyori returns to her body (which was laying in a hospital bed), Yato visits her, very creepily under her covers, and agrees to help her return to her body. Due to Hiyori's "condition" and frequent interaction with Yato, she tends to feel very sleepy and "slip" out of her body.
Poor Hiyori
Yato is still short a regalia since all his tend to leave him due to him being a laughing stock of the Gods and poor. One night, a Phantom attacks him and Hiyori, and Yato has no weapon to attack with to defend himself against the monster. In the distance, he notices a small phantom alone and lost, and calls it to use as his regalia. He names the regalia Yuki, his human form named Yukine. Yato and Yukine defeat the phantom, but this is not love at first site. Yukine hates Yato for all the reasons the other regalia hated Yato. Yato can feel Yukine's pain physically, since a God and regalia share a mind. Yukine goes through everything the average teenager goes through, but he doesn't make any right choices. Even when Hiyori tries to calm him down and teach him what is right and was is wrong, he ultimately disobeys everyone, to the point where he blights Yato and nearly kills him. What is blight you ask? Blight is where a God's skin becomes infected, turning a purple like color, all due to the sadness and pain of one's regalia. Yukine almost turns into a Phantom himself, but with the help of other Gods regalia (Yato's allies), he is cured, which segways to my next point.
Just because all Gods help each other at some point doesn't mean that they want to kill each other. All Gods are usually friends, except one God, named Bishamon. Bishamon seeks revenge against Yato for killing her regalia centuries ago. She swears that she will do so to avenge their death. The latter half of Noragami goes onto showing how this happens and how Yukine and Yato become friends after the whole blight and Phantom incident.
Overall, I give Noragami a 9.5/10, the other .5 being left out because of the artwork, where some scenes they don't even have a face and it is poorly drawn. Noragami brings out all the aspects I like of anime: weapons, comedy and seriousness all in one along with character development, especially how Yukine goes from Yato's regalia to friend by overcoming all the obstacles he faces. Yato is still on a journey to build a shrine and be recognized as an all-powerful God, but will he do so? Until next review guys!
Squad from left to right: Daikoku, Kofuku, Yukine, Yato, Hiyori, Bishamon, Kazuma. Daikoku, Yukine and Suzuka are Kofuku's, Yato's, and Bishamon's regalia respectively
