Noragami

This is my first review, so I’d be very happy if you had suggestions to help me improve. I’d like to point out that English is not my first language, which is in fact Portuguese, so be free to correct me if I mess up with the grammar. Let’s get started:

Story: 3

In my opinion, the “theme” of this anime is far from original. There are monsters, the phantoms or ayakashi, which are in fact dead human beings who are stalked by the negative emotions they had on their lives. This remembers me of the hollows of Bleach. There is also ... the fact that dead human beings can transform into weapons, which remembers me of Soul Eater.

Now comes the plot. This anime doesn’t really have a focus, it has comedy, action, and a little bit of drama. I’m not saying that this itself is bad, but I found every one of those boring. 1: The comedy is not funny. It only has weak tsundere jokes, and other jokes with Yato being a failure as a god. 2: The battles with the phantoms and the other gods were also boring, it lacks emotion and … action. 3: The drama with Yukine was the best of the worst, it was silly of Yato to let his shinki do things that would hurt them both. Again, the drama would be a lot better if their respective pasts were shown.

The story had four “arcs”: The first was the search for a way to help Hiyori and a shinki for Yato, the second was the Yukine arc, the third was the battle with Bishamon and the final one was the battle with Ebisu. For me, the Yukine arc was the best, it didn’t had any battles, but was the only one that managed to have character development.

Characters: 2

The characters simply weren’t developed, the unique exception would be Yukine, but his development was simply thrown away because he was deprived of attention during the final “arc” of the anime. I would also like to point out that the lack of information about the past of both Yukine and Yato is sad, because the viewer become curious during the course of the anime, but in the end they can just speculate what happened.
The problem with a 12 episode anime is that we don’t really have the time to like the villains or the support characters, we only get to really know the principal ones, which are also boring in this case.

Visual: 6

The animation was neither good nor bad, it was average. The movements of the characters during the battles wasn’t amazing but was fluid enough. I personally liked the phantoms, which were very colorful and had fluid movements.

Sound: 7

I loved the opening sound, I and started to watch the anime because of the opening. However, the ending was average and the OST didn’t had very much to offer, with the exception of the song Lurk. It simply didn’t had that moment in which you listen to a song and start to search for it on the OST. However, I have to admit that the songs are not that bad and fit on every moment of the anime.

Overall: 4,5

Noragami is not that good of an anime, and is overrated by many. I don’t recommend you to watch this show if you are looking for an action anime, nor if you are looking for a comedy one.

I had hopes for this. Shrine-less god Yato strives to get recognized by scribbling his cell number anywhere he can and granting the wish of any worshiper for the low, low price of 5 yen. I really loved Yato and was prepared to follow him on his journey to be #1 god. But this is not what the series is about. The series is about this annoying little girl who constantly gets in his way and causes problems in his life to the degree he almost died. Then when she begs people to save him he is all appreciative and ... grateful that he has her in his life despite her being the root cause of the problem in the first place. A lot of unnecessary drama. And what annoying anime chick would be complete without an episode of amnesia? In summary Yato makes absolutely no progress in his quest and gains a truly annoying companion. Sucky by all accounts.

History 3/10

Noragami has the kind of story that attracts in the first ep. and then gets lost in the void. It starts with an interesting and intriguing theme, but leaves all the initial construction to start a cliché novel. From there, starts shooting everywhere: creates characters to try to strengthen the initial idea, but fails stupidly because of poor and insufficient development. The ending is catastrophic, being just a relief in the plot. Conclusion: Noragami fails miserably in the whole central idea, but has some interpersonal moments between characters that "save" the anime from pure failure.

Art and Sound 5/10

There is not much to stand out ... here. It is nothing close to the art direction of the Makoto Shinkai films, the absurd harmony with the plot of the Studio Ghibli films or the touching and expressive character of Sangatsu no Lion, but it is also not to be thrown away. In the end, it is enough.

Characters 2/10

We have come to Noragami's big problem.
At first, we have the protagonist disguised as a charisma just to appear to have some identity. Beside him, a generic dere whose only existential function is to remain beside the protagonist, being used only at the beginning and forgotten by everything else.
After a few walks, they find the third protagonist: a lost boy with a dark past whose narrative function is to be immature and to become mature. The production rushed this one so much that it reminded me of the "emotional and difficult" beginning of Tokyo Ghoul.

This ends the cliché trio of shounen: the protagonist, with whom the majority without a critical sense identifies, the childish friend and the woman. [In common shounens, the protagonist can be replaced by the childish, which matures throughout the anime, and the childish friend becomes the intelligent the charismatic, or the dumb one.]

About the supporting characters, it's amazing how they all have "a past" with the protagonist, what, again, serves as a cover for the problematic plot. The supporting characters are the most superficial thing. They just surge to create a situation with the protagonist, always starting from the "unknown past" with him. The highlight is for the villain: usually, when it comes to the villain, even the greedy studios are concerned with giving some personality, but, in Noragami, he arises from the same "unknown past" as Yato. In conclusion, everything about Noragami's characters is deplorable and shameful, from protagonists made with the utmost laziness to disposable support characters.

Enjoyment 2/10

Even after so many problems, enjoyment is subjective to everyone. Personally, I only say that I slept in the last episodes and found the entire anime a waste of time.

Overall 3.5/10

Noragami is a shame of the modern industry, using and abusing the "wow first episode", cliché and superficial characters, artificial development and a conclusion that makes no sense or is trustworthy with what was proposed. I didn't see anything that was constructive or entertaining in the anime.

After reading the manga...I thought that I should make a review on how this anime failed to show the epicness of it's manga counter part.

Story: 7/10
While watching the anime, I couldn't help but feel disappointed with how the anime failed to deliver the intense feeling that I get while reading the manga. I couldn't feel anything while watching the anime, they added a lot of things that made it look so cliche and too girly for a shounen anime.
I didn't like how they change Bishamon and Ebiso's arc and made it overly dramatic to the point of making me cringe. I also don't like how ... they made Hiyori forget about Yato "twice" - Yato always fear that Hiyori will forget him one day, that's why he often stalked her, he never found out about the incident in which Hiyori forgot about him and for me, it holds a very important part of the story...the day that Hiyori will forget Yato - sadly the anime ruined that for non-manga readers.

Art: 7/10
The art is pretty good, Yato looked really handsome in the anime. However...there were times when the anime look dead or dull.. which made some episodes boring to watch.

Sound: 9/10
The opening song is also good, it's one of those opening songs that I wouldn't mind not skipping.

Characters: 8/10
Yato: At first..I thought he was just another "funny but cool" shounen male lead, but he changed a lot from how he was at the start of the series. He became so noisy, whinny, a bit of an emo and he can be annoying to watch sometimes.

Hiyori: She's not your badass female lead nor the weak and annoying female lead. She's kind of like Yamato Nadeshiko with a weird side. But for some reason..I can't help but feel like she's slowly becoming more like a side character.

Yukine: He got the biggest character development in this series. Almost half of the series was spent for his character development on how he slowly change from that annoying and ungrateful brat to Yato's blessed and loyal shiki

Overall:4 /10
It's sad how the anime ruined what was supposed to be one of the best shounen manga and made it look cliche and too girly and failed to deliver the epicness of it's manga counterpart.

A IMP Review of: Noragami (Dubbed edition)
(IMP stands for “In My Prospective”, meaning if someone attempts to correct the way i see the show i have no intention of reading any “corrections”)

Story: 4/10. So there's this god, Yato. He's a god that is slowly losing follower to his shrine so in order for people to remember him he does job for people for only 5 yen. Now one might ask "do we follow him on his jobs for a story?" Though ... i think that would be a interesting concept there's more to the show then that which in my opinion hurt its but hey, let's continue.Every god for some reason is supposed to fight random creatures people can't see and stop them from screwing up the world, they do so with souls that are now dead but pure that are still wondering around earth of which they can turn into weapons, (kinda like soul eater but lamer). Yato loses his only weapon one day because a soul weapon can defect from a god (...what?) and has to find a new one, his new weapon and our ACTUAL MC are what really start to make the show go to down in the ratings.

Characters: Yatos weapon is an annoying little brat-- I mean, a teenager he names Yukine, this kid isn't really happy about his circumstances and wants to live again so he acts his age and pouts and whines about it to the point he literally causes pain (i won't say how to avoid spoilers). BUT WAIT, we didn't talk about our MC yet have we, why you may ask? Because she was so forgetful and enabling that i almost completely forgot she existed. Apparently teenage girl Hiyori one day passes out and finds she can become a spirit thing and leaves her body to become said spirit thing like in insidious with the same set of issues. She meets yato who practically nobody can see (MIRACULOUSLY) and follows him along on his misadventures with Brat boy. She i guess helps them, but only verbally really, she also screws shit up but hey MC am i right?! (they fix a lot of stuff in aragato). I enjoy yatos character and the god of misfortunes character somewhat in the show but thats all so 3/10 because i'm being nice.

Art: eh, i really didn't see anything standoutish, in fact it was less them standoutish honestly. 5/10 by my scoring table not MALs.

Sound: The opening is good but nothing else was noteworthy, 4/10.

Enjoyment: I felt like i was in pain going through this show, not really any enjoyment, i liked seeing Yato and the god of misfortune doing stuff, but the rest was just bad, 3/10.

Overall 3/10 I felt at times i needed to force myself to continue to watch it and that should be enough to say how bad it is honestly.

Let me tell others 2 things, 1: I will not tell you or encourage you to give the same rating, this is just my personal opinion on this show and 2: honestly I’m doing this review and other reviews as a hobby and for my own “anime records” so to speak, so if you see this and don’t like it just ignore it honestly because its more for me then to help others in the long run.

Aimless, boring, stupid. This is probably the first anime I've ever dropped so far in (other than three episode rule situations).

The concept seems ok at first. Gods battling ayakashi (tormented souls, essentially), whilst simultaneously doing jobs in order to gain worshipers that keep them existing. The trouble with this is that it is not explained (at least in the 7 episodes I could handle) why these ayakashi need to be dealt with or why the pantheon of Gods even needs to exist. Regular humans can't even see the demons so it doesn't really effect them. Basically, there is no ultimate goal for the Gods.

Yato spends ... his days doing odd jobs to get by alongside battling ayakashi, and the joke is that these jobs are not very Godly, such as cleaning bathrooms, minding shops etc- in order to gain followers. This joke is not played out particularly well though and falls quite flat for me. Hataraku Maou-sama! does a similar set up much better, with the devil working at McDonalds, but this is funny because it conflicts much with his prideful and evil over the top personality as the devil. Yato simply isn't that likable as a character, and so a bum doing bum-tier jobs just isn't that funny.

Also, where as Maou has some kind of character development from pompous devil-king to kindhearted fast food worker, Yato remains the same rather dull, mean-spirited guy.

I will cut short my review as I haven't seen the whole anime, but all I am really trying to get across is that Noragami is essentially a much less funny and interesting version of Hataraku Maou-sama! and I would heartily recommend you to watch that instead.