Noragami Aragoto

I really won't be surprised if I get a mob of weeaboos wearing Yato masks at my door ready to baptize me in the sacred Yato holywater for rating it a 5 but please keep in mind that I actually use the rating system in it's entirety and believe it or not, I don't hate Noragami! This will contain minor spoilers.

Overall I think Noragami is a very overrated series. I really didn't enjoy the first season and didn't realize what all the hype was about. It had a lot of problems - I felt the writing was poor, characters did stupid things that made no ... sense a lot of the time and the constant abuse of Yato is overused for comedic value but at a certain point it runs dry, and most of all - Yukine.
Yukine is one of the most annoying and whiny characters I have ever witnessed. If nothing else, I applaud this season for reducing this fact to a minimum.

The story of Noragami Aragoto has the same initial premise as the first season but this time is divided into 2 major arcs. The first arc focuses on the character of Bishamon, the strongest god of war who also has a deep hatred for Yato as he slaughtered her entire clan once before. By doing this though he saved her life, as requested by Kazuma, the only survivor of the clan. Everything begins when one of Bishamon's regalia is suddenly killed. No one however knows who killed the regalia and panic ensues. Also coincidentally before his death he befriends Yukine and when Yukine hears the news he turns into Emo Kid once more and goes to seek vengeance for his friend.
The last season also gave a lot of hints that Kazuma knew Yato and their past is now unraveled.

The second arc starts off by Yato receiving a shrine from Hiyori. In the Noragami universe gods who have shrines get special perks sorta say. Yato moves into the Heavenly Neighborhood or whatever other lame name you can think off and is now a proper god, being friends with everyone! After 1 episode of sunshine and rainbows Yato gets captured by Nora and a person she calls "father", who knew Yato for a long time as well as seen in the flashbacks of them holding hands. So this is where the series went downhill for me. This arc just felt so unnecessarily rushed (I've heard so from people who read the manga as well so it isn't just me). So much content is just bundled together in this single arc and sadly, 7 episodes isn't nearly enough time to cover it well.

Produced by Studio Bones, all I can say is how fluid and nice it is. To be honest, the fight scenes can be lackluster sometimes but I really enjoy the character designs. I may be giving it too much credit because I just find it better than most of the animation this season though. Shame pretty colors can't save a show :^)

Noragami Aragoto like the first season has a variety of music throughout the series and I'd like to say how much I like it like most people do but I really don't think it's anything that special. Sure it's better than the norm nowadays but it's not setting out to break any records. That being said, the opening theme is one of my favorites from this season.

I'll be honest, for the most part I don't like the characters in this series. Let's briefly go over the main characters of the first season: Yato is a god that will obey your every request (( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)) for 5 yen but there's a twist to it - He has a dark past. This was revealed a bit in the end of the last season and now plays a big role in the plot. Hiyori is annoying at times but is generally okay and then there is Emo Kid. So now in this season we get more development for Bishamon and suprisingly, Kazuma. Bishamon has too much trust in all of her regalias and you could say that is her downfall. She is shown to be very stubborn when dealing with Yato, seemingly ignoring the fact that he saved her life.

Right off the bat I wanna say that I feel like they handled the development of Suzuha alright but it may of been better to give him more screen time first since he is the plot device in this situation. The main antagonist of this season is also one of Bishamon's regalia by the name of Kugaha. He really isn't interesting much like the villain of the first season but hey at least he has a goal. We are then introduced to Ebisu who is one of the seven gods of luck, the god of fishing. He could of been a cool character if the series didn't decide to rush it so badly. Needless to say, he doesn't get nearly as much character development as needed for us to actually care about him. We also don't know a single thing about Nora or father, yay.

Norgami Aragoto is a pretty enjoyable series really. As I said in the beginning, they made Yukine a lot more likable which I'm very happy about. The enjoyment does go down after the 2nd arc tags along but it was never to the point where I was forcing myself to watch.

It's somewhat of an improvement from the first season and is an enjoyable series with cool fights and quirky characters (that get on my nerves sometimes but that's besides the point). It still struggles with the issues it had in the past like the plot and the character development in a lot of instances. The 1st arc is the pinnacle of the season (and I'd argue the series but I'm just a dirty hater of the first season), however the 2nd is inferior by a longshot due to how rushed it is. So all in all, while I enjoyed it more than the first season and you'll probably do too, Noragami Aragoto really isn't anything special.

Originally uploaded on October 30th, 2015.

Its sorta hard to predict how any anime by Studio Bones is going to turn out. Sometimes they could end up being rather passable, or even incredibly memorable and well written (i.e Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Darker than Black). On the other hand, they could end up being complete and utter failures (i.e Zetsuen no Tempest). Noragami fits nicely between the two; a mediator amidst the good and the bad.

Let it be known that I found the first season to be somewhat of a mediocrity. As far as urban fantasy goes, it didn’t do much to stand out from its peers and felt a tad ... bit too similar to other shows of the same genre. Sure, I mean there were some interesting concepts and some witty character interactions here and there, but it never felt like the show executed them as effectively as I would have hoped. The series, after all, is what would happen if you decided to mesh both ‘Bleach’ and ‘Soul Eater’ together. For most of its runtime, it was mainly filler, and the story arc it dealt with deviated way too much from its source material as it got closer to the end. Not to mention, it was rushed beyond belief. With 12 episodes, and only a fraction of it having anything to do with fleshing out the world and its characters, it barely felt like Noragami even amounted to much. With Aragoto however, Bones finally catches up to its source material and adds more substance that, honestly, should have existed in the first season beforehand.

Viewers should be aware that this is a direct sequel, and newcomers stumbling across this with little to no knowledge of that will be confused and lost. The highlight of the story this time around, is that there is less focus on the various “side jobs” the main heroes must pursue, and more of an overarching storyline. This, thankfully, removes a lot of the filler elements that the first season toyed around with. I mean sure fellas, its nice and all to watch Yato and co goof around while pulling off comedic chibi faces every now and then, but it becomes bothersome when that is literally 80% of the show.

The show is split into two arcs, which are aptly named the “Bishamon arc,” and the “Ebisu arc” respectively. Both are quite different in their own right with the first one being a rather emotional insight into Bishamon’s character and her conflict with Yato, and the second one introducing a location known as “The Underworld” into the mix. Both arcs exhibit higher stakes compared to the first season, which I highly appreciate. At least now, people die this season, and there’s this feeling that not everybody, not even the main cast, is safe. However, problems soon arise when you try to dig deeper into the show on a less superficial level. For one, there were many moments where the writers seemed to have just pulled out random explanations from their asses to justify a certain event happening on screen that would otherwise seem implausible. Without spoiling anything, there’s this one scene where a character is dragged into the underworld and is suddenly brought back up into the real world through some half-assed plot contrivance. There were also multiple other moments like that which grinded my critical mind, but that situation was particularly distracting.

The biggest issue I have with Aragoto, was that it doesn’t seem to be any different from other shonen titles I’ve been willingly exposed to. The story is rather predictable, and you can tell how the events are going to coincide from the very first episode or so. It is also lacking tremendously when it comes to worldbuilding. The human world is still given higher priority over the lands that the deities originate from, which wouldn’t have posed a problem if the human world were any bit interesting. Though it’s not nearly as prevalent as the first season, I just felt like there wasn’t enough screentime or insight into some of the mystical locales. Much like other shonen titles, there’s a lot of infodumping and monologuing that often takes me out of the mood it’s trying to set up. Nothing is conveyed with any degree of subtlety, and the characters often stop dead in their tracks to explain to viewers in a highly explanatory fashion, as if they have no respect for our intelligence. Like jeez, we get it, we know… The same goes for the monologues. Though monologuing can be a useful storytelling technique (‘March comes like a Lion’ is a recent example of a great anime that takes advantage of it to build up its main character and let audiences in on his mentality on a more personal level), oftentimes it’s highly abused by a vast number of titles. It should be used to get us to relate on a deeper level to their thoughts, not to convey information that us audience members have clearly just witnessed happen on screen. To give an example, a character would get attacked, and immediately another character would think to himself aloud, “holy shit, that guy just got attacked!” Its lazy and insulting to the viewer’s intelligence. And the problem with this, is that it’s used commonly in most anime. And it completely bugs me. Show don’t tell, guys!

The cast thankfully have a lot more development this time around. Yato’s and Bishamon’s backstories are explored in much greater depth than ever before, leading to both actually developing as characters. In fact, a lot of the characters from the first season have their backgrounds and personalities expanded upon. Yato is basically just himself for most of the time, so if you like Hiyoshi Kamiya channelling his inner Koyomi Araragi, then you’ll find much solace here. But we do get greater insight into his relationship with other characters, therefore allowing us to see him grow from this egotistical doofus into a loyal friend who would do anything for his companions. The bond between him, Yukine, and Hiyori feels more palpable this time around as audiences will further bear witness to their interactions. Yukine in particular, grows from a whiny, spineless git into a headstrong, self-assured spirit weapon who’s more devoted to his master than ever. Hiyori is just bloody useless though. She barely does anything in the sequel, apart from yelling Yato’s name here and there. I wouldn’t be surprised if she becomes the next Orihime or Lucy or Sakura in the next season. Her arc, which is basically a romantic subplot, is just too sappy for my tastes and adds very little to the overall plot. Seriously, why do most shows these days, not just anime, feel the desire to shoehorn in love triangles? Some characters also feel like they’ve gotten shafted. Kofuku and her regalia for example, still feel shallow in contrast to our main heroes and exist solely for comic relief. The show also tries to introduce more and more characters as the episodes fly by, most of which get little to no screentime. There’s this one fella that befriends Yukine in an earlier episode, but then gets axed brutally like around two episodes later. His death is prolonged in a very dramatic manner, as if the writers expect us to care on an emotional level for him. Sorry, but it had barely any effect on me. I mean, I barely even knew the fella. He’s like a stranger to me. But so far, characterization is a massive improvement from the first series and hopefully, the third season will improve on it. But that’s not saying much, because the first season barely had any characterization.

Animation is pretty much on par for Bones standards. The backgrounds are very rich and detailed, with a lot of emphasis to making them look absolutely gorgeous. The Underworld for example, is given a much-needed feeling of helplessness, isolation and dread to complement its grim atmosphere. Animation quality is usually very good as expected of Bones, but the first episode does have some glaring off model shots. For instance, there were numerous creepy shots of with practically no faces. This would annoy a lot of the viewers on their first go, and probably creep out others. It could act as an effective way to give people goosebumps, if it weren’t for the fact that it’s a noticeable animation error. Fight scenes are erratic and exhilarating, with a lot of fluid movements and supernatural abilities on display to keep viewers enthralled. There are also some tense sequences which should keep you on the edge of your seats. So fans of battle shonen are going to be invested at the very least.

The music is done by Taki Iwasaki who has incorporated a lot of eastern and middle eastern tunes to the mix. A lot of the tracks are reused from the first season, but I didn’t mind it for most of those tracks were incredibly pleasing to the ears. Sadly though, the new tracks themselves feel completely different from Iwasaki’s usual stuff and are, unfortunately, quite forgettable.

Overall, Noragami Aragoto, despite being a much-needed improvement to the first season in terms of pacing, character development and overall sense of progression, is still a rather average shonen experience. Fans of the first season are in for a treat (especially those who felt that it was lacking in terms of substance), but for folks who hated or didn’t find it as good as people made it out to be, will not feel all that different. If you have not watched the first season then I urge you to do so if you’re interested in checking out Aragoto as you’ll be completely confused if you hadn’t done so.

Ehh. :<

So it was alright, just kinda meh, nothing really outstanding for me, a bit mediocre even.

The second season seems to be split in two;

In the first half, it deals with Bishamon. There's treachery among the midst, Kazuma gets development, Hiyori gets kidnapped (again), and Yato is gonna kick some butt.

There were some cool interactions and developments, but in the end, the majority of the conflict I found lacking. It could have been solved easily with a little bit of talking. I feel like the conflict was very fabricated and fake, and so I couldn't really get into it.

I'm sad Hiyori once again got to ... do nothing. She was built up to be a strong female protagonist, and I like her, but in the end she was less than a side character, which is a shame.

The villain reveal was meh, I don't understand them, I don't get why Nora was involved, and the villain conclusion I didn't care for. So basically, the storytelling didn't draw me in, or even connect at all.

More than that, there are no consequences to any of it, other than "we're friends now I guess", which I don't like - especially not after what they built up. I'm fine with happy endings, but if that's what you're going for, you probably shouldn't do what they did-- I never like when there are no consequences to massive wrong decisions, that just kind of takes the oomph out of any show. It means nothing bad will ever happen, so what's the danger?

In the second half, we learn of a new god named Ebisu who tries to buy Yukine (that goes nowhere - feels like they just kind of forgot about this) and who travels to the Underworld to try and find a way to control phantoms. Again, the concept is interesting, and some cool things happen, and there are some really sweet moments, but to me, it gets held back, because...

Yato gets kidnapped, somehow, and for some reason he can't escape, and no-one cares. Again, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Maybe in the manga, but not here.

The villain from before is back, then trips and falls for no reason and is gone. Like a total afterthought.

Nora is being spooky mysterious for reasons.

Hiyori is used as a plot device and nothing more (as before)

There's not enough (screen)time to really care about Ebisu before the end. Which is the biggest crutch. There are just not enough episodes to really build the guy's character before..

And then it's over!

It's definitely not finished yet, either. Yato finally cuts some ties and makes a decision how to move forward, Yukine gets super saiyan and stops being whiny, Hiyori is kinda there, everyone is alive, and there is mention of a mysterious father figure + an after-credits scene.

But ehh; I felt it just wasn't cohesive enough, the conflicts felt fabricated and mutter mutter I'll just go back to my shed.

Please enjoy it if you like it, but it wasn't my cup of coffee. ^^;

*Disclaimer*
Just personal Scratch.
Advised, possible spoilers.
Opinion & Informal

Art: 6/10 Same as previous. Standard 2010ish era style. Crisp and clean as usual with this style, but no impressive detail.

Animation: 7/10 Action scenes were of the same quality as the previous season. This one didn't use that dumb fancy speech sequence too much this time so that was a plus. This season focused less on slaying the phantoms and more on actual meaningful fights. Even then there wasn't anything too noteworthy about the animation in this. It's about average for an action show.

Characters: 5/10 Pretty much the same cast with the addition of a few forgettable names. ... Character designs weren't memorable. Main girl's in a school uniform. Yato looks like he's homeless. Typical cutely dressed, pink hair'd girl with a perky and aloof external atmosphere but with the typical hidden edgy/serious persona.

Plot: 6/10 Focuses less on the standard monster slaying and more on the development of characters and backstories. Still refuses to develop anything meaningful between Yato and Hiyori which ultimately leaves Hiyori in the same stupid spot as last season as the backseat tough damsel in distress.

Development: 5/10 Fleshes out Bishamon fully which is what was supposed to be done in S1. 2nd half of the show is some stupid arc with Ebisu and a final reveal at another big boss, Yato's dad I guess. 2nd half should have focused on strengthening Yuki's relationship with Yato as well as finalize some sort of feelings or resolution between Yato and Hiyori. The 2nd half of this S2 was spent on some pointless side-quest filler mission with some pointless development on Ebisu and Yato. There was even a reveal at Yato's real name and had potential in some real character dynamics and relationship growth among the 3 main cast, but no, it spent 2 whole episodes on some stupid relationship with Ebisu and trying to make us feel bad for Ebisu. Who cares about that loser even if it pulled some new plot point out of its ass with that whole Yato's dad using Ebisu as a scapegoat thing.

Music: 4/10 Same music as S1 which is so low effort. Might as well have made Noragami into a single release rather than two separate seasons. I understand strategic season timing and scheduling constraints but the music gets old if the situation is 2 separate seasons. I would have been fine with the repetitive music if it was just a single 24 episode release, but if you're gonna make it two separate seasons at least mix it up a bit. No sound design to address.

Conclusion: 6/10 Open-ended with an epilogue with a cliffhanger. This type of open-ended ending was okay for the way the story played out at the end. It was able to pull out a reasonable explanation and resolution at the end to make this open-ended ending "fine." The epilogue was stupid, uninspiring, and didn't hype me up at all. Rather, it made me disgusted at the idea of there being more of this storytelling and plot.

Overall: 5/10 Didn't mix up the standard supernatural monster slaying with my friends setup from S1. Same music, same bland cast. Did a decent job at improving at my gripes from S1 in which I wanted more character and backstory development. Still leaves the main issue unsolved which is any meaningful resolution or foundation between Yato and Hiyori; it's literally the first plot point introduced and LITERALLY stated as the sole thing holding their relationship together. That right there is enough for me to just give this a 4. It's so dumb. This anime does a real good job at making me annoyed and blatantly continues to tease about ACTUALLY making some progress in Yato and Hiyori's relationship. In other words, Yato and Hiyori's relationship is pretty much the same as it was in episode 2 or 3 in S1. Overall this is a standard romance-strip-tease supernatural monster slaying setup that did nothing to branch out, be interesting, be different or unique from the rest. Unmemorable. 5/10 The OP and ED were the only thing this had going for it lol

Revised: 9-5-18 at 13:04 PST

Noragami Argato

The end of the first season of "Noragami" was not Canon and is not mentioned in the second season, nor does it matter, so don't be confused.
According to the information, this season completely follows the manga.


This season begins to show the background of some very relevant characters, as well as partly the background of the protagonist. However, the actual plot of the second season is average and barely evolving. In the end, you only get a stretched and weak finale.
Nevertheless, it is gratifying that this season placed great emphasis on the characters. Incidentally, there were hardly any normal episodes about everyday life.

Unfortunately, this season ... lost a lot of what Noragami was up to before. First and foremost, the atmosphere was hardly there, all the conversations were mostly meaningless and the process was enormously monotonous. The whole season was based on Bisha's past and her typically clichéd way of coping.
There was a huge lack of individuality this season.

Surprisingly, this season actually ended with an interesting cliffhanger that made me curious about a sequel.

Yato was still the only real porter this season. The rest of the characters have mostly become irrelevant. Only Yato and Bisha were in focus, whereas Bisha's background wasn't particularly impressive and the minimal twist was obvious anyway. The antagonist of the season was not worth mentioning.

Musically, the second season has looked a little in the area of ​​the East. The intro, on the other hand, is impressive again and has enormous recognition value.

Animations have become much duller, however, they are still above average, but they lack dynamism.


In conclusion, "Noragami Argato is a decent sequel. But feels too stretched because of the low content. Not much happened in the season from beginning to end and the whole thing could have been accommodated in less than 12 episodes. Which means that." Tension would not have lost.

It's a nice series and I can recommend it, but I hope the manga has a lot more to offer than that.

Really enjoyed the first season, however, this season was a bit disappointing. The first had good moments, but the second arc really dragged on. I dropped the show at the end of the first arc but have come back almost a few years later to finish it. Just for that fact I can't give it a high score even though I ended up enjoying the show overall.

Story: 7/10

The first arc was good, although the antagonist's motivations never become clear. Guess S3 will go further into that. The second arc was pretty boring by comparison.

Art: 7/10

The animation was very good and the characters are drawn ... well although Hiyori doesn't seem to be drawn as well as most of the other characters.

Sound: 10/10

Kyouran Hey Kids is one of my favorite anime songs. The rest of the OST is very good too!

Character: 6/10

The most memorable character development was for Yato and Bishamon. Yato's background and his relationship with Hiro, Bishamon, and Kazuma were finally explained. However, I sometimes found Hiyori a pointless character even though so much emphasis is placed on her involvement. Either make her a side character or make her more of an important character. Yukine was annoying but got better at the end. Ebisu was an alright character that was also better at the end.

Enjoyment: 5/10

Funny and good moments, but never consistent enough to hold my attention.

Overall: 6/10

Glad I've finally finished season 2 though it didn't hit the mark of S1, I didn't expect the twist at the end so I'm hyped for S3!