Story: 4
Animation: 8
Sound: 9
Characters: 3
Enjoyment: 4
Total: 5
Noragami is painfully average. Using existing concepts without adding anything new to the formula. Yet it fails at every corner to address missing story beats, and also fails to establish either meaning, sense or logic.
And everything bad revolves around the characters, which are clearly the crux of this story. We have Hiyori, who's cursed with living between the living and dead zone. Yukine, boy who recently perished and refuses to not break the law. And Yato, quirky and eccentric main character who can become serious fast.
And while being on the topic, and let me address this really fast, being quirky is one half of the main comedy of this anime. I understand that it should work as "playing with expectations", but after the first "quirky" scene, it becomes stale very fast, as more often than not, quirkiness runs through characters without stopping. And it never stopped. And most of it isn't even explained.
The other half of the comedy consists of insults against Yato. Insults are almost never funny, especially not direct ones.
But lets get back to the characters, proper this time. And I'll start with Yukine, because he is by far the most problematic character. First off, I hate him. He is an irredeemable asshat of a character. He's a kleptomaniac narcissist who destroys everything around him when he feels like. Apparently his death was caused by an external factor, but we never see that. Yato is the only one who saw his memories of his life and sympathized with him because of that. Even while being cursed to death by Yukine Yato still wanted to protect him, because "he is something special". But that, we also never see. What makes him so special? Except for cutting stuff, as a sword I might add, everything he does, other people can do better. This specialness is even mentioned late in the anime without ever explaining what it is.
But probably the worst part is his "redemption". I mentioned he was irredeemable, and I stand by that. His redemption was 100% unearned and only saw his way of error when he was about to perish for good. This whole theme should've been handled completely different.
Hiyori, as the human character, is very single-minded but quickly evolves(?) into an one-dimensional character. At first, she only wants to revert into a state were she doesn't accidentally exists her body. But later, she only wants to preserve the new friend group she's becomes a part of. I don't know really much about that character except that she likes martial arts? And that only really comes in handy in the early parts (and in the final episode as a gag).
And similar goes for Yato. He wears a tracking suit, no reason, got a scarf around his neck, no reason, and works everyday minijobs for 5 Yen, this at least has an explanation, but no logic behind it. And all he wants, as a god, is to build a shrine where he can be revered. What for? We don't know. Especially since other gods, like the God of Learning, all have specific purposes. As a "god of calamity" he deals with requests other gods won't do. So he purposefully chose to be the second fiddle. Or was he made for that? Or ascended to that role? We don't know.
And while writing this, it has come to my attention that this anime started when the manga was at chapter 35 of 109. Which is probably why there are so many plotholes. Not to mention that it only recently finished (January 2024). Also, the animes final two episodes aren't in the manga.
This all results in a weird and baffling experience. While one might enjoy the simplistic nature of the story and surface characters, I personally take issue in how unrealized they are. Shallow husks of persons without real ambitions except short-term goals. And in the end, it was probably the studios or publishers fault to greenlight an anime of a monthly manga still in production. Especially since material was added and changed. Still, the visuals are nice to look at, and I especially liked the background music tracks and the mixing of those.
