Noragami Aragoto

Regular readers might remember that I dropped the first Noragami back when it aired because my tolerance for shonen action stuff was less then than it is now and I was still in that Jojo phase where everything I see of the genre from here on out would be a disappointment by comparison. However, once I had exited that phase, gained more of an interest in religion (that is, stories that apply religion rather than actual beliefs themselves) so I could understand better why people liked it, and learned of the sequel's existence, I watched the whole thing on Netflix and...well let's just say Igot through Nana in the span of a week and despite Noragami's much shorter length, it took me five days to finish it. It had a lot of interesting things to it, but so much time was spent on Yukine's stuff to the point of annoyance, and the final bad guy...I don't even remember what his deal was and I doubt anyone else does either. Nevertheless, I was looking forward to the sequel since fans told me that from here on out was when the series got into the meaty stuff and unlike light novels (looking at you...not gonna bother naming names), manga actually have a tendency to do that. And you know what? They were right. With all the setup from what I can only describe as an incredibly overlong prologue completed, Noragami delves more into actual character struggles with this sequel as we focus on the truth behind Bishamon's hatred for Yato, Yato's previous familiar and her new owner, and Yato himself as we learn just how important being a god with an actual shrine is to him, along with what he'd do to accomplish said goal. The series takes a darker direction in order to tackle these arcs properly, with a bunch of arc-specific characters getting the ax and the shonen-esque humor involving Yato doing something stupid and Hiyori freaking out at his actions is toned down to only a single episode and one or two moments elsewhere. Now I make a policy to not spoil major events in my reviews unless it's bad enough to the point that no one with any sense of reality would bother defending, so I can't really tell you what actually happens in the show. But I will say that it's cool to see Yato make dual-wielding cool again after Kirito rained all over Lloyd Irving's parade and will continue to do so for a long time. Most of the non-story related good about Aragoto is pretty much the same good that was in Noragami, so there's no point in really describing it. Characters are still fun. Animation is still nice. Soundtrack is fitting. Blablabla. Actually, I'm surprised by how much I've grown to like Noragami's cast over time. I kinda forgot everyone but Bishamon and the main trio by the time the second season hit, so it was nice for me to remember more characters' names this go around. Well okay, I still can't remember the name of the "bad luck" god without using Wikipedia, but at least I remember she exists now. Amazing what giving some personal flaws and having said flaws fuel arcs can do for someone, isn't it Kazuma? What I like about Noragami over say, Jojo, is that all the shonen action and character tropes are ultimately an accessibility tool for the mainstream crowd in order to explore actual religious lore and provide serious takes on what Japanese gods are being treated like today rather than the reverse the latter utilizes with its movie tributes and obsession with poses. Having said that, Noragami still hasn't fixed its problem of occasionally making things a little too accessible to the point that it sacrifices story impact. Whilst the Bishamon arc has been hyped as one of they greatest story moments of the series, I honestly prefer the one where Yato visits Izanami and causes Hiyori to almost forget him mainly because the former had a tendency to pull its punches right when it needed to squeeze the trigger. Gonna be hard to say why without spoilers, but basically a giant portion of the conflict was based around a stupid misunderstanding, the character who caused said misunderstanding to happen got off with a slap on the wrist after everything was over, and the true bad guy of that arc turned incredibly generic in the end, Tiger and Bunny-style. It's the biggest, but by no means the only time when Noragami seems to struggle with meshing the desires of the casual crowd and the elitist crowd into something that'll please them both. And similar to another shonen action anime that delved into serious issues, Tokyo Ghoul, whilst the action is pretty good for the most part, I'm not a fan of how shonen-esque it can be at times. You know, with all the cheesy lines and exposition mixed into all the fighting, along with how they stretch the fights out by revealing a loophole that was never hinted at before? It's like if you made a movie adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days that tried to impart the impact of Phileas Fogg's grand adventures through ludicrous karate fights with some of the locals he encounters...oh wait. But those faults are hardly wait throwing the anime into Hell for, especially with everything else the show has going for it. In a medium where good follow-ups are harder to find than a presidential candidate that doesn't come with enough asterisk marks attached to their speeches to fill up ten pages in Microsoft Word, Noragami Aragoto should be held as a good standard for how anime sequels should be. Don't give us more of the same. Use what you had previously for something new, preferably bigger and better. And before people comment on this, I mean bigger and better whilst still retaining focus in the vein of something like The Dark Knight. Not the retardedly unfocused bigger and better that Resident Evil devolved into with its sixth installment. All that said, I'm still not ready to consider Noragami a great anime as of yet. It feels like there's a bunch of cannons within its narrative that it has yet to fire, and whilst the ones that it has fired are quite loud, there's a bit of an annoying "okay, that's enough for today" after-feel to them by the time the series ends, right down to the main trio still having their relationship be the same as always, along with an incredibly unsubtle sequel hook that I am neither excited nor opposed to seeing what comes of it. The show is fun, but by the time it was over, I was already set to move on to the next thing with zero inclination to give it a second look. But who knows? Maybe the next Noragami sequel will change my mind. And then maybe the Republicans will stop denying the existence of global warming when the incredibly large amounts of evidence is shoved in their faces.

I had very high expectations for the second season of Noragami and it did not let me down. Aragoto was absolutely amazing! I loved every second of it. In this season, you learn a lot more about Bishamon and her past. You also get to know more about Bishamons regalia, Kazuma, who will most likely become one of your favorite characters. The fight scenes are very exciting to watch. They will have you on the edge of your seats. The next arc has a lot about Yato's relationship with Nora. This was also a very good arc. I also prefer this opening to thefirst season. Aragoto only made me love Noragami more and deserves a season 3. I definitely will be collecting all the mangas.

_-*-SPOILER FREE REVIEW-*-_ Noragami Aragoto is probably the best 2nd season anime this year. There is a big deal of change since the first season, for good. To be honest, the first season's second half was slightly off the entertainment level. I wasn't able to dive into the seriousness of the final arcs in the first season. But I am surprised how second season made a remarkable progress in making the plot more interesting. Story: 9/10 We all have seen Noragami first season and were left with many doubts, mostly related to Yato and Bishamon. In the first half. the second season tackles the back story of Yatoand Bishamon and reveals the secrets of Yato, Bishamon, ‎Kazuma, Other Gods etc little by little. The second half deals with the mystery of masked phantoms and also focuses of the relations between Yato, Yukine and Hiyori. Still there are plenty of things which are left untold which we can expect them to be shown in the 3rd season, when it comes out. Art: 10/10 Noragami and Noragami Aragoto has been animated by the studio 'Bones' which is very well known for it's remarkable art in the anime 'Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood', 'Soul Eater', 'Space☆Dandy', 'Tokyo Magnitude 8.0' etc. As expected of Bones, it's art in Noragami is also smooth, colorful and remarkable. The character designs are another plus point of Noragami series. The characters are drawn so well, I can't even imagine anyone else replacing them in any way. Their designs are the perfect match for their personality which makes them so much likable. Sound: 10/10 Noragami's opening song 'Hey Kids' by 'THE ORAL CIGARETTES' is a BLAST! There's no way anyone can deny me with this point. While everyone may not agree with me, the ending song 'Nirvana' by 'Tia' is another great song and the visuals and the lyrics adds more to it. While Noragami 1st season's soundtracks were already good, there has been a great improvement in the soundtracks in the 2nd season. The number of soundtracks under different situations have been changed, increased in number, and has become more suited to it than before. The soundtracks played during battles, sad scenes, happy scenes etc. makes them even more interesting and fun to watch. Coming to the voice actors, many famous and insanely talented actors like Kamiya Hiroshi, Kugimiya Rie, Fukuyama Jun, Sawashiro Miyuki, Ono Daisuke, Kaji Yuki, Hayami Saori, Toyosaki Aki etc. gave an amazing performance which makes Noragami deserve a 10/10 in terms of Sound. Character: 10/10 The male protagonist of the show, Yato, is my most favorite of all the characters. Not just from Noragami, but Yato has become one of my favorite character of all the anime and that's because of his cool attitude, wicked sense of humor and his seriousness when it is needed. Other characters like Bishamon, Kazuma, Yukine are also pretty likeable for their own unique personality. While most of you will disagree with me, I feel that Iki Hiyori is also an important character which adds some spice to the story. Due to her caring and loving nature, she is also pretty likable. And the fact that there is almost zero percent chance of her of being in relationship with a god, Yato, makes us want to know more about their relation progression. Enjoyment: 10/10 For me, the first season of Noragami was like 10/10 in terms of enjoyment but the second half was like 7/10. With more interesting plot, Noragami Aragoto has exploited the curiosity of the viewers and made this season worth a watch. Definitely 10/10 in terms of enjoyment. Overall: 9.8/10 If you really liked Noragami first season, then Noragami Aragoto is undoubtedly a must watch for you! If you are like me who liked half of the season and the other half of the season was meh, then you must give the second season a shot and you will undoubtedly be satisfied with it. And if you didn't like Noragami first season at all, then there's not much helping it, better skip this season. I hope my review helped. Comments appreciated. :)

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 nosense 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.

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