What They Say:
Despite his poor condition, Yato is hired to help a student with a bullying problem. But things take a drastic turn when both the student and Yukine come face-to-face with the reality of their situations.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The episode starts with Yato and Yukine teleporting into a girls’ washroom and Hiyori beating them both up. Then Yato kicks open a bathroom stall to reveal a third boy hiding inside. But the boy, Manabu, is actually their newest client, and he’s only staying in the girls’ bathroom to escape the guys who keep bullying him.
At the same time, Yukine has another outburst and decides to wander around the school angrily. He walks into a classroom and puts on a spare uniform jacket, then starts pretending to be a normal, living, human boy. The illusion is broken when a real class arrives, and his excitement turns to jealousy over the actual normal, living, human boys.
Meanwhile, Bishamon shows up at Kofuku’s place and asks her to “divine” the location of future Phantom vents. The process is supposed to be pretty accurate even though it looks like she’s just randomly drawing circles on a map. Bishamon then starts questioning her about her involvement with Yato. Daikoku is kind of timidly standing off to the side through all of this, but Kofuku breaks her normal happy-go-lucky act to walk right up to Bishamon and say: “If anything happens to Yatty…I’d be ready for a serious storm if I were you.” Kofuku is unexpectedly cool and intimidating in this episode.
Back at the school, Manabu tracks down one of the bullies in an isolated back alley, then tosses him a switchblade before pulling one out himself. Manabu walks steadily toward the trembling bully with a Phantom growing behind his back. Just as he’s about to attack, he remembers the other thing Yato told him: giving in to feelings of hate will make him turn to the dark side of the For–er, lose his humanity to the Phantoms. Manabu stops himself just in time, while the bully literally pisses his pants and runs off. It turns out that Yato had given him the two switchblades to let him sort it all out himself, but was standing on a balcony above them the whole time, prepared to dump holy water on Manabu if the Phantoms took over. So it’s a double victory for Manabu, defeating both his inner and outer demons.
Immediately after this, it becomes clear that the whole point of including Manabu’s story was to contrast him with Yukine. Where Manabu succeeds, Yukine utterly fails. He’s spent the whole day watching happy students spend time with their friends, and his jealousy and anguish have finally taken over. In a blind rage, he picks up a steel bat and starts smashing all the windows in the school. It isn’t until Hiyori walks toward him, carrying Yato, now completely covered in blight, that Yukine finally understands what his dark feelings have been doing to his master. The school is probably in a state of confusion, too, since they can’t really ignore all the windows spontaneously breaking themselves.
Hiyori again remembers what Yato once said: when there’s trouble, go see Kofuku and Daikoku. But this time, when they arrive at their doorstep, Daikoku draws a borderline and blocks them out. He’s probably afraid of their blight infecting Kofuku as well, but if they don’t do something right now, Yato will die. And then the episode ends.
So, episode 8 is basically the culmination of Yukine’s trauma. All that stuff with Manabu was really just there to highlight how poorly Yukine is dealing with his own issues, and now his anger and depression have finally driven Yato to the brink of death. On top of all this, Bishamon is still trying to kill Yato herself, and his closest friend among the gods, Kofuku, seems to be at a loss for how to help him. This is definitely the lowest point for the main characters in Noragami so far. The show itself, on the other hand, is improving in quality and depth with each episode.
In Summary:
Yato’s latest client, Manabu, is being bullied at school. His solution: give the kid two switchblades (one for his bully opponent) and let Manabu sort it out for himself. He ends up confronting the bully non-violently while also fighting off the Phantoms forming from his desire for revenge, essentially killing two birds with one stone. Yukine, in stark contrast, becomes extremely jealous of the students and their many friends, and starts breaking all the school’s windows. This accelerates Yato’s blight to the point of near death. When Hiyori brings him to Kofuku for help, Daikoku blocks them out with a borderline, presumably to protect his goddess. In short, everything is bad. Really bad. And there’s no clear solution. But it’s getting more and more fun to watch!
Grade: B-
Streamed By: FUNimation
Review Equipment:
17” Lenovo G700 Laptop, 2.10 GHz Core i7, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GT 720M, Windows 8; Insignia 1080p TV, PS3 with Crunchyroll App
