Based on the manga by Adachitoka, the first season of Noragami is a twelve-episode series animated by studio Bones that ran in the winter 2014 season. The property saw a second season come a few years later but it’s the manga that’s impressive. The original work began in 2010 as serialized in Monthly Shonen Magazine and it only wrapped up at the very start of 2024 with twenty-seven main volumes and three supplemental volumes. At the time of the anime, it was at about half that so it clearly had a whole lot more story to tel. Supernatural-based shows are fairly common but even a familiar series can really excel with a strong sense of execution. Noragami may seem familiar at first but it does a solid job of carving out its own identity and running with it – which definitely leaves you wanting more at the end of the season.
Though it’s easy to view the series through the lens of Yato, a god of calamity and war from ages ago, it really is best to view it through Hiyori’s eyes. Hiyori is your average teenager who’s going through her life with some good friends, and family that we hear of but see little of, and generally enjoying life. Hiyori’s a bit different though, not that she realized it, Her life changes when she sees a young man walking down the street calling out for “Milord,” which is certainly strange enough in itself. But when she sees him walking into the street chasing after a cat, she goes to push him out of the way, saving his life. What this ends up unlocking is part of her nature in that she’s able to see between the two main worlds, that of the living and that of the dead, or the Far Shore. Hiyori’s able to separate from her physical body, with a tail that anchors her to it, and it’s through here that she’s exposed to a larger world. One where she becomes a bit of the catalyst and glue for a group that slowly forms.
With the young man Yato, what we discover is that he’s something far more, but not quite what one would expect. Being a god of calamity that’s been involved in a lot of death and destruction over the centuries, he’s turned a bit of a new leaf in the present day to be a bit of a jack of all trades problem solver, doing various deeds for a five yen payment. Hence things like finding the cat, cleaning places and other sorts of odd jobs. Yato’s using this in order to build up a new level of believer in order to sustain himself as most of the gods, in familiar fashion, have lost a lot of influence as the modern world has become more connected. Some gods are able to hold their own as they were sizable to begin with, but others like Yato really have to struggle more in order to make it. His struggle is one that he mostly does with a smile or grin, a little joke, and some happiness. In a way, it’s better for him because it’s not filled with the bloodshed and chaos of the past, even if it is harder because it’s more rewarding. Not that some gods and those involved in this in-between aspect agree with him on that for a range of reasons.
Within this framework, we get Hiyori learning more of this world at various times – while her body sleeps somewhere – and it proves to be mildly intoxicating for her because she’s so free there and there’s a lot to see. We do get plenty of familiar elements to stories of this nature with gods in human form and interacting with special people, so there’s not a lot in the way of real surprises. What she ends up providing along the way is also familiar, but worthwhile. With Yato having largely been alone for many years while his influence waned, the requests dropped and he had little going on, she provides a bit of life and activity during his attempted upswing period. He’s warned by others to get rid of her and move on because of the potential danger she represents, but there’s an honest and earnest side, one that never goes cloying or too far, that makes her interesting as the real glue of the series.
Yukine’s story is one that’s certainly interesting and it dominates a good chunk of the show in this season as he and Yato have to find a balance to work with each other. Yukine’s pretty much a difficult child in many ways and with him having died not having friends and being somewhat of an outcast, that causes a rift between him and Yato as well. Hiyori proves to be his friend, though it’s a long journey as well as she’s almost parental at first to get him to stop doing things he shouldn’t as a Regalia in the human world. With the bond he shares with Yato, it’s a slow build but seeing the impact they have on each other, and how Yato suffers in order to get Yukine to realize his worth, is definitely a strong arc overall. Yukine’s a hard one to take because of the selfish and childish aspects early on, but it’s key for who he is when he died and the difficulties thereafter.
Naturally, there are a lot of characters thrown into the mix over the course of it to flesh things out, especially on the supernatural side. This works well for the most part as we get other gods and a few Regalia thrown in, and also the title character of Nora, which is a complicated subplot that only becomes a focus towards the end, and even then minimally as this season really isn’t about her. There’s a great bit with the final arc with another calamity god that’s longing for the old days and wants to fight it out and that provides some solid closure for the season. The subplot that I liked the most though is the one involving Bishamon, another god that spends her time with a whole lot of Regalia going about dealing with Phantoms and other errant things. She has no love at all for Yato and is looking forward to ending him, making for a complicated relationship along the way. There are a lot of those in this series in a sense, as they’re standard relationship problems but with the number and scope of them, it weaves in and out in really engaging ways.
What helps to sell all of this is that animation studio Bones has made this a fully realized world in so many ways. There’s a weight to it all as it plays in the real world for pretty much all of it but knows how to bring in the supernatural in an effective way. With strong background design and some solid choreography in the action sequences, it elevates the material just a bit more. The show itself is strong as the characters are engaging, funny, and layered properly, but by giving it such a polished presentation they’re able to really pull it all together in a stronger way. The result is that we get a very slick and smooth series with its visual design but also one that’s backed up by a strong central cast of characters that are kept small while touching upon many others in order to make it feel like it’s part of a bigger world from the get-go.
Noragami was an unknown to me when I first went into it as a full-season viewing.There’s the obvious air of familiarity about it, but Noragami stakes out its claim well with what it wants to do and be while also making it clear that what we’re getting is a first chapter of a larger story. Revisiting it all these years later, and knowing the manga is done, definitely ups interest in the original work as well. The anime does leave you wanting more to be sure, but if this was all there was it’d still be very easy to recommend. It’s an appealing show that knows how to work its magic well and the overall presentation is certainly a strong one that will make fans of it happy and likely make new fans out of more people that end up checking it out here first.
