You had me at “giant floating red manta ray snake monsters.”
What They Say:
Yato may just be a minor god now, but he’s determined to make it big and he’s got a plan. Unfortunately, things just don’t seem to be going his way. He doesn’t have a single shrine dedicated to him, his partner has just quit, and now he’s got to find a new divine weapon. Just when things look bleak, he meets a girl named Hiyori and changes her life forever.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
This was a fairly typical first episode. It cleanly set up a lot of the main themes, characters, and stylistic choices. For instance, there’s liberal use of Bakemonogatari-style coloured outlines, and cats seem like they’re going to play an important role, at least for Iki Hiyori. Noragami also has people who can transform into weapons, much like the Soul Eater anime (another Studio Bones production).
The episode begins with Yato, the “stray god,” defeating a Phantom. Phantoms are later described as “incarnations of emotional energy”—in this case, the stress of students during exam season. Yato’s “Sacred Treasure,” the Tsubaki to his Black Star, throws a hissy fit and leaves him immediately after he destroys the huge manta ray serpent thing. Yato is actually quite unsuccessful as a god, and she’s had enough of him and his go-nowhere wish granting service.
Next we’re introduced to Iki Hiyori, a regular high school girl who has an otaku-like love of UFC fighting that baffles her friends. She spots Yato as he’s chasing a lost cat, and when Yato chases it into the street, Hiyori impulsively runs after him and pushes him out of the way of a bus. Then she looks back to see herself lying motionless on the street. This will be the first of many out-of-body experiences for her.
Yato visits Hiyori in the hospital (she was barely injured by the bus, somehow), but he leaves before she can ask him exactly what happened that day. Later, she goes searching for the missing cat herself to try to jog her memory. Yato is also out looking for the cat, but when he finally tracks it down, he finds himself being chased by creepy disembodied eye monsters. These later combine into a giant frog demon, which almost gets the better of him before Hiyori runs in to save him from trouble again. She also roundhouse kicks the frog in the face.
The two escape, and Yato finally gives Hiyori some answers. There’s the “near shore,” our world, and the “far shore,” basically the afterlife. Ever since the accident, Hiyori has started to hear voices from the far shore, and she frequently falls asleep to enter the same middleground in which Yato exists. Her Phantom form looks exactly like her, except with a big, glowing cat tail. She asks him to help her return to a normal life, and he charges her a 5-yen coin for her wish.
Yato and Hiyori are both pretty cool characters. Yato does a good job of being playful and confident without it becoming annoying, and Hiyori’s outwardly demure appearance clashes interestingly with her propensity to get Yato out of trouble and roundhouse kick giant demon frogs in the face. I also enjoyed the chemistry between the two, which is great since they’re clearly intended to fall in love later on. Plot-wise, there wasn’t enough going on to hook me just yet, but I am definitely a fan of Noragami’s sense of humour. Yato is funny all by himself, but it’s especially comical to watch him interact with everyone else. Plus, his laugh is hilarious.
Another important part of any anime’s first episode is establishing how much fanservice the show will have. I caught 3 panty shots in this episode, all of them with Hiyori, and none of them tonally appropriate. They were pretty mild, and it was a fairly playful episode anyway, but there was still enough seriousness and exposition to make them feel out of place. On the other hand, they were also pretty difficult to notice, so maybe it says something about me that I even managed to find 3 in the first place…
In Summary:
Overall, this was a pretty solid episode. It’s funny, the artwork is good and the characters are likeable. It has sort of a Durarara! vibe going for it. The story so far: Yato, a god who runs an unsuccessful wish “delivery” service, meets Hiyori, a typical high school student. She gets hit by a moving bus while pushing Yato out of its way, and the resulting out-of-body experience permanently connects Hiyori to the spiritual realm between life and death. After facing off with a creepy demon creature, she enlists his services to help return her to normal. Everything is set up to start moving the plot forward in the coming episodes. I imagine episode 2 will introduce that other guy from the ending credits, but I’m more interested in the girl who leans in to kiss Yato in the opening.
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
