Noragami Aragoto

Yato and Yukine have finally mended their relationship as god and Regalia. As a minor and unknown deity, Yato continues to take odd jobs for five yen apiece in hopes of one day having millions of worshippers and his own grand shrine. He has yet to fix Hiyori Iki's loose soul, but she cheerily prepares for high school nonetheless.

While things are seemingly back to normal, the complicated history between Yato and Bishamon—goddess of war and warriors—resurfaces. Bishamon holds a mysterious old grudge against Yato, which results in violent clashes between them. To further complicate matters, Bishamon's most trusted Regalia, Kazuma, is indebted to Yato. When lives are on the line, unraveling these secrets is possibly the only way to correct mistakes of the past.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Yato Main

Kamiya, Hiroshi Japanese

Yukine Main

Kaji, Yuuki Japanese

Iki, Hiyori Main

Uchida, Maaya Japanese

Bishamon Main

Sawashiro, Miyuki Japanese

Kazuma Main

Fukuyama, Jun Japanese

Kofuku Supporting

Toyosaki, Aki Japanese

Nora Supporting

Kugimiya, Rie Japanese

Ebisu Supporting

Okiayu, Ryoutarou Japanese

Daikoku Supporting

Ono, Daisuke Japanese

Takemikazuchi Supporting

Hamazoe, Shinya Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Amano, Naoki Producer

Endou, Tetsuya Producer

Yanagimura, Tsutomu Producer

Reviews

Dec 25, 2023

ezbie

Recommended

I liked Aragoto too, just as I liked the first noragami. I tend to find every series I watch crap, because generally start out too ambitious and then the quality falls down. I found noragami not to be ambitious at all, it has simple premises and almost no ambition at all, it is mainly focused on character development and on friendship, it turns out to be a very nice anime because of that.


However, the first noragami is better and more consistent. Towards the end of Aragoto there is some melodrama going on, the Ebisu arc appears confusing and the last 3 episodes are full ... of plot holes, with instantaneous invented powers and stuff being made up to make the plot advance (what people call Deus Ex Machina, I think). They also seem to be indicating that there's more story after this season ends, which I confirmed by looking up how the manga was adapted to this, there's way more source material than what's used to make aragoto, and some things are left unclear, suggesting there's a larger backstory than what immediately surfaces here..

The main reason to watch this is the characters and their friendship though, and I think there are good characters and they're well developed. Ignoring the feeling that the story will continue that's left after the last episode as well as the plotholes, I think watching this was time well spent, I loved it.

Also, there's Kofuku-sama and Daikoku. Out of all animes, they're ones that stuck out because of their personality, I loved them.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Aug 7, 2022

Runasius

Mixed Feelings

Its sorta hard to predict how any anime by Studio Bones is going to turn out. Sometimes they could end up being rather passable, or even incredibly memorable and well written (i.e Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Darker than Black). On the other hand, they could end up being complete and utter failures (i.e Zetsuen no Tempest). Noragami fits nicely between the two; a mediator amidst the good and the bad.

Let it be known that I found the first season to be somewhat of a mediocrity. As far as urban fantasy goes, it didn’t do much to stand out from its peers and felt a tad ... bit too similar to other shows of the same genre. Sure, I mean there were some interesting concepts and some witty character interactions here and there, but it never felt like the show executed them as effectively as I would have hoped. The series, after all, is what would happen if you decided to mesh both ‘Bleach’ and ‘Soul Eater’ together. For most of its runtime, it was mainly filler, and the story arc it dealt with deviated way too much from its source material as it got closer to the end. Not to mention, it was rushed beyond belief. With 12 episodes, and only a fraction of it having anything to do with fleshing out the world and its characters, it barely felt like Noragami even amounted to much. With Aragoto however, Bones finally catches up to its source material and adds more substance that, honestly, should have existed in the first season beforehand.

Viewers should be aware that this is a direct sequel, and newcomers stumbling across this with little to no knowledge of that will be confused and lost. The highlight of the story this time around, is that there is less focus on the various “side jobs” the main heroes must pursue, and more of an overarching storyline. This, thankfully, removes a lot of the filler elements that the first season toyed around with. I mean sure fellas, its nice and all to watch Yato and co goof around while pulling off comedic chibi faces every now and then, but it becomes bothersome when that is literally 80% of the show.

The show is split into two arcs, which are aptly named the “Bishamon arc,” and the “Ebisu arc” respectively. Both are quite different in their own right with the first one being a rather emotional insight into Bishamon’s character and her conflict with Yato, and the second one introducing a location known as “The Underworld” into the mix. Both arcs exhibit higher stakes compared to the first season, which I highly appreciate. At least now, people die this season, and there’s this feeling that not everybody, not even the main cast, is safe. However, problems soon arise when you try to dig deeper into the show on a less superficial level. For one, there were many moments where the writers seemed to have just pulled out random explanations from their asses to justify a certain event happening on screen that would otherwise seem implausible. Without spoiling anything, there’s this one scene where a character is dragged into the underworld and is suddenly brought back up into the real world through some half-assed plot contrivance. There were also multiple other moments like that which grinded my critical mind, but that situation was particularly distracting.

The biggest issue I have with Aragoto, was that it doesn’t seem to be any different from other shonen titles I’ve been willingly exposed to. The story is rather predictable, and you can tell how the events are going to coincide from the very first episode or so. It is also lacking tremendously when it comes to worldbuilding. The human world is still given higher priority over the lands that the deities originate from, which wouldn’t have posed a problem if the human world were any bit interesting. Though it’s not nearly as prevalent as the first season, I just felt like there wasn’t enough screentime or insight into some of the mystical locales. Much like other shonen titles, there’s a lot of infodumping and monologuing that often takes me out of the mood it’s trying to set up. Nothing is conveyed with any degree of subtlety, and the characters often stop dead in their tracks to explain to viewers in a highly explanatory fashion, as if they have no respect for our intelligence. Like jeez, we get it, we know… The same goes for the monologues. Though monologuing can be a useful storytelling technique (‘March comes like a Lion’ is a recent example of a great anime that takes advantage of it to build up its main character and let audiences in on his mentality on a more personal level), oftentimes it’s highly abused by a vast number of titles. It should be used to get us to relate on a deeper level to their thoughts, not to convey information that us audience members have clearly just witnessed happen on screen. To give an example, a character would get attacked, and immediately another character would think to himself aloud, “holy shit, that guy just got attacked!” Its lazy and insulting to the viewer’s intelligence. And the problem with this, is that it’s used commonly in most anime. And it completely bugs me. Show don’t tell, guys!

The cast thankfully have a lot more development this time around. Yato’s and Bishamon’s backstories are explored in much greater depth than ever before, leading to both actually developing as characters. In fact, a lot of the characters from the first season have their backgrounds and personalities expanded upon. Yato is basically just himself for most of the time, so if you like Hiyoshi Kamiya channelling his inner Koyomi Araragi, then you’ll find much solace here. But we do get greater insight into his relationship with other characters, therefore allowing us to see him grow from this egotistical doofus into a loyal friend who would do anything for his companions. The bond between him, Yukine, and Hiyori feels more palpable this time around as audiences will further bear witness to their interactions. Yukine in particular, grows from a whiny, spineless git into a headstrong, self-assured spirit weapon who’s more devoted to his master than ever. Hiyori is just bloody useless though. She barely does anything in the sequel, apart from yelling Yato’s name here and there. I wouldn’t be surprised if she becomes the next Orihime or Lucy or Sakura in the next season. Her arc, which is basically a romantic subplot, is just too sappy for my tastes and adds very little to the overall plot. Seriously, why do most shows these days, not just anime, feel the desire to shoehorn in love triangles? Some characters also feel like they’ve gotten shafted. Kofuku and her regalia for example, still feel shallow in contrast to our main heroes and exist solely for comic relief. The show also tries to introduce more and more characters as the episodes fly by, most of which get little to no screentime. There’s this one fella that befriends Yukine in an earlier episode, but then gets axed brutally like around two episodes later. His death is prolonged in a very dramatic manner, as if the writers expect us to care on an emotional level for him. Sorry, but it had barely any effect on me. I mean, I barely even knew the fella. He’s like a stranger to me. But so far, characterization is a massive improvement from the first series and hopefully, the third season will improve on it. But that’s not saying much, because the first season barely had any characterization.

Animation is pretty much on par for Bones standards. The backgrounds are very rich and detailed, with a lot of emphasis to making them look absolutely gorgeous. The Underworld for example, is given a much-needed feeling of helplessness, isolation and dread to complement its grim atmosphere. Animation quality is usually very good as expected of Bones, but the first episode does have some glaring off model shots. For instance, there were numerous creepy shots of with practically no faces. This would annoy a lot of the viewers on their first go, and probably creep out others. It could act as an effective way to give people goosebumps, if it weren’t for the fact that it’s a noticeable animation error. Fight scenes are erratic and exhilarating, with a lot of fluid movements and supernatural abilities on display to keep viewers enthralled. There are also some tense sequences which should keep you on the edge of your seats. So fans of battle shonen are going to be invested at the very least.

The music is done by Taki Iwasaki who has incorporated a lot of eastern and middle eastern tunes to the mix. A lot of the tracks are reused from the first season, but I didn’t mind it for most of those tracks were incredibly pleasing to the ears. Sadly though, the new tracks themselves feel completely different from Iwasaki’s usual stuff and are, unfortunately, quite forgettable.

Overall, Noragami Aragoto, despite being a much-needed improvement to the first season in terms of pacing, character development and overall sense of progression, is still a rather average shonen experience. Fans of the first season are in for a treat (especially those who felt that it was lacking in terms of substance), but for folks who hated or didn’t find it as good as people made it out to be, will not feel all that different. If you have not watched the first season then I urge you to do so if you’re interested in checking out Aragoto as you’ll be completely confused if you hadn’t done so.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jan 6, 2022

Audz_

Not Recommended

There are spoilers in this review.

Honestly I thought this was a decent anime... up until about episode 9. I finished the first season not too long ago, and I found it rather mediocre. I was still a bit curious about how the story would progress however, so I started this season and finished it. My rating of a 4/10 of this anime is really based on my enjoyment of noragami aragoto and how I thought the story went. One thing I had a problem with was the recurring patterns in season 2 that seemed to be too similar to season 1 for my liking. ... For example, how the end of each season became an "Oh no we have to save Yato" ordeal, and somehow Yato and Yukine seemed to have the same cooperation problems still even though season 1 looked like it resolved them? This repetitiveness made me feel like I was watching a different route of the show, seriously lmao. I also had a problem towards the end of the show dealing with the Underworld. It feels weird just having all of this new stuff being brought up casually out of nowhere in Season 2 as if there was reference of them to season 1, like the God Colloquy, the Underworld, and the Heaven Punishers. Oh, and the fact that the only way to save Yato was for a person from the Near Shore to call out his name? Man what are the chances. Also, I'm pretty sure the fact about Hiyori's request was brought up once, in the beginning of this season, which kind of confuses me because it was one of the whole focuses of Season 1 but I could also understand that, in a way. This may seem like a lot of rambling, but I actually thought the show was pretty enjoyable in the beginning, until it became too predictable (excluding the random events like the Colloquy).

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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