Noragami: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Noragami: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie Review

Yato doesn't have a prayer.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 10, 2015

There have been a number of rather interesting studies done on the efficacy of prayer, with the results often being ambivalent at best. Western believers tend to indulge in “mind power” to achieve a link to whatever Divinity they’re trying to connect with, but perhaps some might want to take a page out of the Japanese playbook and actually pay a god to answer their pleas. In what some might describe as a bribe, while others might simply claim is a weird form of capitalism in action, acolytes of Shinto often leave 5 Yen coins at various shrines as a token of payment in order to facilitate their prayers being heard and, more importantly, acted upon. That aspect of belief presupposes that there are shrines to any given god where a payment can be made, and that turns out to be just one of the hangups a low level spirit named Yato has been experiencing. Yato is a mostly forgotten god of war who has dreams of being the Big Man on Campus (meaning the spirit world), but who is dealing with the fact that very few humans are aware he exists, not to mention the fact that there is not even one small shrine in his honor to be found anywhere in Japan. Yato has taken to posting his “availability” to answer prayers (for a small fee, of course) on various walls. Even that approach is disrespected, as Noragami rather humorously details early on when a passing dog relieves itself on one of Yato’s advertisements. When someone does deign to pray to Yato, he receives the prayer on his cell phone (hey, it’s the 21st century, isn’t it?), at which point he flies into action, convinced that he’s on the way to amassing a fortune and, ultimately, to having a shrine that will be the envy of every other god in the Japanese pantheon. Yato’s divine good works are not always on what one might call an epic scale, and one of the first mundane tasks he is given is to find a lost cat. While attempting to track down the errant feline, Yato runs into the street right in front of an oncoming bus. A schoolgirl named Hiyori Iki actually is able to see Yato (something that is unusual), and runs out to push him out of the way. Unfortunately, that means that she is hit, leading to unforeseen repercussions for both her and Yato.

Anime lovers who are acquainted with the “old school” Yu Yu Hakusho may already be experiencing a bit of déjà vu, even without the revelation that Hiyori ends up rather like that anime’s hero in an ostensible purgatory of sorts, where she’s “not quite dead yet,” but is able to exist as both a physical human being and a detached spirit. One of Noragami’s salient achievements is how effortlessly it zooms through veritable reams of exposition in its first few episodes in order to bring Hiyori’s predicament to life (and/or death, as the case may be), while also detailing the general context of Yato’s quest to become a respectable (and noticed) god. Part of this exposition lays out Hiyori’s tendency toward something like narcolepsy, with her physical body simply falling into a deep sleep, at which point her spirit detaches itself. What appears to be a bright fuzzy purple tail emerging from her hind quarters in her spirit form in fact is ultimately explained to be a sort of “tether” which unites her spirit to her physical body, but Yato makes it clear that if anything happens to the tail, Hiyori’s physical body will in fact expire.

One of Noragami’s conceits is that Hiyori is a huge wrestling fan, and it turns out her detached spirit can pull some surprisingly effective moves, with a devastating kick being one of her prime abilities. This turns out to be handy when (in another of the anime’s conceits) “phantoms” enter the fray to either hassle Yato and Hiyori or do more nefarious things like possess innocent people, making them do untoward things. The phantoms are one of this anime’s chief allures, for they are rather wacky looking at times, often like mutant brightly colored animals that may remind some of a series of Andy Warhol lithographs that depicted various species with Warhol’s traditionally insouciant stylizations.

Noragami may strike some fans as being just slightly overstuffed at times. There’s the whole aspect of Yato wanting respect and recognition, and Hiyori’s wish that Yato help her return to a more normal, completely human, state. Then there are the frequent skirmishes with phantoms. But also on hand is a young teen spirit named Yukine whom Yato tethers to himself as his so-called Regalia, a katana that allows Yato to smite various phantoms. (This particular plot point may sound odd and even incomprehensible, but it’s detailed in a rather facile way. Basically it boils down to the fact that Yukine can transform into a weapon once Yato emits some magical mumbo jumbo. Fans of Soul Eater: The Meister Collection will have a head start on grasping this concept.) But perhaps surprisingly, Noragami wends through all of these potential detours without much problem, delivering an unexpectedly organic feeling whole.

The series is patently (and intentionally) silly at times, especially in the early going, but a somewhat unexpected change of tone part way through starts to lend a more serious underpinning to the enterprise. The three main characters are all very interesting in their own way, and once other gods start entering the fray, there’s an enjoyably chaotic feel to much of what transpires. “Prayer” in Noragami is far from the quiet, introspective method that many western worshipers prefer, but this is one anime that may well make even skeptics into believers.

Noragami: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Noragami is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is by and large one of the sharpest and most appealing looking anime we've had from Bones lately, which is saying quite a lot. Line detail is impeccable, and character designs, while not overly innovative (at least with regard to the humans and/or spirits), are very distinctive looking, with Yato's shock of geometric hair and Hiyori's kind of purplish-pink eyes two standouts. The phantoms are the real scene stealers here, and the design aesthetic for these "monsters" is one of the anime's major achievements. Colors are bright, bold and quite varied throughout the series, running the gamut from solid primaries to much more muted pastels. A number of neat looking CGI elements, like the swarms that are called storms (see screenshot 14), look precise and well defined. A number of scenes have boosted brightness, something that affects contrast and can diminish detail slightly due to a kind of milky overlay (see screenshot 10). There are some minor and transitory issues with banding, mostly due to quick changes in color space and lighting issues that tend to crop up in some of the battle scenes.

Noragami: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Noragami features an English dub in Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and the original Japanese language track in Dolby TrueHD 2.0. The FUNimation voice cast is typically excellent, and the 5.1 mix certainly opens up the anime's big action sequences, with some nice sounding lower end and well placed sound effects. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly and is well prioritized, even in scenes that can tend to get a bit noisy at times. Fidelity is top notch and dynamic range very wide throughout the series.

Noragami: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One:

• Episode 6 Commentary features Mike McFarland, Bryn Apprill, Micah Solusod, and Elizabeth Maxwell.


• Episode 9 Commentary features Mike McFarland, Ian Sinclair, Alexis Tipton, Bryn Apprill and Micah Solusod.

Disc Two:

• Episode Four Video Commentary features Mike McFarland, Brynn Apprill, Jason Liebrecht and Micah Solusod. The episode plays out in a PIP on the lower right side of the frame, with the four voice actors in a booth taking up the bulk of the frame.


• Textless Opening Song (1080p; 1:32)


• Textless Closing Song (1080p; 1:35)


• Trailer (1080p; 1:23)

Noragami: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

While there's a somewhat derivative air running just beneath the surface of Noragami, the characters are so fresh and the tone so well handled that my hunch is even naysayers may (eventually) be won over by the show's distinctive charms. The riot of whimsical phantoms gives this show some of its flavor, but it's the fun interactions between Yato, Hiyori and Yikune that ultimately provide most of the pleasure here. Technical merits are generally first rate, and Noragami comes Highly recommended.