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「棄てられた神 」 (Suterareta Kami)
“Abandoned God”
The relationship between Hiyori and Yato has always been a straight forward one in my opinion. Their friendship came at a time of need when Hiyori started sporadically turning into a phantom – probably because of her first encounter with Yato. As time lapsed and she spent more time with Yato, it’s obvious that she grew an attachment with him that expanded past the boundaries of “I paid you 5 yen, now give me my wish. >_< " It's not really in the romantic sense, but there's definitely a connection between the two that's slowly building up to something more. Yuki's involvement is actually a great contrast for the audience to see how Yato and Hiyori interact in comparison. I won't lie, there are a few heartfelt moments in this season that made my heart skip. The first episode when Yato carried Hiyori after she passed out, and this most recent one when he reached for her hand – makes me wonder how Yato truly feels about Hiyori. There are signs that it could be stronger than friendship, but I don’t think it’s “love” just yet. It’s a realistic approach to relationships, but at the same time, I’m a sucker for romances so in the back of my mind, I wish they would just skip to the point. And the point is – Yato cares about Hiyori more than he leads on and he needs to show her!
Nora is one of those characters that I never quite understood. There’s no motive for her actions; other than, she seems to want Yato to suffer. Is it because he doesn’t use her anymore? Her ways of torturing Yato into fighting Rabou just rub me the wrong way, but it makes her an effective villain. Her character seems to wreak havoc for Yato whether it is manipulating Yuki, or stealing Hiyori’s memories and it kills me because she seems to be bad for the sake of being bad. Rabou seems to have some personal vendetta against Yato, which makes his actions more explainable (although he used to be human? That’s throwing us a new bone there). Killing Yato just isn’t enough though, seeing him lose everything and suffering is apparently the way that Nora wants to inflict pain on him. Hiyori and Yuki are victims that also fall to Nora’s schemes, but they’re more like the consolation prize. I would say that it’s unfortunate to be Hiyori, but if you don’t know what you don’t know, are you really suffering? This is the whole idea scenario that I painted last week, which puts Yato in a bad position to choose between his own happiness and hers. It’s typical of him to strive to kill Rabou anyway (as expected), but it’d be more interesting to see if there was any other way around it.
There was nothing new this episode that we haven’t seen before, but I still enjoyed seeing how the story came together. I didn’t mind that tactics that they used to make it seem like Yato was an innocent victim, when all along, Yato was probably just as evil as Rabou was in the past. It didn’t come as a shock to me that the two would be partners in crime, but it goes to show just how far Yato has come in comparison to his old ways. What’s made him change and how did he get from that to this? The obvious answer (or the one that Nora’s been hinting at), is the involvement of Hiyori. However, the show doesn’t really showcase that time in Yato’s life before Hiyori, and I can’t exactly give her all the credit for his change in character. There has to be a piece of the puzzle missing that turned Yato into who he is today and likely, the appearance of Hiyori just escalated that. It’s a shame that the show suggests all these missing links in the story that would make for great future arcs (especially involving Yato’s past) but I guess we’ll have to see if a second season is even likely.
Bottom Line – @RCCherrie: I feel so bad for Yato; life never gives him a break…at least not until he met Hiyori. The moment he grabbed her hand = #heartmelts #ノラガミ
Preview
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I feel like Nora’s motivation is similar to that of a manipulative ex; she wants Yato to depend on her, and only her, as his shinki, so she needs to get rid of the new one (Yukine) and make it so that his only option is to return to her. I see it as Nora trying to isolate Yato until he’s forced to choose between her or no one.
Actually Nora isn’t quite a manipulative ex as you think she might be,(i don’t read manga futher than this arc yet) considering how Nora and Yato interact and relationship as ‘friend with benefits’ , Nora probably is USED Yes Used by Yato in the past also since Nora LOVE the name that Yato gave her , we can assume that , Yato is her original owner , and they come a really long way , but Yato toss her away and find new and clean regalia while his abandon his tainted old regalia and leave her to have no choice but becoming a stray since nobody want to associated with her.Still the story can still swing. Noragami will suck w/o flowers in both hand ending …”will Yato ‘kill’ his ex-regalia, for he is the one who name her , used her and soaked her with blood , will he just faint ignorance , and reject her by pretending to move on and leave her behind???
ccl. Nora is cute ’nuff said!
This has been one of my favorites for the winter season, and hope it gets a second season. Thank you for covering it, Cherrie.
Also, the OST is awesome.
I wish it would get an episode extension :'(
Such a good series, stuck to the point of explaining the story without ever making anything so overly difficult to comprehend. I miss such a simplicity like that.
I believe Nora just has some personal problems. She simply wants Yato to rely on her, but she’s aware that his current condition is one that will never require her necessity unless he has a complete character change. I’m guessing the source of Yato’s former calamity God personality was despair and immense anger, so tapping into that is all Nora is working toward doing. I just need Yukine to get powerful, it’s interesting this series…how a God is no more powerful than his regalia. It shifts the focus of expecting Yato to go through some training montage or whatever and makes it about Yuki gaining strength. Yato has the means to win, Yukine just needs to provide the odds.
I cant Nora >__>
But I found it sweet that Yato spent all his money on those art supplies for Hiyori sake.
I did, I know right…. But actually for our sake if you havent thought about it enough!
Otherwise your comment doesnt make any sense, gome four-eyes san.
Ah sorry I meant to say I cant stand Nora lol
As I already thought and mentioned it in your last post of the previous episode Cherrie, I assumed correctly about that glassball Nora has. It even almost looks like she can freely manipulate Hiyori’s mindset with it.
And yes, I do believe that Yato does have feelings for Hiyori. Not only the heartfelt moment with him grabbing her hand, was some evidence right there, but also the fact did he did spend a lot (or was it even all?? didnt really say) of his hard earned money on her, just to get that drawing set to help her remembering him.
In fact, he almost gave up his dream of having an own shrine of his, which was all the money for, he was collecting all this time, he just went out and spent it on drawing materials so Hiyori might possibly just remember him again.
Yato is actually so in love with her…..putting his own dreams down for her, shes being more important to him than anything, he always wanted to be that famous mighty god, but letting that be, so he can just have her knowing him again….
Probably because he realized that nothing made him/ could have made him as happy and make time worthwhile, than when he was with Hiyori. Like he doesnt need all that anymore, because he has Hiyori at his side now (I know what Im talking, about… I ve been through the same). Although it’s likely that he isnt fully aware of his feelings for her (yet).
All in all, I AM SO HOPING, THAT THEY ARE GOING TO BE A COUPLE EVENTUALLY, they just gotta be…….!
While the episode is executed well it all seems kind of phoned in so to speak story wise. They seem to be glossing over the fact that all those people are getting killed and why did Rabou come back now? Need some more backstory. Maybe we’ll get it in the next episodes.
Noragami’s anime director said in an interview that they chose to focus on Yukine’s arc for this season because its details are vital to understanding how future arcs work, esp. Bishamon’s arc. They decided to leave Bishamon’s arc for now and use an anime-original ending for season closure, which was also supervised by Adachitoka, Noragami’s manga creators. (Adachitoka also designed Rabo, BTW.)
The interview also says if they animate Bishamon’s arc, they’d need at least 10 eps for it, (thus forming the plotline for a potential 2nd season).
http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost.php?p=5044991&postcount=725
Fingers crossed for the 2nd season then!
Given Yato’s artistic skills, I’m surprised he doesn’t want to become a God of Art, worshipped by artists, mangaka, doujinka and the like. 😛
Show Spoiler ▼
I hear the manga also depicts Yato in dubious 1980s fashion, which include
Show Spoiler ▼
Walking in the snow, a Noragami scan:
http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost.php?p=5047079&postcount=744
This episode was another beautiful one. Definitely my favorite this season, and maybe my favorite of the year, but it’s too early for that.
I like how they explained Rabou. Most anime originals or fillers tend to add new rules to the story that don’t really need to be there, but they stayed faithful to the original rule that “Gods are created by wishes” and pointed out the obvious. There are bad wishes as well. So I really like how they made it original, but when it comes to Noragami it feels like it needed to be there.
Dat Yato vs Rabou…..I can only imagine next episode….
hmmmm…I agree and disagree.
obviously from our point-of-view she keeps bothering Yato. but Nora doesn’t see it the way we are. to her, Yato was different back then. we saw it in the flashbacks (with Rabo and Bishamon-related stuff) and she just wants Yato to be his old self. she doesn’t want him to really suffer or something (like the fight with Bishmon – she protected him!). of course it’s for her benefits so she is willing to take some harsh measures, but she has purpose. and it’s not making Yato suffer.
what I don’t really know is why Rabo is after Yato – whether it’s to defeat Yato when Yato is in his best like old times, or similar to Nora – make him “regain his old self”. that way or another, Nora kinda pulls the strings and it’s almost like any scenario fits to her (like a win-win situation).
this episode was quite eventful with lots of interaction, but for sure a good one because everything was all planned and executed to the right point of it.
I liked it how the atmosphere became gloomy from two sides: one, the fight with Rabo caused Ayakashi that made other gods (Kofuku, Bishamon, Tenjin) to really worry and all. two, Hiyori’s situation getting worse as she didn’t remember Yato despite he really tried (we could really tell it’s painful to him) and later on she forgot about Yukine.
it was kinda agonizing as we progressed with the episode, but never too dramatic. touching enough to actually feel and empathize with the characters feelings, especially after what they have been through since episode #1.
one more episode before this great series will end, sadly. it’s more or less safe to assume that everything is just fine even with original material (which is quite good). obviously they made that everything is reversible (hopefully for next season sometime), but regardless, this is so good and so..fits to what we’ve seen so far, that I can’t complain. and it’s better to have this kind of finale rather than screwing with the next arc.
I really look forward the finale even though it’ll be sad it’s all over!
p.s
oh god, BONES are so good with sword-fight. great battle of Yato and Rabo (both past and present). kinda giving me vibes for sword of the stranger (also by BONES).
To Nora the Yato god of calamity must be the real Yato so she does everything in her power to recover that Yato, very selfish of her considering Yato hates his old self and is trying really hard to become another kind of god even at the risk of being forgotten.
I have mixed feelings about this episode unlike everyone else to be honest. And it’s more of a positive mixed as there was definitely more good in this episode than bad, however there were plenty things that urked me.
For one, I seem to be amongst the few that doesn’t find Rabo to be such an endearing character. His backstory with Yato seems very stale. Yato and Rabo fought together but Yato left him or something and Rabo is pissed. If there’s more to the story between them, then I find it rather hard to believe that it won’t be rushed and thrown in the story to weave a coherent backstory. So far to me, it’s just not there.
Because of this backstory I don’t really care for the villain. I just can’t invest as much time into it. Bishamon (who is more or less a villain at this point in the timeline) has a clear reason for hating Yato and there does seem to be a threat in the air around them. Not to mention I like her character as well. Rabo though…well, he’s just thrown in there. I don’t know much about him, his personality is an a-typical stoic villain, so I simply don’t find myself as invested as I should be with his character in general.
And to be honest because he seems to be a major part of the arc, the episode really waned for me.
Hiyori’s memories were dealt with fine enough so I don’t have much of an opinion on it. It went basically as I expected too, but I did find it really sweet of Yukine and the picture story. It shows that he’s grown past that old attitude of “I hate being dead blah blah.” It was a heartwarming moment to be honest, and it did very nicely covey that feeling of dread when Hiyori gave back the notebook and revealed that he has been forgotten by her as well. And that last scene was beautiful.
The action scene was also above average, so…good.
One thing I felt was rather weird (though I admit this is a bit nit-picky) is how Hiyori even remembered Yukine without feeling a bit awkward about it. Does she still know he’s a Shinki? If the answer is yes, she should know to which god. Yet she forgot Yato. Her memories in terms to Yukine weren’t well executed IMO. Though I digress, I’m probably being pretty petty myself.
So if I were to grade this it would be a high B or B+. I just don’t think a lot of the execution is as good as it could be. In terms of keeping up to par with quality though, it’s mostly consistent with the adaption portion of it. So I do have high hopes for a good (or at the very least competent) ending.
And while throughout the episode I thought that by the way the path was leading the anime would end with an original ending rather than an open-ended one, but thanks to zzstop I do have some hope that a S2 is possible. I can only pray to the gods.
And I would also like to mention that (slight Nora spoilers. Doesn’t reveal any plot points though.)
Show Spoiler ▼
Looking forward to the next episode. Most people seem to think it’s the last, so, yeah. Should be bittersweet.
(Also, just a random question out of curiosity, haha, Random Curiosity, but does anyone know a confirmation that there will be 12 episodes? As far as we know there could be 13 :P)
This was sad and honestly I never continued since episode 4 and I’m glad I caught up with show. I don’t know why I was so stupid to stop. Also I feel like it’ll be the friend zone with Yato and Hiyori in the end. I just feel that with the show since it didn’t seem to try to push that path, either way no matter what I’m glad I decided to keep going.
Could it be that Rabou wants Yato to kill him?
This definitely is looking more and more like an anime-only filler that fits in between arcs and doesn’t affect the canon of the actual storyline. Pretty good all things considered and leaves open the possibility of a future season. It would be a lie to say Noragami is perfect, but I’m finding it to be what Kyoukai no Kanata should have been, both in world building and character relationships.
This is where the filler starts. Really bad filler about a character who supposedly can start storms and dies in 2 episodes. Yup.
You can really see what’s going through BONES minds when they made this.
“Hey, this is filler time. So, what should we do to make the filler villain (and series end villain) stand out from the rest?
“Make it so he can conjure up storms!”
“Make him look stronger than the other Gods!”
“Make the other Gods go ‘OMG, I’ve never seen something like this IN THE LAST THOUSAND YEARS!’!”
“Brilliant! Done!”
I never really like anime original arcs but this is actually somewhat good. I was still hoping that she was just pretending to forget Yato, up until the part in the bath where she thought to herself and referred to Yato as “that guy” ;_;
I also agree with someone above that it could be that Nora believes the old Yato is the real Yato and thus she wants to get him back. I don’t think her aim is to cause him pain though I guess she doesn’t mind that (she seems rather sadistic to me). I don’t feel for Rabou as a character either ._. but at least he’s pushing the plot along and I assume he’ll give us some nice fights.
I’m still hoping for more YatoxHiyori but right now I feel it’s more of Yato needing Hiyori than loving her. T_T I cried when Yukine cried about Hiyori forgetting him, hope she remembers them soon D:
Anyway, looks like Hiyori got dragged to wherever they went. Next episode will
probablydefinitely be interesting!since durarara got season 2 why oragami can’t
I just want to bring up, exactly how broke is Yato, because buying all of those Copic Markers (120) should average about $360. Yes I know what I’m talking about because in the US that would be over $450 since he bought the nice official ones. Wish I had that kind of money to throw around.
Yato spending all the long-hoarded 5-yens on an effort to bring back Hiyori’s memories speaks more than nay words about how precious she is to him!
…also I’ve found where one deja vu I’ve had comes:
Rabou + Yato in the days of old look exactly like Spike and Vicious of Cowboy bebop in their old days…
well played , finally someone with true-sight, this is Best friend forever-scenario we got here XD Yato is Lelouch , Rabou is Susaku ,both are sinners but now yato stray from his path and Rabou will use his body as sacrifice to draw out who Yato really is!
who are we to judge them , i can totally see , Yato(left),Nora(mid) and Rabou(right) walking hand in hand under sakura trees during spring, they dressed in ancient kimono and smile happily… use this link for imagination reference
http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost.php?p=5047079&postcount=744
There has to be a piece of the puzzle missing that turned Yato into who he is today and likely, the appearance of Hiyori just escalated that.
Just from the show we know that:
1) Yato was a feared God of Calamity but now declares himself a Delivery God and runs around doing small jobs; so he’s running from his past quite heavily.
2) He made use of Nora at least once – an act most gods seem to turn their noses up at and one that’s “reserved” for situations where using your normal Regalia would be inappropriate. Given how attached she is, it’s quite possible their time together was longer as well. There’s a lot of subtext you could add to his speech about how regalia restrain their masters and how feared he was before.
3) At some point, Yato killed a Regalia gaining the ire of Bishamon and the apparent mistrust of many of the other gods.
4) Because all the gods – and even his own regalia – generally look down on him, he feels isolated and alone.
Sadly, Hiyori’s role is mainly to attack point 4 but a lot of the fine details for how we got there remain to be told.
You can definitely tell that Hiyori and Yato’s fated meeting is the heart of the story. Whether you look at it romantically or not (although one has to keep in mind that Hiyori’s fate crossed with Yato the moment she was asked if there was anybody she liked/loved; that looks like a story-telling hinting mechanic to me), Hiyori is essentially Yato’s hope to be remembered and that’s why it probably hurts him so much that Hiyori has been made to forget him. Yato is a struggling God, doing miscellaneous jobs in the hopes of being remembered, and nown he has finally found a client who would even give him the time of day. What Yato and Hiyori mean to each other is what i personally believe to be the base of this series, slightly above the far/near shore-god’s hierachy world building.