Noragami is a shounen action series with two seasons, having a total of 25 episodes. Noragami, which in English means Stray God, is what our protagonist is. Noragami is set in a world where negative emotions and actions create beings called “Phantoms”, who are slowly destroying the world from the inside. But to balance this, the Gods of the Shinto religion kill these phantoms in exchange for the devotion and donations of their human followers. Within the social hierarchy of the Gods, Yato is a self-proclaimed “ Delivery God.” But the problem is, that he is not very famous among humans and even the gods. But Yato’s main driving force is his journey to be one of the most popular gods and more specifically, being one of the Seven Gods of Fortune. But, since he has no shrine, this dream is far from being realized. So to build his own shrine he spends his days doing odd jobs for five yen apiece. One day while doing one of these odd jobs he walks across Hiyori Iki, a schoolgirl who for some reason is able to see him. Yato ignores this and just keeps on walking in front of a moving truck. Why? Because this is anime and every series has to start off with the main character walking in front of a moving vehicle. From Yatos’ perspective, he just keeps walking because he’s a god. From Hiyori’s perspective, he is just an idiot walking in front of a moving truck. So she runs off to save him and gets hit by the truck instead. She survives but her soul becomes loose for which she sometimes just leaves her body and turns into a catgirl. And so, the main point of the show is Yato’s journey to be a popular god while solving HIyori’s problems and managing his adolescent sidekick, Yukine, who is a dead spirit who can become a sword. But if this was such a basic show, then I would never bother making a review of it. You see, while the series tells you that the main premise is Yato becoming a popular god. There is a huge underlying plot that is revealed after the initial world-building is done. I will try my best to explain it without spoiling anything. You see, Noragami tackles many serious and dark themes in contrast to its slice of life, comedy aspect in the beginning. The best part of the show is the main protagonist, Yato, who is played off as a goofball, in the beginning, while small chunks of his true identity and why he is hated by Bishamon, one of the most popular Gods. Another theme the show tackles is Yukine’s reaction to this whole world of gods and spirits. Yukine is a kid in the middle of puberty, or at least should have been. Yukine is always hesitant to accept his situation and does not want to acknowledge the fact that he is different from people around his age. There are also other such themes in the show. Like Bishamon’s incredible hatred for Yato and her regrets. As this is a shounen series I have to talk about the fights. Noragami fights are not hype in the same way as Naruto or Bleach which mostly depend on their fight mechanics and power system, Noragami fights are more dependent on their build-up. You see, Yato is built up as a laid back idiot simping over Hiyori, so actually seeing Yato fight and become serious is, with the lack of a better term, pure hype. So, Don’t watch a Noragami fight expecting Naruto’s choreography or Hunter X Hunter’s complexity.

From a production standpoint, Noragami’s best parts, at least in my opinion, are the openings and really unique visual effects. If you haven’t seen Noragami, which is probably why you are reading this, you have probably listened to the openings at least once. The first opening has 4.7 million views on Funimation’s channel and the second opening has 69 million views on animelab’s channel. And both of these openings are really good and the first opening is one of my favorites alongside Gintama OP 21 and Fire Force OP1. The animation is done by studio Bones. I don’t really have any criticisms for the animation. It’s not bad and it’s definitely not the Fate series or Hyouka. I would say it’s above average because of the really cool effects that happen when a phantom dies.
For my criticisms of the show, I would say the story sometimes feels like it’s repeating the same formula. But it’s never too boring. Also, to me, most of the characters other than Yato are a bit meh, and some characters I genuinely dislike.
To me, Noragami is really special because it’s one of my first ever anime. But I don’t like this show purely for nostalgia. Yato is one of my favorite characters of all time. And I was crying at the end of season 1. So, I would say you should really watch Noragami if you like shounen anime and don’t mind the slice of life aspect of it. But if you only care about hype and can not stand slice of life anime, then probably skip Noragami. Although if you do watch the first season and think that it’s pretty mid, then watch at least a few episodes of season 2 as that is where a lot of the plot points are explained and we also get to learn about Yato’s past. So, to end the review, I will say watch this show if you want a mix of shounen and slice of life anime. And even if you don’t understand some of the plot points or were not invested in some of the characters, give season 2 a shot, and you will probably get much more invested.