Undead Murder Farce – 13 (Fin) – Crime Dog

For its finale, UMF eschews both OP and ED, instead beginning with a bunch of kinetic battles in the werewolf village. Kyle is defeated when Tsugaru uses his own chain against him (and Victor, in another temporary alliance with Tsugaru, uses his own severed arm as a projectile).

Alice is a crack shot as expected, but ends up falling for Aleister’s magic tricks, shooting his double and getting nicked in the back with some kind of fatal poison. Shizuku clashes with Carmilla once again, and not only accidentally flashes her with what I’ll call Chekhov’s Going Commando, but ends up surrounded by naked werewolf women when Carmilla flees.

With those battles ended, Shizuku lifts Aya high over her head so she can address the remnants of the two battling villages, so she can finally reveal the true culprit of all the murders: It’s Louise, AKA Nora…AKA Jutte. She’s the golden wolf.

Aya’s deductions surrounding Jutte’s multi-layered plot are extremely complex and detailed, and at least to my non-detective mind, moreso than previous cases. I suppose that makes sense, as this is the last case of the season.

Brass tacks: Jutte survived the tower fire that claimed her mother Rosa (and a random fox whose skeleton people mistook for Jutte’s). She then began living a double life as both Nora and Louise, having kidnapped the real Louise and hidden her in the cave for eighteen months (hence the tally marks).

Through it all, Jutte mentions how she and Louise had “a strange relationship”; Louise having been almost abandoned by her parents, and knowing what the villagers did to Rosa, made her believe Jutte was justified, even allowing Jutte to murder her so she could use her corpse not once but twice as both Louise and Nora to keep the wolves and humans guessing.

But with all the body-swapping, corpse tampering, and scent manipulation, in the end the one thing Jutte didn’t count on was a genius immortal detective like Rindo Aya to come to the villages. That said, once Aya reveals Jutte’s plot, nothing stops Jutte from simply transforming into a golden wolf and skedaddling…

…Except that she heads straight to the underground cave, where Aya has Tsugaru there waiting for capture her (with the chain he took from Kyle). Tsugaru thinks Jutte could stand to look a little more joyful in her villainy, but Jutte would prefer if he just let her go.

He doesn’t, as he has a job to do given to him by Aya. Jutte’s howl blows the candles out and she proceeds to start killing Tsugaru with a thousand little cuts and bites. He interrupts this process by bopping her on the nose, sending her splashing into the underground lake. In the moments she stops to shake off the water, she’s completely defenseless, like all dogs.

That’s when Tsugaru trusses her up like a turkey. However, when Shizuku arrives with Aya, Aya tells Tsugaru to let her go free. After all, Aya was wrong in a key part of her deductions: Jutte wasn’t doing this for revenge. She killed three human girls, but passed off their defaced corpses as the werewolf priestess girls.

In truth, she liberated them from a life of procreation, the boss wolf lady’s goal of creating the ultimate werewolf. In effect, Jutte/Nora and the three girls were being held in cages. Aya can relate, and because of that and the fact she was off in her deductions, Jutte is free to go and live her life how she sees fit.

With this final murder farce of the season thus solved, it stands to reason the focus of a (yet-to-be-announced) second season would be recovering Aya’s body. Tsugaru has it on Victor’s authority that the body is in one piece, stored by Moriarty in their hideout in London.

That said, if Master Detective Rindo Aya, her trusty Oni Slayer assistant, and her loyal and honorable maid have to solve a few more murder farces along the way, so be it! Until then, I’ll miss Kurosawa Tomoyo’s wonderfully aloof, sarcastic, sardonic vocal performance. If only she and Kitou Akari could face off as Aya and Kotoko in an Undead-In/Spectre crossover…

Undead Murder Farce – 12 – Man’s Best Frenemy

An apparent ambush by Victor turns out to be…something else, as he merely acted to separate Aya and Tsugaru from the Royce Agents, their mutual foe. He lets them go off on their way in exchange for the direction of the Werewolf Village and the diamond as collateral in case they’re lying.

Vera is waiting for Aya and Tsugaru when they arrive, and she and Kaya reunite them with Shizuku, who actually praises Tsugaru for “being useful for once.” But since the male wolves are on high alert, they have to free Shizuku another time. Tsaguru returns her recovered clothes…save her underwear.

Rather, Tsugaru and Aya slip out of the jail and continue the investigation. With Tsugaru’s diligent aid as her arms and legs, Aya inspects the spot where Nora’s body was found and discovers the entry to a secret underground passage just before the bro-wolves show up.

There, they not only find the site where Nora and other girls were murdered by the culprit, but also Alma’s human corpse in human form, along with a campsite featuring a wall with 550 tally marks carved into it. Despite these seeming complexities, Aya insists that the solution to the case is fairly cut and dried, but for another clue or two.

The tunnels eventually lead to the ruins of the tower, meaning the werewolves who were trapped there by the villagers all those years ago might not have died after all. When they come upon the doctor, who is acting kind of shady just beforehand, they learn that Louise’s corpse has been found.

Not only that, but Aya manages to get Louise’s parents to confess that before she turned four they tried to abandon her in the forest due to her inability to walk. It was Jutte who found her, only for Louise to finger Jutte as a werewolf. Aya believes Louise did this so she could survive, as Jutte was the only one other than her who knew what her parents did.

Aya and Tsugaru return to the Werewolf Village, but on the way, they notice that Alma and the camp bed are gone; someone had been through there after them and done some cleaning. Vera frees Shizuku and gives her her rifle, while Tsugaru prepares to face off against the bro-wolves.

Carmilla is the first member of the three-person crew from Banquet to enter the village, and she helps herself to the women, including Kaya. Tsugaru shows why he’s the Oni Hunter by dispatching three elite werewolves with relative ease (and with plenty of style points, I might add).

Alice and Kyle arrive in the Werewolf Village having apparently brainwashed/hypnotized the human villagers into serving as their burning, pillaging army. After all, Royce is there to wipe out the supernaturals. After grudingly leaving Aya in Vera’s care, Shizuku rushes off to try to find Kaya, and finds her, but also finds her old friend Carmilla as well.

While Shizuku deals with Carmilla, Kyle takes on Victor, and Aleister Crowley challenges Alice,  Aya has Vera take her to a graveyard where she believes she’s found the final clue to solving this case and bringing another murder farce to a rousing conclusion.

Undead Murder Farce – 11 – In the Doghouse

Following another unsettling monochromatic flashback involving werewolves convict and execute a pregnant woman via Giant Jenga, back in the present the Royce agents report they were unable to track the golden werewolf. That said, the villagers now have their culprit in Alma, so the chief tells Aya how to find the Forest of Fangs. They’ll be accompanied by the agents.

Shizuku wakes up in bed with a naked woman and a red wolf. A third werewolf, Nora, introduces herself, and how she found Shizuku frozen from the falls, and had the other two (Kaya and Vera) warm her up. Nora doesn’t suspect her of being “the culprit” because her rifle isn’t a shotgun.

When Shizuku asks what culprit she’s referring to, she learns that the werewolf village has experienced the same number of mysterious murders of young women, each four months apart and killed in the same manner. Shizuku tells them about Aya, but Nora says she needs to leave the village immediately.

To prevent the male werewolves from finding Shizuku, Vera and Kaya try to sneak her out in a hay-filled cart, but one of the wheels breaks, and Shizuku has to improvise. Showing of her acrobatics and skill without a rifle, she manages to fight off a number of werewolves before she’s surrounded.

The same elder from the flashback, Granny Nagi, the village elder, places Shizuku on the same Jenga tower she did the pregnant woman and asks a series of questions. Every lie is a plank removed, but Nagi assumes Shizuku is lying about everything.

Then a single gunshot rings out, and they bring Shizuku with them as they investigate the source, only to find Nora, whom the elder seemed to be quite fond of and who was about to become a priestess, has been killed. Shizuku offers to help, and shows that she’s learned a thing or two about sleuthing from being around Aya.

She’s able to deduce that Nora wasn’t killed where her corpse lies (there’s no blood splatter), she was likely in the river (she’s wet) and put on her cloak (which is dry) before being killed, and there was also a second shot (but they only heard one). After that, Shizuku runs out of gas—she’s not really a detective, after all—and once more invokes the ire of her wolfy captors.

Aya and Tsuguru can’t get to her soon enough, but while on their way through the arduous Forest of Fangs, which consists of great fang-shaped mountains they must traverse, their journey is rudely interrupted by the arrival of Victor, Moriarty’s brute strength muscle. Perhaps while the Royce agents fight him Tsuguru can slink away with Aya? Shizuku isn’t going to remain un-executed forever!

Noragami Aragoto – 13 (Fin)

Noragami Aragoto doesn’t pick up right when Ebisu is about to be blasted by a pacification ring; instead, it skips to Yato escorting a young man to the Olive Tavern. It doesn’t take long to realize the boy is the reincarnated Ebisu, which means the adult Ebisu he knew and befriended in the underworld was executed.

Yato is clearly sick about this whole situation, and Yukine and Hiyori stay on the periphery pondering what they should do as he himself wonders how he can change; how he can cease being a heartless war god now that he has a heart, and follow Ebisu’s example of working to protect and save people, and becoming a god people want to remember and have faith in for things other than contract killing.

By the end, Yato, perhaps without knowing it, changed Ebisu. Once, he had no qualms about dying over and over, because his shrine maidens would always tell him he’d reincarnate every time without fail, and so should never fear death. In fact, due to his lives’ work, Ebisu kinda had to die a bunch of times in order to make progress researching phantoms and acquiring the locution brush. Needing to break eggs to make an omelette, so to speak.

But by the time that last ring blasted him, Ebisu didn’t want to die and be reborn again. He wanted to live and stay in the world as he was. It was, in fact, his dying wish, and the reason Yato is so beside himself; Ebisu, who told him he’d make a great god who could make people happy, managed to change himself at the end from what he always was.

Now that Ebisu is back, but with close to no specific memories of his past self, it falls to his overseer to raise him back up into a useful member of god-society. And if that overseer has his way, this Ebisu will never see or touch the locution brush again. Yet when Bishamon and the other gods who assisted him hear of his noble ventures for the first time, they don’t necessarily agree that Ebisu should be stopped; in fact, it wouldn’t be what the past Ebisu or Ebisus wanted: for his reincarnations to carry on his work until he makes a breakthrough.

Back freeloading at Kofuku and Daikoku’s, a restless Yato takes Yukino to a secluded lake, where he asks his exemplar, heart firmly on sleeve, to help him change: from a god of war and calamity to a god of fortune and happiness; the god Ebisu saw in him.

Hiiro appears on queue to dissuade Yato, dismiss Yukine, and drag her brother back to their father to be “praised”; thus continuing the same cycle of death and soft smiles that’s been going on for centuries. She also points out that the plan to use Ebisu as a scapegoat to allay suspicion from their father, who also works with phantoms, worked like a charm.

But no more. With Yukine beside him for strength, Yato overcomes all the warm memories of him and his sister, and does what is necessary to truly change: release her as his regalia for good. When he does so, Hiiro’s smile changes to one of shock, disbelief, and even despair. But that’s not surprising: Hiiro has never changed, and may never change. It does, however, make me wonder if she could change, once enough centuries have passed.

Now officially free of Hiiro, Yato turns to Yukine to be his guide on his new path to becoming a less calamitous god, something he has no idea how to do since he’s “only good at killing.” But he’s wrong, and Yukine tells him there’s very little he needs to do that he hasn’t been doing already.

Really, getting rid of the temptation of Hiiro and his dark past was the most important step. He already makes people happy, like Yukine and Hiyori, who has faith that together Yato and Yukine can slay disaster before it strikes. And no, she doesn’t ask to have her tail fixed, nor does Yato offer it. She seems content with being the way she is for now.

The happy ending is only marred by the revelation that Fujisaki, the handsome young man who got along so well with Hiyori, is, in fact, Yato’s father. He joins his classmate, who cannot see the large retinue of phantoms by his side, along with Hiiro. Maybe she’s not going to change anytime soon after all.

As for his dad, it doesn’t look like he’s given up on bringing Yato back into the fold. No doubt many of the disasters thrown Yato’s way will be of his father and sisters’ making. He must be ever-vigilant. But as Kofuku says, with Yukine and Hiyori by his side, he’ll be fine.

Noragami Aragoto – 12

The drastic measure Ebisu ominously suggests turns out to be a variant of a soul call, which is basically ‘Yeah, just YELL HIS NAME REALLY LOUDLY down the vent’, and Yato will come back. I know, it’s a little more spiritually involved than that, but I was still amused by how simple the approach turned out to be…or rather would have been, had Hiyori actually known Yato’s real name.

She summons back a confused Bishamon without any trouble, but Yato dosn’t come no matter how hard she calls it. That casts doubt on the fact Yato is his name at all, which hurts Yukine deeply if true. Nonetheless, as Bishamon and Ebisu fight off the Heavens’ Punishers who have come to take Ebisu away, and Kofuku keeps the vent open, Hiyori keeps calling.

She keeps calling Yato not just because she desperately wants him back, but because she doesn’t want it to be true that he kept his name from her; not after she saw how happy and tearful he became when he saw it carved on the shrine she made for him. They’ve come too goddamn far for him to still be hiding basic stuff like his name…right?!

But then, Hiyori concentrates on the structure of Yato as she carved it, and focusing on two  crossed strokes forming a kind of offset plus, and calls out a different name: Yaboku, which does the trick. Yato apparates right on top of Hiyori, but she’s so happy he’s back she overlooks the closeness. Nay, in situations like this (and when Yukine underwent ablution), this is when the family comes in for a big warm hug.

So hurrah!, Yato is back safe and sound. But notsofast; there’s still those Heavens’ Punishers to deal with, what with their biker gang name and Mortal Kombat-esque dragon regalia Kiun, which they summon when their arrows fail to pierce Ebisu and Bishamons defenses.

To deal with Kiun, Bishamon puts faith in her exemplar Kazuma to work his blessed vessel magic to power up her whip Kinuha, and he doesn’t disappoint in asserting his dominance, in a nice bit of visual trickery, Kazuma reaches out to the lightning dragon high in the sky, and suddenly grabs it as if it were tiny and within reach.

Yukine isn’t quite ready to forgive Yato for hiding his name, going into the underworld, and getting beaten up without telling him or Hiyori anything. Still, the Heavens’ Punishers have a lot of tricks up their sleeve, and contingency plans for their contingency plans, so it has to wait. Or rather, the making-up has to happen immediately, as Yato requires Sekki at full power to repel the nuke-like projectile launched from the Punishers’ Purification Ring.

Sekki does just that, and with authority, and Ebisu, who after being reamed by Yato, actually wants to keep living, is appreciative. He’s appreciative of all his fellow gods’ efforts, as well as their regalia and human. But it may not be enough against the forces of the heavens. Another ring appears beneath his feet, and before the credits roll, Ebisu is swallowed up by white light.

Will it be blocked again? If so, by whom; Yato? Bishamon? A god who has yet to appear in this battle? If not, will it be the end of Ebisu? How will the gang deal with the loss of the one person they all worked together so hard to keep alive? Heck, I can answer that last one: They’ll feel like shit! So here’s hoping something—a miracle, perhaps—happens to prevent that. Because you know what? I like Ebisu.

Noragami Aragoto – 11

Of all the things to go down once Hiyori and Yukine arrived at the entrance to the underworld, I did not expect for Yato’s mercy to bite him in the ass, but that’s almost what happens, as Kugaha tries to capture Hiyori and kill Yukine. Kugaha tries to weaken Yato’s newly-minted exemplar by bringing up Hiiro and the fact he went to the underworld with her instead of him.

This works, but only briefly, as Hiyori grabs Yukine and counteracts Kugaha’s negative words by telling him how much Yato means to him, and to have faith in him. Yukine manages to fire off a borderline that shatters Kugaha’s and slams him against a tree, and well…that’s the last we see of him!

Then again, perhaps his being there wasn’t a mere coincidence: if he’s to be believed, Kugaha seems to have been keeping track of Yato’s movements and actions all along, and while Yukine is able to neutralize him here, I’m sure he’ll still want to confront Yato.

Of course, after this week that may not be such a good idea, because his former master Bishamon ultimately decides to go all-in on rescuing Yato. Before that, we see Yato’s in a bad way, falling back into those damned caverns. As Hiiro tenderly treats his foot, Yato starts to lose hope, matching Hiiro’s sentiment that this being the end for them isn’t so bad if they’re together.

It’s clear Hiiro is far more than a temptress to the “dark side” for Yato. They were, and remain, family. But he shakes off thoughts of giving up; not while Yukine and Hiyori are still up there.

Hiyori and Yukine bump into Bishamon and Kazuma (she’s also wearing Aiha as armor and another regalia as a whip; prepped for battle), Kofuku and Daikoku arrive, and options are weighed. Hiyori absolutely can’t go into the vent (which quickly closes anyway), while Yukine can’t go without disguising himself as someone else’s regalia, in effect becoming a Nora.

Bishamon makes the decision for him: she’s going to go down with Kazuma, Aiha, and the other girl, and save Yato herself. Kofuku opens a fresh vent and down they go.

She’s not just doing it for Yukine and Hiyori’s sake, but because she owes Yato. She actually owes him twice over, first when her Ma clan of regalias almost killed her, and again when dealing with Kugaha. She admits she hated Yato in order to move forward, and you could even call that a third debt. Regardless, she intends to repay them, which means saving Yato from Izanami here.

Even Bishamon and some of her top regalia struggle against the mighty Izanami, but they’re not trying to defeat her, just grab Yato and escape, so they have a chance. Of course, they’ll also need a way out, but Kofuku’s vents keep closing too fast. Enter Ebisu, who comes to and says there’s a way to open a gate to the underworld, but it will require someone from the Near Shore…namely Hiyori.

That’s pretty foreboding, but you know what? In keeping with the theme of having faith, be it Yukine in Yato or Yato in Yukine and Hiyori, I’ll have faith she’ll be alright, and things will work out fine.

Noragami Aragoto – 10

Answers to our questions last week come quickly. Will that kiss really work? No, it didn’t; Hiyori doesn’t seem to have any interest in Fujisaki. Will Hiyori become even more troubled by her inability to remember? Yes, most definitely. She rubs at her lips until they’re red, and she walks around with a cloud over her head. Will someone be able to jog her memory before it’s too late? Thankfully, yes, albeit accidentally.

When Yukine first approaches her, she can’t see him, which is bad, but his voice and his smell bring all the memories of him and Yato rushing back. Simply beside herself with relief, Hiyori embraces Yukine tight enough and long enough to make his nose bleed. Who can blame her? She never wants to come close to losing him or Yato again.

She was in a kind of hell, one she’d experienced before, but was so sure—arrogantly so, she believes in hindsight—she’d never experience it again. Now she knows: she’s not immune to forgetting; she must be vigilant in remembering. But first thing’s first: Find Yato.

Down in the underworld, Izanami has caught up with the fleeing Yato and Ebisu, and sends legions of naked blue beldams to drag the men back to her so she can play with them for all eternity. Hiiro acts independently by shoving one of Ebisu’s regalia into the beldams to distract them and save her master and Ebisu, who are all she cares about.

But when Yato learns Ebisu retrieved the ablution brush not for his own selfish reasons, but for the sake of protecting humanity by controlling phantoms, it changes Yato’s entire perspective of his charge—and mine as well.

With Bishamon and Kofuku also still away, Yukine joins forces with their exemplars Kazuma and Daikoku to seek out Yato. They ask Tsuyu—who isn’t a regalia but the spirit of a plum tree who serves Tenjin—to speak to the trees, and she finds one that saw two men matching the description of Yato and Ebisu entering the underworld. Hiyori hears this too; now she knows where to go.

Meanwhile, in Takamagahara, the six other gods of fortune along with Bishamon are being held captive by High Sentinal Oshi, who tells them that by “interrogating” several of Ebisu’s regalia (many of whom turned out to be Noras), they’ve determined he’s the conjurer they’re looking for, and will seek to execute him for his crimes.

That doesn’t play so well for Okuninushi, who shows the adamant, haughty Oshi one of his more terrifying forms. But before any god or sentinal blood is shed, Kazuma arrives with Kuraha, restrains Oshi, and frees Bishamon, who make a beeline to the underworld to retrieve Yato and Ebisu.

Even though Yato is still missing, Hiyori is clearly in far higher spirits now that she’s remembered him and Yukine. Yukine remains weary, mostly because he doesn’t want Hiyori to get involved in anything hazardous. Her scrape with the whole Bishamon business was a close enough shave for him. But Hiyori tells him she needs to find Yato and hear his story face-to-face, so Yukine agrees to let her accompany him.

It doesn’t really matter who shows up to the underworld first, as long as someone gets there fast; Izanami and her harem is proving too much for Yato and Ebisu, and all the exits are sealed with powerful-looking magic. Ebisu remembers his childhood—a childhood he’s had often because he dies and reincarnates so much. He’s a popular, well-known god with many shrines and books and oral histories about him. So if someone has to stay down there with Izanami and die, it should be him.

Yato disputes that logic, much to the chagrin of Hiiro. Now that he can see Ebisu’s formidable will, which causes him to press forward in his purpose no matter how many times he dies, and he wants to be a god worthy of that kind of respect; worthy of Hiyori. This is how great and immortal gods are forged, he believes; not by simply going with the flow and doing whatever his father and Hiiro tell him to do.

This time he makes his stand, and convinces Ebisu to use the brush to punch a vent into the very fabric of the underworld with phantoms. Suddenly, something that was a big no-no in past episodes is crucial to their survival; the ramifications can be dealt with later.

Even though Yato gets snagged by Izanuma and pulled back down into the abyss, with a huge host of gods, regalia, and Hiyori about to descend on the underworld in quick succession, his number is far from up…especially if Ebisu, who escaped, tells the others of Yato’s selflessness.

Noragami Aragoto – 09

Because Yato is in a charitable mood and possibly harbors guilt for the things he did with her, he goes along with Hiiro’s idea to go into the underworld to rescue a conjurer, despite the fact he could very easily get trapped down there by it’s queen, Izanami. When that conjurer turns out to be Ebisu (who is absent for the latest colloquy, correctly suspected, and for whom an arrest warrant is issued), suddenly Yato’s personal dilemma is intertwined with the overarching threat of Ebisu.

For a supposed Big Bad, it’s surprising how casual Yato and Ebisu are when they meet. Perhaps it’s because Yato trusts a far more famous god, or because hasn’t always been the most scrupulous fellow himself (as his continued entanglement with Nora attests) but he doesn’t really protest Ebisu’s use of Masked Ones as “phantom regalias”. In fact, we get a lot of Ebisu’s silly, eccentric side, rather than any goofy evil face-twisting. It’s a nice change of pace; I like it.

While Yato, Hiiro, and Ebisu tread deeper into the underworld, Hiyori is snagged by her high school friend into a triple date at Amagi Brilliant Park some Capybara-themed park. Notably, Tenjin stops Tomone (curious about where Yato went off to) from getting Hiyori’s attention in the street; it’s been established Tenjin wants Hiyori to stop hanging out with gods an regalias and live a normal living high school girl’s life.

Now it looks like that might be happening. We don’t know her friends that well, but their meeting up and pairing off at the park is very well done. It’s amusing to see the girl who arranged everything ended up pairing up with a different guy, leaving the handsome, well-spoken Fujisaki (who caught her from falling last week) to Hiyori, and the two have instant chemistry, courteously apologizing to each other for putting one another out.

When Yato and Ebisu encounter Izanami, everything seems arranged to keep them by her side. She takes the form of people they care about—a very forward Hiyori, in Yato’s case—and she constantly offers food, drink, friendship; all of which will keep them stuck in the underworld as her “friend” forever. Hiiro actually does Yato a solid by protecting him from “Hiyori’s” kiss; let it be said that Yato and Hiiro really do make a good team; it’s just that being in that team puts serious strain on Yato’s newer relationships in the living world.

Yukine, for his part, has very little to do this week, but he continues to train and become stronger in body and mind under Kazuma’s wing. Kazuma notes that Yukine is also trying to remain strong for Yato’s sake, even though he’s worried about him.

He should be, it would seem: when Izanami says she’ll only give them the brush if one of them stays behind, Ebisu picks Yato to stay with the logic that he’s the more famous god with a lot more at stake. Obviously, Yato takes exception to this—he has as much a right to exist as Ebisu, regardless of his past—so they fight.

But it all turns out to be an elaborate distraction. When Ebisu “beats” Yato by snatching Hiiro from him (she once served him as well, taking the form of a pistol), Izanami celebrates the fact Yato will be her friend. But then Ebisu uses his little masked phantom bat to snatch the brush, and he and Yato high-tail it together as Izanami fumes.

As they flee, Yato thinks only of getting back to the near shore and to Yukine and Hiyori, whom he cares for so much. Surely this is the end of his dealings with Hiiro, right? He’ll pop back at an awkward time during the date and Hiyori will be embarassed but relieved and happy at the same time, right? Right?

Well…no. As the date progresses, Hiyori continually remembers someone who’s name and face she can’t place, and it starts to eat at her, until it’s clear to her date Fujisaki that something is very wrong. But Fujisaki reads her demeanor as something that can be remedied by taking her hand and kissing her in front of the hugely-romantic fireworks parade.

His instinct isn’t wrong, nor could he possibly be aware that by being kind and charming and comforting to Hiyori all but snaps the thread connecting her to Yato. Who was the one she wanted to take to the park so badly? Wait…she’s at the park with someone now. Does it matter? 

This is what Tenjin – and Hiiro – wanted. Will that kiss really work, or will Hiyori become even more troubled by her inability to remember? Will someone be able to jog her memory before it’s too late?

Noragami Aragoto – 08

As a fully committed Ebisu creates more masked ones, Yato continues to bask in the elation of finally having a real shrine to call his own, along with all the honors and privileges that come with it, from official registration to a plot of land and admittance to Takamagahara. He also wastes no time lavishing an excessive amount of attention on Hiyori, who probably didn’t realize when she made it how big a deal a little shrine could be for a god who had never had one.

That importance is driven home when Hiyori encounters Manabu at school (the bullied kid who appeared in last season’s episode 8), but he only thanks her, he doesn’t remember anyone named Yato. Gods are created from the wishes of humans. No wishes, no gods. Meanwhile, Yukine takes advantage of his new resident status to look up Kazuma and beg him to help him become a better exemplar to Yato.

Because as annoying as Yato has been, Yukine and Hiyori both are glad to see him so happy. He’s so happy, he doesn’t even know what to do, because as he says while drunk in a rare glimpse into his deep past, his “father” told him he’d never need a shrine. This is because Yato is a god of calamity. His clients would never be long-lasting, but due to human nature, there would always be clients for his kind of services.

With his blessed vessel and shrine and Hiyori, Yato wants to leave that past behind and hold tight to these new gifts, and even arranges to release Nora AKA Hiiro, believing he no longer needs her, and since she has many other masters, she doesn’t need him either. But Hiiro reminds Yato that he made her a Nora, then sics her phantom dogs on him to demonstrate how much he needs her to continue existing.

From there, Nora pulls him off the wagon altogether and back into the life they used to lead, with her as the sharp sword of not-always-righteous retribution. Yato sinks back into the rut all too easily, like a drug he thought he kicked. Because as long as he’s fulfilling the dark assignments of the damned, he continues to exist. It was instilled in him long ago that he needed Nora for that.

In this way, a full month passes during which neither Yukine nor Hiyori see or hear from Yato. Hiyori goes to Tenjin asking if he’s seen him, and Tenjin reiterates his concern that she’s gotten caught up in too much god stuff and needs to spend more time enjoying her adolescence. Almost on cue, as she’s worrying about whether Yato’s continued absense will cause her to eventually forget him, she trips on a flight of stairs and a strapping young lad catches her.

And as Ebisu recovers from a bad reaction to his latest masked creation and Bishamon and Okuninushi are apparently ambushed in a parking garage, Yato is off in some house with Nora, playing out the same old destructive patterns. Only thoughts of Hiyori bring him out of his complacent trance and he demands he be allowed to leave. The door opens, Nora appeals to their “father”, who gives them one more job before letting him go: rescuing a conjurer from the underworld.

Something tells me neither Nora nor this father figure are anyone Yato can trust, but at the same time, they were and continue to be a part of him, and his perceived obligation to them isn’t something easily cast aside, no matter how much progress he’s made reforming himself. Even for a god, old habits die hard.

Noragami Aragoto – 07

To the delight of Kofuku, Yato, Yukine and Hiyori return to the near shore safely and triumphant. To the amazement of Tenjin and Tomone, Yukine has become a blessed vessel. But now it’s time to pay the piper: Tenjin only let Yato go to Takamagahara if he agreed to sever ties with Hiyori.

Fortunately, he didn’t give a hard deadline for doing so, and Hiyori herself (who should get a say, after all) wants to be with Yato and Yukine longer, even if it’s dangerous, as it certainly was when she got captured by Kugaha. She also passes her exam and advances to high school. So both Yukine and Hiyori got promoted!

Back in Takamagahara, there’s a meeting of major gods (called a colloquy) who give Bishamon the third degree, but ultimately let her go, telling her to keep an eye on Masked Ones and attempt to discover the god who is creating them. Afterwards, she bumps into Okuninushi and the other Seven Gods of Fortune; all but one, Ebisu, who is on the Near Shore offering to buy Yukine from Yato.

Now, you know, and I know, that even if he jokes around, Yato would never make this deal. Sure, he wants money, but not like this. But what about Yukine? Ebisu offers to pay him handsomely as well; he even offers to “rent” him from Yato as a Nora. And let’s face it, if he does every job for five yen, it will be centuries before Yato saves up enough to build his shrine.

Yukine is also momentarily seduced by all those Benjamins Fukuzawas, which Ebisu leaves with Yato, but once they get a new job stopping a phantom-infected thief from ripping off an old lady through bank fraud, he gradually loses his taste for the cash money.

It’s also a matter of him being told he’s an exemplar now, having an even deeper bond with his master, and uniquely charged with protecting him. Daikoku (who is Kofuku’s exemplar) instills this responsibility in him.

He also figures he’s dead; and shouldn’t put his needs ahead of others’. A well-paying job with Ebisu might be nice, but Ebisu is not Yato, the god who inspired Yukine to put his name on the line for him, making him a blessed vessel in the first place.

When the phantom is too small to cut in its present form, Yukine decides to use Ebisu’s cash as bait to spur its growth, sensing it’s a phantom that’s drawn to money. And once it’s big enough to cut, it’s no problem for Yukine to expel his vast defilement. But all the cash goes back to Ebisu, leaving Yato with his bottle of 5-yen coins and his dream of a shrine deferred once more.

It’s on this point that Hiyori comes to the rescue, remembering her brother has some building materials. When she visits Kofuku’s shrine to find a depressed Yato curled up in bed not eating, she cheers him up to the point of tears with a miniature shrine. No matter how much money Yato makes, what he really wanted was not to build his own shrine, but have a shrine built for him, which Hiyori does.

And it may be small (and adorable!), but it makes a big impact on Yato, who is speechless in his joy and gratitude. Really cool and sweet gesture by Hiyori. Most importantly, now that he has a physical shrine that is all his own, he’s that much less likely to be forgotten by her or other humans, paving first stones on the path to fixing her “Insta-snooze.”

As for Ebisu…yup, he’s the rumored god creating the Masked Ones, which makes Yato and Yukine’s united choice to refuse his offer automatically the right one. Since he’s a powerful god of fortune (as opposed to the nora-regalia Kugaha), he’s a far more challenging opponent—but dealing with him isn’t just Yato’s mission. It’s also Bishamon’s. Could we get the much-anticipated teaming up of these two, so soon after her grudge has been cleared up?

Noragami Aragoto – 06

Usually a bad guy just wants more power, for reasons. But once Kugaha truly gets into why he wanted to “start over” with Bishamon, it wasn’t just to become her new exemplar. He truly believed this was what needed to be done. Bishamon had, after all, forsaken her war god legacy and horded “worthless” regalia, dragged them into her centuries-old grudge against Yato (based on a misunderstanding no less), and got them and herself corrupted.

But in his “selfless crusade” to rid the universe of this “selfish, detestable” Bishamon, he forgot one thing: his place, in the order of things. As Yato remarks when he diagnoses Kugaha’s plan as an elaborate cry for mommy’s attention, gods can do no wrong. They are above the morals of humans, Kugaha included. Her will reflects the will of the universe, and cannot be questioned just because Kugaha doesn’t like it.

More importantly, Kugaha deeply underestimated Yato’s power, especially now that Sekki is two swords, sharper than ever, and no longer conflicted about using deadly force. When Kugaha plays his trump card: his skeletal dragon phantom, Yato and Yukine dispatch it with ease.

Yato prepares to dispatch Kugaha as well, but Bishamon stands up and shields him, refusing to let Yato touch her treasured regalia. Never again, it seems. The War God who had escalated matters so far so recently is the voice of peace here, recalling how she and Kazuma first met Kugaha, and how he became a valued member of her family. Her words and her apologies cut Kugaha to the quick; I might have even detected a glimmer of shame.

But once word comes that another dragon Kugaha loosed in the mansion is responsible for killing so many of her regalia, Bishamon knows what must be done; she’s just more merciful than Yato would have been, releasing and exiling him rather than taking his life outright. It’s an act that doesn’t forgive what he did, but acknowledges he believed he was doing right by her as well as himself. But he’s not a god, and he wasn’t right.

Yato, Hiyori and Yukine then fade out to let Bishamon deal with the second phantom, which carries the lost and still-vocal souls of her regalia. She arrives in the nick of time to save the group of survivors, calls the name of the oldest, a rusty swordstick (in a return to her humble roots), and brings the monster down as her lost children cry out for her.

This is the war Bishamon fights. Not some glorious bout on a barren hill that will be recorded in the annals of history, like Kugaha might have wanted. Instead, Bishamon is constantly fighting a war against neglect and cruelty of the near shore. She adopts those who had nowhere else to go because no one else will, and because she alone has the strength to bear so many.

When the Ma clan was wiped out, Bishamon lost a battle, but not the war, as she and Kurama started over not by killing herself and resurrecting, but taking the ruins of what remained form her defeat and turning it into a fresh victory, her current Ha clan. And standing beside her during that resurgent win was her trusty exemplar Kurama.

When Kurama awakes to find a healed Bishamon smiling over her, he is ashamed for twice disgracing her, and asks her to release him. But like Kugaha, he’s wrong, and Bishamon can do no wrong. She still needs him in the ongoing war to help as many lost ones as she can. It’s a neverending war, but she is timeless.

And one reason she needs him so badly is because she is unaccustomed to not holding in the manifest pain of her regalia. This is something she’ll work on no longer doing, so something like Kugaha never happens again. To that end, she’s begun an exchange journal with her regalia that she asks Kurama to add to, after she lifts his exile and asks him to return to being her exemplar. And if the War God can forgive him, it would be the highest insolence to not forgive himself.

This was a gorgeous and moving conclusion to the Kugaha vs. Bishamon arc. It managed to give Kugaha a little more dimension before shipping him off, and succeeded in bringing Bishamon and her family to the forefront as a larger-scale analog to Yato’s little but loving family. And it just may have ended Bishamon’s grudge, which dates back to the show’s last season, which is huge, because maybe henceforth she and Yato can interact civilly!

Noragami Aragoto – 05

Last week, it was all coming up Kugaha: everyone was playing the roles he’d laid out for them, and everyone was tied up in a knot, culminating in the shattering of Yukine by Bishamon’s untempered-by-Kazuma hand. But Yukine is fine, in fact, he’s better than fine: his act of sacrifice to save his master led to his evolution and transformation from mere regalia to blessed vessel, the same thing that happened with Kuzama.

Now Yukine is two blades instead of one, and they’re both much sharper; all the better to protect his master. Let there be no more doubt about the depth of their bond not just as master and weapon, but family.

Does the quick resolution of last week’s cliffhanger kill the tension? Not by a long shot. In fact, Yukine’s transformation still plays into Kugaha’s hands, because Yato is now in a far better position to take out Bishamon, who is riddled with blight once Kugaha’s medicine wears off. But if the corruption is weakening her, it’s sure hard to tell; she fights as hard as ever, and her regalia suffer, sharing every blotch of blight she’s enduring.

This won’t end well until someone acts outside of the chain of command and saves Bishamon and everyone else from herself.

That someone is Aiha, who tells Kuraha, who was just wishing Kazuma was there, where Kugaha stashed Kazuma and Hiyori. As Kugaha lays waste to scores of Bishamon’s lesser regalia with a giant dragonlike phantom, the old lion conveys the two former captives to Bishamon and Yato.

Notably, Hiyori refuses to return to the living world and her body until Yato has seen her; just as Kazuma may be the only one to stop Bishamon, Hiyori is the only one who can stop Yato.

As Bishamon endures the pain of losing more and more regalia, she refuses to give up the fight, and seeing who’s fighting her, doubles down on her belief Yato is the one behind all this, and is again trying to take everything from her. At the same time, Yato hears the voice of Nora imploring him to cut Bishamon’s regalia down before she entangles him with her scourge. Nora drowns out Yukine’s voice, Yato’s eyes go dead, and he aims for Bishamon’s throat…

But Hiyori’s voice, now stronger than Nora’s ancient influence, and the reason he’s come, stops him. She shows she’s fine, and explains Bishamon didn’t kidnap her. But it’s too late; if he doesn’t kill her, she’ll kill everyone in a massive atom bomb of corruption. Again going exactly according to Kugaha’s plans, he plans to kill her, saying it’s “not such a big deal” as she’ll be instantly reborn. But it will be a big deal, because she won’t be quite the same Bishamon.

Fortunately, perhaps, Yato’s cut doesn’t kill her, and when she counters, Kazuma comes between the two and takes the full brunt of the attack, then embraces Bishamon and confesses what he deems his sins. He was always going to tell her that he ordered the killing of the Ma clan, but he was the only one left she could turn to, he simply couldn’t say it, and never did, until now.

Still, I think Kazuma is being too hard on himself. He did what he thought he had to to save his master, and bearing that terrible secret also protected her. Having only Kazuma as a basis for starting over was more important than revealing the truth, which back then would have been the final nail in her coffin. Instead, he became an earring and her exemplar, and she became a better, kinder god.

As with Yukine last week, I can’t definitively speak to the status of Kazuma (though I doubt he’s a goner), but that was some intense catharsis right there, and it had the effect of calming Bishamon and prompting her to release all the regalia she was pushing to their limits.

Most importantly: Aiha’s turnabout, Kazuma’s intervention, Kuraha’s independence, and Bishamon’s catharsis were all events that weren’t part of Kugaha’s plan. He managed to kill a lot of regalia, but his primary goal was thwarted (for now), and now Yato is resolved to go after “the guy behind all of this.” Finally, a break for the good guys.

Noragami Aragoto – 04

Well, looks like Kugaha took Kurama too…Damn! That makes things trickier for Yato. Oh yeah, and Yato seems to believe, quite understandably so, that Hiyori was kidnapped under Bishamon’s orders, rather than Kugaha acting alone. Let’s just say Yato gets a little hot-blooded the moment he knows Hiyori is in enemy hands. He’s going to get her back; nothing else matters. When Yukine hears what’s happened, he’s quick to join.

It’s a race against time, as Hiyori can only survive so long outside of her body. But she and Kurama are stuck, so it’s as good a time as any to explain the beef between Bishamon and Yato. Turns out, as we more or less knew, Bishamon’s entire cadre of regalias were wiped out by Yato, and Kurama was the only survivor. But Kurama also lets us know how a God can be resurrected after being destroyed, which is what Kugaha’s aim seems to be.

Kugaha wants Yato to kill Bishamon for him so a new Bishamon will be born: one he’ll be the exemplar for (rather than Kurama) and will likely be able to mold into more compliance than the current, “spoiled” Bishamon, whom Kugaha also believes is too “soft-hearted” to carry the mantle of God of War. And he may not even be wrong.

Thanks to Tenjin, Yato and Yukine are able to travel to the realm of Bishamon’s mansion (in exchange for being kept out of it, plus one other thing Yato understands without him saying), and the fight begins. Because Kugaha is basically using Aiha’s corrupted body to weaken Bishamon, the lack of a steady exemplar like Kurama means her power flies out of control easier, which results in tougher attacks but at a risk to herself and her regalias.

Trapped in a dungeon and unable to intervene even if “Veena” heard him, Kurama laments the fact that it was he who got his fellow regalias wiped out by Yato. That’s right: Yato wasn’t only a rabid monster killing indiscriminately (though he was certainly in Nora’s thrall at the time): he was a rabid monster killing indiscriminately because he was asked to, by a young Kurama who didn’t know what else to do.

When Bishamon’s body became riddled with corruption, and the regalia culprit wouldn’t come forward, discord was sown among them all, and all it took was one spark from someone who’s lost their temper to start fighting amongst themselves. Kurama couldn’t bear to watch Bishamon be destroyed in the chaos, so he exercised the nuclear option: hire a calamity god, Yato, to cut out the rot, to save Bishamon.

In the present, Yato seems to sense Bishamon is corrupted again, but Bishamon insists none of her regalias are betraying her this time—words that make Aiha tear up, because she and Kugaha are betraying her. In the past, Kurama’s quick, decisive action saved Bishamon, but I don’t think Bishamon wanted to be saved that way, even though things had gone to far to save her regalias.

The collective pain of their fighting and deaths would have probably destroyed her, but better she die than watch them die. It’s the reason she takes on every lost soul she can, even if they’re not useful. She blames Yato, but she blames herself just as much for what happened.

Now, things are on the verge of going past the point of no return, and everything is going according to Kugaha’s plans, with Yato and Bishamon fixed on one another and their colorful pasts, unable to see the forest for the trees. Vastly outnumbered, Yato gets separated from Yukine, is encased in a tripartite barrier, and Bishamon’s killing blow for him is caught by Yukine, shattering him into pieces.

This was a brutally intense episode culminating in an equally intense cliffhanger. I can’t quite believe Yukine is dead, since that would surely be curtains for the unarmed Yato, but who knows? It’s a very unfortunate situation. Kugaha has truly made a mess of things, and it’s going to be interesting to see if and how it’s cleaned up.