A Series We’re Looking Forward to This Season: Noragami

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We’re rounding out the middle of the new season of anime – the first season of 2014! And while we’re still keeping up with some continuing series from last season (Kill la Kill and Magi: The Kingdom of Magic being just two of the many), one of the new series from this season has caught our eye as well: Noragami.

What first drew us to Noragami was the art style and character design – we love main trios, and from checking out the character designs for Yato, Hiyori, and Yukine, we knew we’d fall in love with these three teenaged protagonists. As we began watching, we noted that this, like last season’s Beyond the Boundary, was another series which took place in the real world but teemed with fantastical elements to keep our brains spinning and our curiosities piqued.

Yato, the main character, is a god living in the mortal world, accepting 5-yen offerings in order to “grant wishes,” or do services for people who contact him via his cell phone. Currently, Yato is a small fry but dreams of building himself a shrine and amassing a collection of worshippers. Gods in this universe, however, need a weapon called a Shinki, which double as lost spirits and appear as both weapons and human beings. It’s just as Yato’s stuck in his rut after his Shinki quits on the job when, while looking for a lost cat, he meets Iki Hiyori, a scatterbrained teenaged girl and closeted wrestling fanatic.

This anime is still airing, so we can’t tell you much more about it in fear of spoiling you (and the fact that we don’t know much more ourselves yet!), but we can tell you that the animation is riveting, and the art style is low-key and very likeable – cute, well-proportioned characters against stunning backdrops makes this series reminiscent of a well-animated movie, and we definitely want to see this art style stay strong throughout the whole season. Licensed by Funimation, Noragami is both hilarious and seems like it might take a serious turn later in the series, hinting at moments that cross into a more horror-like genre, which really intrigues us.

Noragami also stars popular voice actors Kamiya Hiroshi (Levi in Attack on Titan, Natsume Takashi in Natsume Yuujinchou, Gareki in Karneval) and Kaji Yuki (Eren Jaeger in Attack on Titan, Alibaba Saluja in Magi, Sakamaki Kanato in Diabolik Lovers), as well as Fukuyama Jun (Lelouch Lamperouge in Code Geass), Ono Daisuke (Sebastian Michaelis in Black Butler), Sawashiro Miyuki (Nanami Haruka in Uta no Prince-Sama), and Kugimiya Rie (Alphonse Elric in Fullmetal Alchemist), making it one of the all-star cast series of the season – and voices can definitely make or break an anime, so we’re excited to see how these voice actors interact in the upcoming episodes.

Stay tuned with us for more anime updates, and possibly more thoughts on Noragami as the season fleshes out closer to spring time!