(mild spoilers ahead!)
My experience with My Dress-Up Darling can be best described as a sandwich. There are aspects of it that I believe are absolutely delicious and delightful, but it’s wrapped in unsavory bread. Maybe not full-on rotten, disgusting bread, but enough mold spots to make it mildly uncomfortable to digest. Which is a shame, because I adore the glitter-covered romantic comedy burger, and having connected with the show’s premise, I should have landed right in the middle of its target audience. So what exactly in the recipe had me crinkling my nose? Before I get into that, I’ll start with what I liked about
...
the show first.
As I mentioned, the premise and characters had me intrigued. The introverted dollmaker Gojo Wakana, having long given up on the idea of being accepted by others for his passion, meets the unabashedly-passionate Kitagawa Marin. After discovering that Gojo knows his way around a sewing machine, she asks him to make her cosplay costumes of her favorite waifus, and romantic tension ensues for the next twelve episodes.
One of the immediate concerns I had about this setup was that Gojo would quickly become a self-insert vehicle in this new subgenre of show called “introverted awkward nerd guy at school gets dragged against his will into the shenanigans of a hot senpai who relentlessly makes fun of him” that I’m not too fond of. Thankfully, Dress-Up Darling mostly circumvents this by establishing his very specific set of circumstances and giving Gojo a legitimately niche career choice in hina doll making. This helps set him apart from his contemporaries whose usual shtick is that they consume anime, games, and/or light novels until it eats their personalities from the inside out and fashions them into a skin for the viewer at home to wear. But Gojo feels different; he’s a gentle and sensitive soul suffering from social anxiety, and one particular monologue of his in the first episode genuinely squeezed my heart from how deeply I connected with his discomfort around others. It felt so real.
But of course every popular anime of the season needs to have a beautiful poster girl, and it’s definitely easy to see the appeal of Kitagawa Marin on paper. “Popular” girls in media tend to be characterized as intimidating snobs who turn their nose at anything deemed unusual or lame. However, Marin twists that expectation by actually being a huge otaku who wants to cosplay as erotic video game waifus and is unapologetic about her hobbies. On top of that she’s cheerful, accepting of everyone, and has no issues saying what’s on her mind. The gap between these two and their lifestyles leaves a lot of room for fun character writing and interactions. Gojo and Marin openly talking on the streets about erotic visual novels and freaking out innocent bystanders got a laugh out of me.
Although the Opposites Attract trope is done to death, My Dress-Up Darling does a wonderful job of establishing why Gojo and Marin gravitate towards each other. More than anything Marin wants to have someone appreciate her hobbies with her. She loves seeing passionate people do what they love, and in return Gojo wants nothing more than to find reassurance for his choice of lifestyle and make his first friend happy. The chemistry between the two is sweet and heartfelt, and I loved witnessing them find happiness in each other with interests that would see them ostracized by most people. As any good romcom should, this show is at its absolute best when focusing on this aspect of their relationship and seeing how they help one another realize their passions. Like many other viewers I am not actively into cosplay and even less into the art of doll making, so it is really Gojo and Marin’s relationship that kept me tuning in every week.
While we’re speaking of positives, I want to give a shoutout to the incredible animation and sound. Cloverworks, while notorious for screwing up a few too many productions, managed to keep a stellar level of consistency for all of Dress-Up Darling’s runtime. The character designs and animation do a wonderful job of conveying body language, even if I found Marin to be a tad over-animated in the first few episodes (I find there’s a fine line between “realistically energetic body movements” and “if she stops moving for 0.5 seconds she will die”). Every reddening of cheeks, every sparkle in the eye and shake from laughter, it’s all captured with such an attention to detail it’s hard not to be impressed. The background art is also great, with familiar locations like Gojo’s home and a train station rendered with warm lighting that really helps to fit the cozy slice-of-life mood. Coupled with some A+ fake anime and video game segments that ooze with passion and a few standout romantic melodies in the OST, I loved almost everything about the production.
But now, I’d like to address the elephant in the room: the slightly moldy bread slices, the things that kept me from giving this show a 10/10, and maybe gave me mild indigestion. You might remember that when referring to Gojo’s potential to be a wish-fulfillment vehicle, I said the show Mostly manages to circumvent this. While he is characterized as a dedicated and very talented guy with specific reasons to act the way he does, he’s also a repressed hormonal teenager. And Marin, being not only an amateur model and very straightforward, knows she has sex appeal and isn’t shy about flaunting it. So naturally this romantic comedy’s main brand of Comedy mostly revolves around the shtick of Marin being bold and flirtatious while Gojo freaks out in the background. I’ll be the first to say that flirting between friends is totally normal, and people who are sexually forward have been around since forever. But to me this joke becomes less funny when it comes off as a one-sided breach of someone else’s boundaries. Gojo doesn’t seem to enjoy having panties flashed at him or bras shown off in his face, and even limits his involvement in one of Marin’s cosplays because he’s uncomfortable with the amount of skin she’ll be showing. And yet the punchline to most of these jokes is “he jerked off a lot afterwards” which isn’t particularly funny to me, so instead it comes off as wish-fulfillment on the part of the audience that wants a high school girl to flash her panties at them and feel totally OK about jerking off to it because “she’s a model and she’s totally comfortable with flaunting her body like that don’t worry guys it’s not creepy!!”
Indeed, fanservice is one of the biggest contentions when discussing this show, because it brings up a lot of questions about how to do fanservice “right”. And my answer to that is that there is no answer. Everyone has different boundaries when it comes to sexual content, and to some, even a little fanservice is too much fanservice. Now don’t get me wrong; I love boobs! Even butts, on a good day! Girls are great! I love girls! My only real issue comes when the production and the narrative have to start infringing on each other in order to make the fanservice work.
Marin and her sexual openness suffer from what I call “Persona 5 Ann Syndrome”, or P5AS for short. Both characters are written to have their beauty be something they’re acutely aware of and have no problem showing off. Fashion and beauty to them are ways of self-expression, so being gawked at by others is a compliment and an acknowledgement of their hard work. In other words, they do not mind being objectified so long as that objectification is happening on their own terms. However, this trait suddenly gets thrown out the window when it’s convenient for the audience. Ann becomes embarrassed and insecure in her Phantom Thief outfit because the writers thought it’d be funny if the confident fashionista got all flustered when put into a skin tight boob suit (which is a problem no one else in the cast suffers from because they get magical costumes materialized from their rebellious spirit and that’s Awesome). Marin isn’t allowed to go any further in her flirting or actually make moves on Gojo despite their OBVIOUS romantic and sexual interest in each other because this is a twelve-episode anime and they need more will-they-won’t-they fodder for the inevitable season two. Once a character is afflicted with P5AS, it’s pretty much set in stone that she’ll be bold and confident in her sexuality until she suddenly becomes a moe-ified virgin so as to not alienate the viewer consuming the series for wish fulfillment. If you aren’t going to respect the character’s personality and give legitimate reasons for them to be like this, what was even the point of writing them this way in the first place?
The most egregious example I can think of is the infamous love hotel scene, wherein Marin somehow manages to accidentally book a love hotel for a photoshoot backdrop and she and Gojo unintentionally end up in a compromising position. Despite my earlier complaints, I wasn’t expecting them to actually go any further on a physical level, as part of me isn’t entirely comfortable seeing minors do the deed. But what I WAS expecting was some kind of acknowledgement of their attraction to one another. This scene came at a point where the two leads were already at least somewhat aware of their feelings for each other, and the tension between them was at its peak. So what is the outcome?
The phone rings, they chicken out, they never talk about it again and their relationship is not even the SLIGHTEST bit changed in the next episode. It’s just back to the status quo. Despite there being mutual attraction and no real reason to prolong a confession, the ball of fanservice contrivances just kept on rolling. This was when I realized this show was probably not going to respect my time. How cruel, I remember thinking, for this anime to get me so invested in the main couple only for it to go nowhere in this whole season but instead try to keep my monkey brain satiated with a panty shot every now and then so I don’t lose interest. It got to the point where I was relieved when a scene between Marin and Gojo didn’t have any random boob-ogling or panty close-ups because it felt like less of an insult.
The worst part is that I feel like most of my issues with the show would have been resolved if all the characters had just been aged up. I’m getting too old to feel comfortable with seeing the meticulously animated jiggle physics of high schoolers who I’m assured are “mature enough for their age” and “comfortable with being objectified” even when those traits are totally at ends with their P5AS and they’ll never be able to exist outside of that comfortable box. I let out the loudest groan when Gojo accidentally glimpsed the buttery-smooth coochie of a girl with the physique of a middle schooler and subsequently got blackmailed over it. I gave a toast to missed potential when the one character who could have represented the struggles of plus-sized cosplayers was essentially a walking boob joke with sticks for limbs. I would have been able to buy Marin and Gojo prolonging their relationship because life is hectic after high school and adults generally have a lot going on. But lonely people wanna relive their glory days of adolescence while also projecting their present sexual fantasies onto them, so all aboard the Uncomfortable Fanservice Train, where we need to sell enough Blu-rays to fund a season two!
And yet even with all of my complaints, I find it hard to harbor any intensely ill will towards My Dress-Up Darling. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m still humming the music track that played during the bridge scene in episode three, or the fact that mangaka Fukuda Shinichi clearly researched the ins and outs of both cosplaying and hina doll making to portray them with such care and respect. I can’t stop grinning when the characters talk about how happy cosplay makes them. The fireworks scene in episode twelve was done so beautifully that I wanted to tear up a little. Of course that immediately got ruined when a potential confession got curb-stomped Again (I’m blaming Nozaki-kun for this one), but I felt like I could sigh and forgive it with a smile just one more time. It’s a weird dichotomy where I want to be critical of the show, and yet the mood it carried and feelings it gave me were so genuine it’s hard to be legitimately mad. So will I be watching a season two of My Dress-Up Darling? Despite the fact that I’m obviously getting a little too old for all of its shenanigans, the answer is yes. Yes, so long as it comes from a place of passion and care, I will suffer this mild indigestion again. The voice actors put their hearts into their performances. The team at Cloverworks gave it their all. And more than anything else, that’s all I could really ask of any sandwich I choose to spend my time eating.
Thank you for reading! :)
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Mar 28, 2022
Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi wo Suru
(Anime)
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Mixed Feelings
(mild spoilers ahead!)
My experience with My Dress-Up Darling can be best described as a sandwich. There are aspects of it that I believe are absolutely delicious and delightful, but it’s wrapped in unsavory bread. Maybe not full-on rotten, disgusting bread, but enough mold spots to make it mildly uncomfortable to digest. Which is a shame, because I adore the glitter-covered romantic comedy burger, and having connected with the show’s premise, I should have landed right in the middle of its target audience. So what exactly in the recipe had me crinkling my nose? Before I get into that, I’ll start with what I liked about ...
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Aug 11, 2014
Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou
(Anime)
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What word would you choose to describe your high school days? Is it stressful, exhausting, slave-driving, or even fun in some cases?
In a time period where almost every anime has some elements of school life or the words "High School" involved, it usually puts a damper on the experience as a whole depending on how you look at it before you may have even watched it. (Heck, even after you're dead you go back to high school according to Angel Beats). So when you have an anime centering not around the overall experience and tales of friendship that take place in a high school, but ... the quirks and antics that are possible in the lives of boys in the depth of their adolescence, what do you get? Well, insanity. That's the best word to describe Daily Lives of Highschool Boys. Story: 7/10 The title basically sums up the story the best than I ever could; it's centered around the humorous events and tales of three best friends, Tadakuni, Hidenori, and Yoshitake. It's fairly straightforward, and as this is a comedy, there are no deep or thought-provoking themes, nor does it try to take itself seriously. Quite the opposite, in fact, as this series tends to make fun of itself time and time again. They even threw a wrench into the attempt to break out of the slice-of-life genre in the first minutes of the first episode, which I greatly appreciated. Every episode is extremely episodic, with the only over-arching theme being that most of these take place in an all-boys school which our protagonists attend. It's rather obvious that coming from a manga, there are at least 3-4 "segments" that the show is split up into its individual chapters. This actually works quite well, as the story doesn't ever feel overwhelming and is laid-back in its nature and presentation. Plus, as each skit is only 2-5 minutes at most, it's easy to stop and take a break at any time without feeling like you're missing anything major, because really, you're not. As for the humor itself (since I wouldn't know where else to talk about it), I would have to say that compared to other comedies, is rather crude at times, though there are never scenes where the stories or jokes are too confusing. The simplicity of the jokes themselves add to the show's charm, and the inner monologues varying from person to person just gives it so much style and enjoyment out of it. Sometimes it's completely over-the-top and exaggerated, and other times quite... quietly presented. The only con I would have to say is that though the punch lines are there, it seems pretty anti-climatic at the end of certain scenes, like there was too much build-up and not enough reaction, though that might just be a personal bias from me. Never is the comedy too girly and there's not a hint of moe to be found, which is really refreshing from your usual run-of-the-mill "cute girls doing cute funny things in highschool"; gender reversal is always a pleasure. The humor is crude and presented as such, and it really gives off the feel and realism that this is all coming from teenage boys going through a dumb phase, and it just suits the show and characters perfectly. I wouldn’t want it to be any other way. Characters: 8/10 The characters of DLHSB are, well, exactly what they are: high school boys who fool around, get laughed at, and have no idea what they're doing in general. They give a little bit of realism to the show, but at the same time it's a bit of a downfall because with its incredibly large cast of supporting characters, things feel somewhat crowded at some points trying to remember them all. This mostly applies to the supporting characters who only show up for an episode or less and then disappear, though luckily there are only a few to be found. I think the best part about the show's reoccurring characters (outside of the main three) is how memorable they are. Even though the show's opening emphasizes the fact that there are a lot, by the end of the twelfth episode you'll be sure to remember who everyone is, which is quite an accomplishment in and of itself. But again, because they're reoccurring and the segments of this show are so short, it may be a natural thing to know who everyone is, even if not by name but rather by what kind of personality and their funniest scene was and the diversity between them is refreshing. The main trio has a great dynamic both as best friends and as a comedic group. Hidenori and Yoshitake are the two jokesters, though in different ways than one another, while Tadakuni is the classic “only sane man” out of the three. Despite the fact that some people call Tadakuni boring and not funny at all, his reactions and dialogue towards the events around him are required for a lot of the jokes to be pulled off. Their dynamics and interactions as a trio are some of the most ridiculous and entertaining ones I’ve seen in a while. It’s their conversations and idiotic plans and jokes with the outside cast that is really one of the biggest and most entertaining parts of this show. Since our cast is so incredibly large, I can’t go into too much detail about them individually, but I will spare mention for the “Literary Girl” Yassan, who is probably one of the fan-favorites (and mine as well) out of the cast for being a perfect… well, deconstruction of the classic trope of “quiet mysterious girl by the riverbank”. Extra props go to her merely for her existence, though I have to take a few points off for some unnecessary side characters here and there and not all of them are completely original but still entertaining nonetheless. Animation: 7/10 Most people’s complaints towards this show usually stem from its animation, since when watchers think to “high school shenanigans”, they’d think of something comprised from some sort of cutesy moe-style studio, see Kyoto Animation and Xebec due to their previous works. However, I personally don’t think that’s an issue here, because if the show were any… cuter, it would ruin the blunt edge that this show has as a show about /boys/ and just throw the entire thing off and look incredibly misleading. The style and the way things are drawn matches the tone and characters of the anime perfectly, and though there isn’t any particular part in the show’s runtime that I could point out as looking absolutely gorgeous, it doesn’t need to be. As for the animation itself, it’s nothing amazing and is rather standard compared to other anime today. Others may call it lackluster, but it sincerely and dutifully does everything it’s supposed to do and I never found anything to be completely impassable. Remember, this is a comedy anime. Unlike Nichijou (which happens to be the most common comparison to this show), DLHSB doesn’t have any amazing KyoAni-standard animation to flaunt whenever they happen to have it on hand. Naturally, I would always appreciate more of a visual feast when I can catch one, and it’s always a bonus, but I would be one to say that the style of animation chosen for this show isn’t really /required/ for the jokes to be played out properly. So for what it is, it’s just fine and I would rather prefer they keep this memorable style they have of drawing characters because it sets it apart to other comedies I know of. Sound: 9/10 Ahhh, god, the sound. I’ve been waiting to review this aspect since the very first episode, but let’s start with the obvious. The music was done by the lovely person over at Audio Highs, mainly known for their previous work on the well-known and well-liked Gintama series. However, I can’t make a steady comparison as I’ve yet to listen to anything outside of that particular show. The OST doesn’t exactly have too many memorable tracks on it, or anything that I would be inclined to pick up and listen to outside of the show. But, same as the animation, it does its job and is great as accompaniment to the series, but not as a stand-alone track that I would want to put on repeat fifty times for an hour. You will probably remember a few of the lazier tracks that are played multiple times, but never did I find there to be too little music or a certain song that I loved to pieces. The OP and ED are incredibly catchy and more or less will get stuck in your head for hours after you finish the show, so if you catch me humming the opening at any given point, you have full rights to slap me upside the head. Good god. The voice acting. Where do I even begin with the voice acting. Well, to start off with, again, the obvious: this is a comedy. The voices are required to be big, bombastic, ridiculous, and overdramatic regardless of the scene. And in that very important aesthetic, Daily Lives of High School Boys delivers. Oh, so, well, might I add. Most of the time the lines and jokes themselves aren’t necessarily what makes the scenes funny; though it may apply to most shows out there, the way they are delivered and reacted to /REALLY/ picks up the slack where animation and dialogue don’t to make the scenes hilarious. Miyu Irino and Suzumura Kenichi do amazing jobs as their respective roles of Tadakuni and Yoshitake, especially given the fact that the two haven’t done too much in terms of comedy shows. But then there’s Hidenori, who was oh-so-BEAUTIFULLY voiced by the comedy god; none other than Sugita Tomokazu himself. Maybe this just comes from my personal bias and opinion, but his obvious famous role as Sakata Gintoki really prepped him up wonderfully to deliver some of the most enjoyable and laughable lines in the entire show. Just listening to him say anything as Hidenori made me want to cry with laughter simply because of how well they were delivered. I have to say that out of the entire cast for this show, Sugita Tomokazu is definitely the shining star of any and all of the actors, despite there being, well, a lot of them. Even though the OST isn’t anything remarkable the sound score is automatically pushed up to a nine just because of the stellar voice acting. Enjoyment and Final Verdict: 9 The key point to enjoying this show (and many others that exist) is to not take it seriously, which isn’t too hard in this case. It’s not an anime I would recommend to absolutely everyone, since I know comedy isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and neither are episodic series. However, it really doesn’t take much to have fun watching this, since chances are you will laugh at least once unless this type of anime really doesn’t stand out to you. Sure, it’s not perfect, since nothing ever is, but as a comedy that is meant purely for entertainment value, it’s a light-hearted, episodic show that will do you just fine as far as shows like Nichijou go. Its major shining points are its character interactions and the presentation of the jokes, all of which is held strongly together with amazing voice acting and over-the-top characters that are a delight to view on screen. The animation and music is simplistic but does their jobs well enough for there to be nothing cringe-worthy to be found. The only downfalls that I can personally find is the lack of detail put into farther-placed frames and character designs, plus a few unnecessary side characters (usually who are females), but it doesn’t take away too much from DLHSB in general. But the main reason why I would tell anyone to watch this is because of its take on the high school slice-of-life genre and its incredibly amusing gender reversal, because this thing really does not give two shits about dainty girls and the classic stereotypes in the way it presents itself. So if you’re looking for a casual, not-to-be-taken-seriously-or-thought-about comedy with amusing characters, outstanding voice acting, and a few deconstructions of moe and the usual tropes of high school based anime, or even if you’re just looking for a few laughs, Daily Lives of Highschool Boys certainly does not fail to deliver, and I personally had tons of fun watching it, and I hope you do too. “This is an anime about normal everyday life! Mobile suits and tales of adventure don’t come into it!”
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Apr 4, 2014 Recommended
All of us have seen that one series or show or book that didn't seem to know which direction in which it was going. Noragami, however, manages to pull off all of its elements perfectly without even batting an eye. Keep in mind that this is my first review so anything I’m about to say may be incredibly biased or just inexperienced as a whole. With that said, let’s begin.
Story: 9/10 The story of Noragami begins with Hiyori: an average high school girl who has a fated encounter with Yato, a homeless god, but we'll get to them later. Hiyori, being the angel of a person ... she is, pushes Yato out of the way of an incoming bus when he suddenly runs into traffic. This results in not only an accident and her being taken to the hospital, but from then on she gains the somewhat troublesome habit of losing her physical body and taking on a similar form, but travels around as her soul seperated from her body. Deciding she can't live on like this, she begs Yato and pays him in advance to restore her back to her original form, and thus, the two connect and Hiyori is abruptly introduced to the world outside of our reality. At least, that's what the show would have you believe from its broad overarching plot. Noragami consists of several plot lines that all mesh in beautifully with each other both in terms of pacing and execution. It wastes no time in moving the story forward, save some of Yato's comic relief and character introductions here and there. It even has some realistic darker undertones thrown in smoothly. They make sure you understand the weight of loneliness and just how invisible those who are not of the living can be, how painful it is to be forgotten and wanting to be remembered. Having read the majority of the manga so far, the anime followed it quite well, had it not been for the filler arc that took up the remaining 3-4 episodes. But for the most part, I enjoyed the story very much and hope that it will follow the manga if it were to receive a second season, which is HIGHLY FAVORABLE. Characters: 9/10 The main reason why I love the characters of Noragami is not only how diverse they all are, but it seems to have a Hiromu Arakawa feel to it; no character is used solely for fanservice or comic relief in spite of their first appearance. Every person in this series is well fleshed-out, developed, and not one-dimensional in the slightest, though that's what you may get the impression of in early episodes. Yato, our main character, is somewhat of an underdog aside from being homeless and having a strange fashion sense. He is definitely the real propeller of the show, providing us with not only mystery, insight, and of course, more comic relief than you can shake a stick at, but just such a fun time watching him in general. There wasn’t a moment I didn’t appreciate his presence on my screen. What’s not to like about a bratty, teenage looking god taking up job requests for only 5 Yen? Much about him is still to be revealed, though they’ve given us enough to go on for right now. His viewpoints on humans and life as a whole is somewhat irritating yet fascinating due to his experience of both and naturally, having lived for thousands of years as a vicious war god who has somehow faded to an insanely silly and docile version of that is still unkown. But to end his profile, Yato is a great character who differs from the typical shonen hero who still has plenty of development to go and is an amazing joy to watch at any given time. And personally, my favorite character of the series, so bias warning there. Next up is Hiyori. I definitely don’t have as much to say here, as she is a pretty bland character until she meets Yato and gets caught up in the world of gods and evil spirits. Before that she is just the average high school student who goes to school with her friends, has a loving and rich family, and is just normal overall. Her most defining trait is without a doubt, her extreme levels of kindness that most female protagonists seem to ooze with these days (hence the reason why she pushed a complete stranger out of the way of an oncoming bus because she’s a female and therefore is /just /that /nice.) But of course, she isn’t simply that customary for no given reason. Her main purpose is to serve as more of a window into the hidden reality we see that is so different from our daily lives, since she lives the everyday life that most of us do either as well or similarly to a fair extent. She reflects more of the confusion and shock the average human being would feel upon having a million revelations thrown into her face via Yato, and I suppose if you really don’t care for her she could be more of a wish-fulfillment character into an alternate universe. Unlike other leading characters, she’s determined and knows when to take the initiative when the situation is tight. But alas, she starts out as the badass female lead and then ends up getting damseled like some million-dollar-prize in the last couple episodes, which I hate with the burning passion of a million suns. But moving on. Last of the main three is Yukine, Yato’s sarcastic, stubborn fourteen-year-old Regalia who serves as his weapon for 98% of the show and also adds some more comic relief to (but mainly against) our poor underdog god. Out of those already mentioned above, he undeniably undergoes the most drastic character development in the entire show and /all of it/ is so, so, so satisfying. It surprises me how much hate he gets from the fandom, though not only is that a) more personal bias, b) not the time to bring this up in a review, and c) a time to complain about the fandom giving him crap, but I thought all of it was well justified, mainly because it is so simple to see what it is he wants, where he’s coming from, why he wants all these things that he can never have. Plus he actually acts similarly to how an actual fourteen-year-old boy with raging hormones and inner angst would. The show finally starts to get into a rhythm of a plot with his introduction, which is majorly important as well. The only complaint that I would have is that I felt that the episodes just took a /little/ too long having the buildup to his extremely Paramount conclusion, though it was so intensely satisfying in the end that I completely forgot about it. It added a sense of desperation to the entire thing, which, when I think about it, is not necessarily a bad factor now. But of course, since he is a part of this show, he is a brilliant and extremely adorable character to watch if you can understand him, which should not really be a problem at all. The rest of the supporting cast is also great, each to their own with their own stories, pasts, and different sides, but are all also incredibly fun to watch as they give the show so much colour and variety. The only reason why I wouldn’t give the character aspect a full-on 10 is because of Yato’s rather-late-introduced arch-nemesis from thousands of years ago (who just happens to be a filler character because of the unfortunately short length of this series right now) and Hiyori’s demotion of “Prize to Be Won After We Win Because we Love Her”. Animation: 8/10 I definitely don’t have any complaints here. For the most part the animation style is typical Bones fare, with the art looking approvingly alike to that of the manga’s. Each character design is bright and interesting to the eye, from Yato’s cat-like blue eyes and strange scarf to the brighter colours of the giggly Kofuku and the other personified gods. Scenery is also well done and detailed, though I wish there were more fight scenes included because this is where the animation /really/ shines through. (Yato’s Rend attack in particular, and mainly since this little cut is re-used multiple times in each episode.) Naturally there are times when the quality would dip here and there, but it does its job and doesn’t fail to please. Solid 8 here. Sound: 10/10 The soundtrack for Noragami was composed by Taku Iwasaki, the genius who had previously created OSTS for the famous Black Butler and Soul Eater, both of which were known for their very prominent themes varying from rock ballads and pop to Victorian-era themes. Most of the music is light-hearted and a bit repetitive in its loops, but it sets the mood extremely well and never feels out of place. It occasionally mixes in a few classical Japanese themes into it too, and that never feels unnatural either. The battle music is the main point in this entire OST along with a few other tracks that will make you go, “Oh, this played when ______ happened and it sounded awesome!” because honestly it is just that great. No complaints. As if it could possibly add onto the already existing 10, the voice acting of Noragami is simply SUPERB and there is no other way I can say it. The casting of the actual god Kamiya Hiroshi as Yato was an absolutely perfect choice that would be practically impossible to imitate by anyone else. I wasn’t used to hearing him play such a wide range in a single role, but I have faith in that man. I got used to it, and he was simply amazing. In fact, even if I didn’t have any interest in Noragami’s story I would still watch this anime just because this guy is present in the cast. I don’t even think I need to mention Yuki Kaji, but I will anyway just for the fact that he pulls of Yukine’s pre-teen angst and personality so intensely well that I almost burst out sobbing the second he spoke a single line. Both of them are really what pull off the characters and that goes for the rest of the cast too. Having seiyuu regulars such as Sawashiro Miyuki, Fukuyama Jun, and Daisuke Ono were all great choices as well, and again, no complaints at ALL. Don’t even talk to me about the OP and ED. Enjoyment & Final Verdict: 9/10 Now, even though I’d like to call it as such, Noragami is not perfect, as is anything else out there. But though it has its problems, I was never once bored or dissatisfied with this show to a large extent. The only thing that would make this bump up to a ten would be the confirmation of more to come. Though the anime had its happy (if not rushed) ending, there is still so much manga content to be animated, including the /incredible/ arc focusing on Bishamon, Yato’s other arch-nemesis from centuries ago, but now’s not the time to mention that. Noragami is a great blend of comedy and the supernatural, a character-driven show that really gets you to feel and has a tone that tends to capture. Beneath it all are underlying tones of darkness and grief, but still manages to put on a lighthearted tone when it needs to. But all in all, I had a great time watching the ride and grew attached to it. This anime will most definitely have a little reserved corner in my heart as one of the greatest animes of the Winter 2014 season and I’m looking forward to the possibility of a future season. And with that, I leave you. “May our fates intertwine.”
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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