A God of Fortune always pays her debts.

I spent a lot of the Bishamon Arc praising Noragami for its tightly woven, character-driven narrative, where every scene fed into the next and every plot point developed naturally out of individuals acting in ways true to their (limited) perspectives and experiences. This—I guess we’ll call it the Ebisu Arc—hasn’t been as strong structurally: There are gaps in the cause-effect between one event and the next, unexplained motivations, and sometimes people behave in ways that seem designed solely to move the plot or another character’s development forward rather than out of an organic extension of their own personality, desires, or what have you.

The hodgepodge plotting has been mitigated and at times hidden entirely thanks to great production values, strong emotional beats, a good sense of comedic timing, and some fascinating character details (particularly where Yato is concerned), but it really comes to the forefront during the first half of this episode, which I can only describe as a nonsensical way to mark time before the finale.

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A little wishing goes a long way.

Aaaand we’re back! Last week was fraught with emotional turmoil for our heroes and filled with pineapple beers and basketball games for yours truly, but now it’s time to put all that behind us and focus on getting everyone’s favorite trio back together again. Massive thanks to Setsuken for covering for me last week! I was with you all in spirit (and Feels) if not in blog posts, and am now rested, rejuvenated, and ready to take us all through the final stretch of Noragami, however tense, amusing, or painful it may be.

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BONES is punishing me for taking a week off from blogging, aren’t they?

I was on break this week (although my Feels sure weren’t), but Setsuken was kind enough to cover the episode for me. Click here for his full post on Anime Evo!

I did provide some livetweet commentary for this one, so just for funsies, I thought I’d chuck that up here for your enjoyment. Hit the jump and grab some syrup to put on these hottakes.

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Out of one Lucky Gods’ frying pan and into another one’s fire.

Our idyllic interlude is predictably short-lived, as Noragami chucks us in to its next major conflict(s) and promises (or at least heavily teases) some major movement in terms of revealing more of Yato’s backstory and his long, messy relationship with Nora. This is largely a table-setting episode, introducing new antagonists and complications and prepping us for the potential calamities to come. And rest assured, it’s looking to be one packed table indeed.

Click here for the full post on Anime Evo!