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.

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Noragami makes it rain in more ways than one this week.

It’s a quiet week by recent standards, one-part Bishamon epilogue and one-part (I assume) prologue for the next arc, with a little Delivery God mission tucked up in the center. The series gets to stretch its comedy muscles and remind us that it’s just as good at humor as it is at action and drama, but if you thought that meant they were going to let our feelings breathe after the emotional rollercoaster of the past few weeks, boy howdy, do you have another thing comin’.

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May the gods be ever in your favor.

It was pretty clear this was going to be the big finale for our half-season-long Bishamon story, and Noragami capped it off in fine fashion. This season really is everything you could want from a sequel, as it brings back all the things that made the first season good (stylish action and music, a great sense of humor, characters you wanted to hang out with, a complex but coherent world with a lot of room for growth, bursts of philosophical or emotional depth) and grows them in unexpected and exciting ways, introducing new characters while also revealing new facets about old ones, and developing them all through conversations and conflicts alike.

The wider and deeper cast has raised the stakes both globally and emotionally, and this finale didn’t disappoint in terms of big, gorgeous fight sequences as well as small, touching character beats. Simply put, Noragami has catapulted from “good” to “great,” and if it can keep this up it’s not only all but locked in as one of my top anime picks two years running, but could very well become one of my favorite shounen adaptations of all time.

So. You know. No pressure, Part 2.

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So I have good news and terrible news.

Another action-heavy episode of Noragami this week, not that I’m complaining: Slick-looking supernatural fight scenes are one of the elements that give this series its appeal, and as usual, they don’t disappoint. Yato and Bishamon continue to duke it out with well-directed choreography under gorgeous skies and along to great background music, the kind of tracks that enhance the scene—adding both tension and a whiff of tragedy—without distracting from it. (I’m looking forward to snagging the soundtrack when it comes out, that’s for sure.)

And lest you think I’ll have nothing to talk about this week, rest assured that “action-heavy” does not mean “plot light.” A whole mess of events went down this week, which brings us back to that good news and terrible news I mentioned before.

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