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EP. REVIEW: Noragami Aragoto

I also appreciate Bishamon's character. I've seen badass warrior women characters like her before – say, Olivier Armstrong from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood – but they're rarely given this much depth or focus. Unlike many ladies of this stripe, Bishamon is not stripped of positive feminine qualities just because she's been given positive masculine traits as well. She's a powerful woman who's allowed to be both lovingly maternal and a ruthless commander. She alternately wears a girly pink kimono, a murderous dominatrix outfit, and military high command regalia. There's no suggestion that these aspects of her contradict each other. At the same time, she's not put on a pedestal. She has real, deep character flaws that the show addresses, but they have nothing to do with her being too masculine or feminine. This is refreshing because when some shows try to write strong women as nuanced characters, they make their story about somehow correcting their gender presentation more toward one extreme or the other. The solution to Bishamon's problems does not demean her status as a powerful woman. It's a small thing, but as a woman who cares about how her sex is treated in her entertainment, it enhances my enjoyment.

I'm kinda agree with Meiam on the first point - the revelation regarding the history between Bishamon and Yato is a little flat for me. It seems way too illogical.

There's no way from what we've seen that Bishamon shouldn't have realized something was happening to her. She obviously should have known that her Ma family regalia had started turning into a phantom that day, and even if not for any of that, it's extremely hard to imagine that for decades neither Kazuma or Yato explained at all to her what actually happened.

Heck, they even seem to allude to the idea that other gods knew about what happened and never thought it might be a good idea to stop her from stewing in homicidal rage over what is being framed right now as a rather simple misunderstanding.

I imagine that impression can be rehabilitated somewhat if they choose to retcon the fact she was told but didn't believe, or Yato had some macho pride act of not letting Kazuma explain, or some sort of plot by Kugaha, but right now I'm not feeling the sort of impact most seem to be getting from that reveal. For me that has been the weakest aspect of an otherwise great season.

I'm not saying she's dumb, I'm not questioning that she loves her family, and I'm not even questioning the idea that she might repeat the mistake. That isn't the problem. It's that after all of that her reaction is to place the blame all on someone else to the point of it turning into blanket homicidal rage with not one bit of doubt on that one aspect, and seemingly no effort to resolve the idea that it's all a misunderstanding. No indication thus far is given that it's anything but Bishamon being unaware of why Yato killed her family.

While some humans at their worst do drown in that sort of irrationality, most do not, and more should be expected for one granted the title of a deity, that they would be able to at least reach the level of average human rationality if so much effort is going to be focused on highlighting human rationality in a deity. As I said, they might flashback on this next ep or something, but just the fact that someone even tried to ease her vengeance with an explanation would do wonders to improve this framing of events, because right now it might as well be Yato walked in her house while she was sick, assassinated her family, and no reason was ever given to her at all. Given the sound execution of the human factor throughout the series, this particular element of the story stretches the bounds a little too far.

To say you will never forgive someone is one thing; to be willing to risk people's lives (or however you choose to phrase the state of regalia) for going on a hundred years to kill someone is another entirely. Worse yet is the idea that Kazuma who has spent so much time caring for her and cares so much about her, has never seen fit to speak to her about it at any length. It sticks out that a character like him would remain totally silent on this fact.

As for the other deities, I never suggested they fight her. Nor do I see a reason she would automatically jump into fighting them. I said they should have intervened - talk to her, let her know that she's making a mistake, something other than letting two fellow deities go on like this. It may not effect them or be really their concern, but you would think at least a couple would care about the state of affairs enough to talk to her as friends, neighbors, something.

She DID, but like Kazuma said, Bishamon is so extremely kind that she would have accepted dying along with all of her Regalias rather than freeing or murdering them, her sense of family and trust to her Regalias is incredibly high, remember how she hesitated to release Kazuma's name even after she found out he was friends with a mortal enemy of hers.

But really my problem is how this essentially retcon everything that happen. Remember when Kuzuma told her Yato helped her and she acted all surprised and even exiled him? That make no sense with this week revelation.