Review for Noragami - Complete Series Collection

Introduction

It’s been a while since I’ve felt compelled to do this, review the Blu-ray and the DVD release of a title side by side. The last time I think was Kazé’s release of Code Geass, where the DVD discs and Blu-ray discs differed enough to warrant separate treatment. With Manga Entertainment’s release of Noragami, the reverse is true. For this release, other than the episode distribution and transfer quality, the discs are nigh on identical. This is a step change in Manga Entertainment’s release strategy that really needs to be highlighted, hence this review of the DVD.


Until very recently Manga Entertainment UK was owned by Starz Entertainment, and there were a couple of dictates that Manga had to follow, primarily they had to release DVDs as PAL format in the UK. That was all well and good when they were using Australian masters from the likes of Madman, and Siren Visual for their DVDs, as those companies did the heavy lifting in getting the US NTSC and HD masters and re-authoring them in PAL format. But for the last couple of years to save money, even Australian companies have started releasing domestically in NTSC format, merely reusing the US DVD masters. For those instances, Manga had to author anime locally in the UK, and it’s there that quality control issues would creep in regarding subtitling, regarding chaptering and more. It wasn’t just the DVDs, as some Manga authored Blu-rays had fans reaching for the import button. Starz recently sold Anchor Bay and Manga Entertainment UK, and Manga are no longer beholden to the old way of doing things. For Noragami, which in Australia Madman released on NTSC DVDs, originally Manga would have authored the discs in the UK, but this time, they’ve just re-versioned the Funimation discs for Region 2. This is the first time I have seen NTSC DVDs from Manga Entertainment, and it should make all the difference.


Yato is a stray god, a Noragami, who unlike his more well-off and well-known peers, lacks for followers, doesn’t get any offerings, and certainly doesn’t have a shrine to hang his hat, if he could afford a hat. But while he may look like a layabout who has lived in his tracksuit too long, he has big plans, even if he can’t hold onto his Regalia, spirits contracted to serve as his weapons. One day he will be worshipped and adored, and he’ll get it one 5 yen offering at a time, answering the wishes of the desperate that aren’t picky about which god answers their prayers.


It’s while he’s trying to find a little boy’s lost cat that he runs into high school girl Hiyori Iki. Actually it’s the other way around, as for some bizarre reason, Hiyori can see Yato when he doesn’t want to be seen. And it’s when he crosses the road after the cat, into the path of a bus, that Hiyori pushes him out of the way to save his life, and gets hit by the bus instead, her soul leaving her body. Fortunately, it’s not a permanent affair as she wakes up in hospital. But thereafter, her soul develops a habit of leaving her body at random, and Yato’s world of divine gods, wayward spirits and ominous phantoms becomes all too visible to her. That isn’t a good thing, and if there is one thing that Hiyori needs from Yato, it’s to make her soul permanently attached to her body once more. Getting the slacker god to answer that particular prayer proves difficult, while Yato’s life gets harder when he finds a new Regalia, a spirit named Yukine who has an odd view of right and wrong. And as Hiyori learns, the world of gods isn’t all that heavenly...


12 episodes of Noragami, plus extras are presented across 2 dual layer DVDs from Manga Entertainment.

Disc 1
1. A Housecat, a Stray God, and a Tail
2. Snow-like
3. Bidden Calamity
4. Where Happiness Lies
5. Borderline
6. Scary Person
7. Uncertainty and Destiny

Disc 2
8. Over the Line
9. Name
10. Regarded With Hate
11. Abandoned God
12. A Scrap of a Memory

Picture

These are the Funimation discs recoded for Region 2. Even the Manga logo is conspicuous by its absence. What we have here is a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer presented in NTSC format, and to top it off, Funimation have encoded it progressively, so if you have the suitable equipment, you can watch Noragami at the same smooth 24 frames per second as the Blu-ray. The animation looks splendid on DVD, clear and detailed, no visible signs of compression, other than the digital banding on gradated colours. Of course the image is softer, and less detailed than that on Blu-ray, but this is still a top tier DVD presentation. Noragami’s visual aesthetic has been compared to Darker than Black, and that is certainly warranted when it comes to the character designs and production values. The colour palette too is subdued and atmospheric.

Sound

You have the choice between DD 5.1 Surround English, and 2.0 Stereo Japanese, as is the norm for Funimation DVDs. Also as is the norm, the volume levels are particularly low, easily remedied. I merely sampled the English dub to ensure that it exists (which it does), and what little I heard seemed agreeable enough. The Japanese audio was my preference, with the actors suitably cast for their roles, and Taku Iwasaki creating a somewhat singular score for the show, really standing out as a music soundtrack, although the theme songs were comparatively nondescript. The action sequences too come across with a useful degree of impact in the stereo. The subtitles are accurately timed and are free of typographical error.

Extras

The discs present their contents with static menus and jacket picture display in compatible players when the discs aren’t spinning.

Disc 1 autoplays a trailer for Tokyo Ravens Part 2, while the only extra on this disc is the Episode 6 commentary. It features ADR Director Mike McFarland, voice actors Bryn Apprill (Hiyori), Micah Solusod (Yukine), and Elizabeth Maxwell (Bishamon). I’m a little shamefaced to admit that I dozed off during this one.

Disc 2 autoplays with a trailer for Inari Kon Kon

The audio commentary here accompanies episode 9, and features ADR Director (and voice of Rabo) Mike McFarland, Bryn Apprill and Micah Solusod, this time joined by Ian Sinclair (Daikoku), and Alexis Tipton (Kofuku)


There are trailers here for The Devil is a Part Timer!, Is This a Zombie? Of the Dead, Ping Pong the Animation, Soul Eater Not!, BlazBlue: Alter Memory, Nobunagun, The Future Diary, and 009 Re:Cyborg.

You’ll also find the US trailer for Noragami, the Textless Credits, and a Video Commentary to accompany episode 4. This is one of those picture-in-picture featurettes, and you get to see ADR Director Mike McFarland, Micah Solusod, Bryn Apprill, and Jason Liebrecht (Yato) in the booth as well as hearing them, in another disposable Funimation actors’ commentary.

Conclusion

Noragami was unexpectedly... mundane. It’s got the talent behind it, it most certainly has the production values, the animation is excellent, the music is top-notch, the premise certainly is an attraction, but the end result failed to click with me. Something just seemed to be off kilter about Noragami. I’m a little shamefaced to say that it wasn’t just the Funimation commentaries that had my eyelids drooping. I actually had to watch the end of episode 9 five times to catch the important developments. And it wasn’t just my state of exhaustion, as I’ve been watching Sword Art Online II and The Comic Artist alongside this title for review, and keeping my eyes open for those shows isn’t a problem.


So what’s wrong with Noragami? Its heart is in the right place, a very appealing show in terms of characters, in terms of comedy, action, and drama. It’s a mainstream shonen story with high quality animation, occupying the same kind of territory as shows like Blue Exorcist and Soul Eater (it shares a conceit with the latter where characters can transform into weapons). It’s got a nice concept to it, a world where gods try to maintain their status in the world by attracting followers, having shrines to worship at, and answering prayers or wishes. It sets up the world of the Near Shore (the living), the Far Shore (the dead), and the limbo world in between, it also offers negatives to the positives of the gods and their regalia, Phantoms that corrupt and need to be destroyed.


Hiyori is the girl who falls into this world when she’s hit by a truck, while trying to save the god Yato at work. She survives, but thereafter her spirit becomes prone to leaving her body at a whim, and while she waits for Yato to cure this tendency, winds up spending more time around him and in his world, and in some ways making the problem worse. It turns out that the gods and the regalia don’t necessarily get along. Incidentally regalia are spirits, ghosts of the dead that gods adopt to serve them as their weapons, tools, clothing even. When we meet Yato, he’s having an industrial dispute with his regalia Tomone, who at one point quits, choosing to join another god. He soon picks up another regalia in the form of Yukine, the ghost of an adolescent boy, but one who soon finds Yato’s slovenly appearance and inability to succeed as a god annoying.


We learn about Yato’s dark past; he used to be a god of war, a god of calamity, before switching vocation for the modern era, and his actions in the past have earned him enemies, not least of which is the god Bishamon, who harbours a grudge against Yato and shows up briefly to try and kill him. And then there is the enigmatic stray regalia Nora, who sells her services to any master, rather than forming a permanent contract, and there is the enigmatic figure of the god Rabo, whose intentions towards Yato are even more ominous than Bishamon’s.


There’s a whole lot of plot to Noragami, far more than can be handled by a mere twelve episodes, and as you might expect, certain plotlines fade into insignificance to focus on a mere one or two. I might have hoped for a little more of the comic side of things, especially when it comes to Hiyori trying to get Yato to keep his promise. Speaking of comedy, there’s also a good byplay with the god of poverty Kofuku and her familiar, both of whom have history with Yato. There very much should have been more here to expand on Bishamon’s character and her grudge with Yato. She’s a scantily clad comic villain, the kind of bugbear that shows up to annoy a main character, but who actually holds little malice or ill-will. Rabo has the malice and ill-will, but his arc is really confined to the final three episodes of the collection. Instead Noragami spends most of the time focusing on Yato and his relationship with his replacement regalia, Yukine.


There’s a line in the first episode of the Christopher Eccleston series of Doctor Who, in which he states that he ‘doesn’t do domestic’. This is the equivalent in Noragami, with at least half of the season run devoted to ‘domestic’ as Yato has to deal with his new regalia Yukine, who happened to die as a young teen, and is now permanently weighed down with hate of authority figures, teen rebellion, and an aptitude for petty crime. That’s something that doesn’t wear well on the purity of a god, which might be interesting, but it’s still half a series of teenage strop. Given the multitude of story possibilities that Noragami sets up with its premise, this is the most disappointing aspect of the show for me. It is enjoyable to watch, the characters are interesting, and the show is written well, but it neglects its more appealing possibilities for mundanity, and I wound up feeling that the attractive aspects of the show, in particular Rabo and Bishamon, were given short shrift.


Noragami certainly has its fans, and the coming season will see the sequel air in Japan (and stream to the world) in the form of Noragami Aragato. Hopefully, with the domestic situation of a god and his regalia dealt with, we’ll see some of the more intriguing aspects of its world explored.


While the show may not be the finest in Manga Entertainment’s catalogue, this DVD release marks a step-change in their approach to disc authoring that can only be applauded. Rather than authoring locally to less than splendid results, they have opted to use Funimation’s NTSC masters, the first time I have seen this from Manga Entertainment. What this boils down to is that the release we get here is for the first time, as good as the US release in technical quality. We have progressively encoded discs, with audio playing at the correct pitch, animation at the correct frame rate. The only whinge a person might have is that the resolution is now 480 lines instead of PAL’s 576 lines. The old NTSC-PAL standards conversion really only just scaled up the NTSC resolution, while the recent native PAL discs sourced from Australia used HD masters to make the most of the resolution, but suffered from 4% PAL speed-up. For anime on DVD, this format really is as good as it gets, and if you want higher resolution, there’s always the Blu-ray. I sincerely hope we get to see more of this from Manga Entertainment for their future DVD releases.