Recap

Yato tries desperately to remind Hiyori of their time together. Unfortunately, Nora shows up paired with Rabou, threatening that Hiyori’s conscience itself is slowly being stripped away.

It’s a testament to how well the relationship between these two has been built that I was really hurt to watch this episode unfold. At first I thought Hiyori’s crush was more of a one-sided affair, but it seems clear now that Yato really does care about her a great deal. Even in his usual moments of slapstick you could see the sadness of not having her remember him after all they’d been through. It was also very bittersweet seeing Yukine try and bring Hiyori’s memories back. His small lie in taking all the credit was cute as it seems he isn’t done trying to impress her quite yet. I do hope this doesn’t put Hiyori as the damsel in distress for this last arc, as I still think this show is at its best when it’s able to give all three of these characters a part to play in the plot.

Unfortunately, the budget for this show has seem to really take a hit in these last few episodes. Understandably, while the action is going on there is little attention paid to perfect models, but there are some still scenes where characters in the background don’t even have faces. I may have just become a stickler for visuals, but things like that take a bit away from the experience. While the artistic budget seems lacking, there’s no such problem in the animation. The mid-episode fight was frenetic and engaging. Where some shows *cough*Kill la Kill*cough* let the style make up for incredibly sub-par animation, Noragami has consistently been fantastic at showing the full range of motion in a fight and the results have been spectacular.

I knew there had to be more to Hiyroi’s amnesia than solely forgetting Yato. I should have gave Nora more credit, the idea that she will slowly forget her entire existence is a way more malevolent plot the more I think about it. More than just kill her outright and make an immediate pain, Yato will either have to watch Hiyori slowly fade with time or go back to his old way of killing. This paints Nora in an even worse light than we already had. These villains may be easy to hate, but it makes you want to root for Yato that much more to help Hiyori as this story draws to a close.