There will be times where you may happen across an odd phone number written in red. If you call it, you will get in touch with a young man who introduces himself as the Yato God. This Yato God is a minor deity and the self-proclaimed God of Delivery. He dreams of having millions of worshippers, but there isn’t a single shrine dedicated to his name. He spends his time doing odd jobs for spare yen until the day his weapons partner deserts him. Just as things are looking down, he happens across a young school girl that saves him from a car accident by taking the hit for him. She survives, but her soul becomes loose. Together they set out to find a way to tighten her soul back up.
Noragami was one of those shows you pick up and are never quite sure the direction it is going to go at first. However, it pulls off its different elements masterfully, and if you are looking for anime recommendations to replace Noragami in your heart, look no further.
Anime Like Noragami
For Fans of Dalliances into the Spirit World
Beyond the Boundary
As the last surviving member of her clan of spirit warriors, Mirai Kuriyama must use her special power of fighting using her blood in order to subdue Youmu, creatures that are the manifestation of negative human emotions. One day at school she happens across Akihito, a rare halfbreed Youmu in human form. Immediately trying to kill him, she finds out he is an immortal being and the two strike up an impromptu friendship.
For starters, both Noragami and Beyond the Boundary are a lot better than you’d think they would be. Both find ways to entertain you in its stories and its characters and each story turns just dark enough to keep things interesting. They also have the obvious similarities of humans and supernatural being interacting with each other. Beyond the Boundary also has some beautiful animation as well, which is a selling point by itself.
Yu Yu Hakusho
Yusuke Urameshi is your average thug, but one day, he sees a kid about to get hit by a car and saves him. Unfortunately, the car kills him instead. Impressed by his heroic deed, the afterlife gives him a second shot at life, but only if he becomes a Spirit Detective and keeps all the demons and other supernatural beings from destroying the human world.
Although older, Yu Yu Hakusho actually features the same bit of atmosphere as Noragami. Although you aren’t dealing with a god, you are dealing with a human that ends up getting intertwined with a generally unseen world full of God-like beings.
Blood Lad
Staz Charlie Blood is a powerful vampire that rules the Eastern section of the Demon World. While rumor will tell you he is blood-thirsty and vicious, in reality, he is just a big otaku. While his underlings manage his world, he spends his days mired in anime and manga. However, when a Japanese girl accidentally wanders into his realm, Staz is thrilled, only to be heartbroken by her untimely death. Now Staz vows to resurrect her, but probably because it means he gets to go to the human world.
Weirdly enough, Blood Lad and Noragami almost have the same initial story. They both feature bored, frustrated supernatural beings that end up having their fates intertwined with a human girl and go off on a quest to somehow save her. However, they take vastly different routes as the shows go on with Noragami getting a little serious and Blood Lad still being silly and stylish.
For Fans of Deities
Soul Eater
Death City is home to a famous technical academy and ran by Lord Death himself. At this academy, meisters train with their human weapons in order to evolve them into Death Scythes to be wielded by the Grim Reaper, Lord Death. Only by consuming 99 evils souls and the soul of one witch will a weapon be able to evolve. This is the story of several students of the academy as they try to grow stronger and protect Death City in the process.
While shinigami aren’t technically gods, both Soul Eater and Noragami focus on the more supernatural side of a world. They both feature humans that can turn into weapons and some special kind of being that needs to be killed. However, while most of the time you see Death City in Soul Eater, Noragami is more firmly grounded in the human world.
Kamisama Kiss
Homeless and in debt, high schooler Nanami Momozono thinks things are looking up when she rescues a man and he offers to let her stay at his home. She soon discovers that his home is a rundown shrine. Trying to leave, she is mistaken for the man she saved – the man that is also the land god of the shrine, Mikage. Finding out she was tricked into being a god and not wanting to be homeless, Nanami tries to embrace her new divine duties, but has to deal with a hot-headed fox familiar to keep things running smoothly.
While Noragami only has some slight touches of romance, Kamisama Kiss goes the extra mile to be a romantic comedy anime series. However, as with any romance series, you get the general silliness in both Noragami and Kamisama Kiss.
Red Data Girl
Izumiko Suzuhara just wants to be a normal girl, but that will never happen. She was raised in a shrine deep in the woods because she is in fact the vessel of a Goddess. Even something as simple as cutting her hair is a shock to her protectors. However, even this painfully shy living shrine can make a go at changing her life, but it might put everyone in danger.
Both Noragami and Red Data Girl deal with deities, however, it is rather straight forward and outright in Noragami, while it is occasional and through possession in RDG. However, while Noragami is fun with it small bouts of seriousness, Red Data Girl is the complete other way around.
For Fans of Shounen Drama
Blue Exorcist
Humans and demons have always been separated by two different worlds, humans in Assiah and demons in Gehenna. The only way to travel between the worlds is by possession, which is how Satan, the ruler of Gehenna, wages his war. Blue Exorcist follows Rin Okumura, a somewhat troubled teen and son of Satan. However, while his father wants him to help conquer the human world, Rin decides to become an exorcist to fight him instead.
Although Noragami is probably just ahead of your typical shounen supernatural show, it still maintains a lot in common with Blue Exorcist in particular. You have a main protagonist whose life changes drastically under certain circumstances and they turn out to be powerful fighters. You get some great fights, but also a lot of excellent backstory. If you wished Noragami had more fighting, then Blue Exorcist would be an excellent follow up.
Black Bullet
In the year 2021, a parasitic virus has ravaged humanity by turning them into monsters, driving the remaining humans into massive walled cities. However, while a special metal can keep these monsters at bay and fight them, children are already being born with the virus dormant within them. It is decided that these “cursed children” are humanity’s best hope for fighting the virus.
Both Black Bullet and Noragami are a bit more dramatic than your typical shounen series and it really sets them apart from the pack. They both feature a race of beings that need to be killed as well as have some sort of ranking system for the people that are set to do the slaying. However, in terms of humor, Noragami is still the more comical.
Shakugan no Shana
One day, Yuuji Sakai had his regular school life end when he becomes trapped in time and attacked by an unknown being. Right as he is about to die, he is rescued by a nameless hunter with brilliant red hair. After being saved, the girl tells him that he is a Torch, a soul that has already died and is just waiting to fizzle out.
It kind of seems like the beings in both series are just the same, but under different names. The Flame Hazes could be Gods, for example. Regardless, both shows are about some random human getting pulled into a world that is otherwise unseen by regular humans.
Did we have a glaring omission from our list of anime recommendations for Noragami? Let us know of this great injustice in the comments section below.
Thank you for posting. I enjoyed reading. 🙂
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