Anonymous Asked

Hello, did you ever end up making any post about Noragami chapter 73? Also, about are your thoughts about Hiyori in this arc, because in the last arc she barely appeared (obviously cuz of the fights) and I'm starting to worry that she's gonna become a protagonist that's only there to be protected (you know that thing "if you do something to her I will run the world after you"). She used to appear must more and even getting some importance, now she is just there to be Yato's safeplace/love affair

This turned into “Some Thoughts on Hiyori” lol



So a couple people asked about my view of Hiyori’s role in the story currently and in the future, and I have a lot of feelings about this, so…

First and foremost, I absolutely want to banish the notion that Hiyori is becoming somehow less important because she hasn’t been part of the action scenes/physical fights going on over the last arc.



I am sure, very, very sure that the anons who sent these asks didn’t mean for their thoughts to come across this way, but these asks kind of toe the line of (potentially internalized) misogyny, particularly the “Real Women Don’t Wear Dresses” trope.



You can read up on this trope yourselves, but the basic premise is that, in order for a female character to be taken seriously, she has to be engaged in traditionally masculine pursuits. She has to fight physically, she has to be the “strong empowered female” and, most of all, she’s not allowed to just… be a girl, because being a girl and/or traditionally feminine is a degradation of her character or somehow an inferior role.

I love kick ass female characters who pull no punches and dish out the hurt as much as any female reader (and probably more than some, given that I really personally identify with this kind of “no shit taken” woman), but I also think it’s extremely important not to pigeon-hole all female characters into this role, as if the only way to be a “strong” female character is to be literally physically strong.



Before I go any further with that, though, I also want to point this out: the long hiatus of the series is probably what’s really to blame for this situation, since it’s been so long since we, the readers, have seen Hiyori in action thanks to the year-long gap, but I just want to recap a bit to prove that the whole “Hiyori has been out of focus recently” is a bit exaggerated:

1) She was present when Bishamon first attacked Fujisaki, which is what kicked off the whole “rebel against Heaven” arc. Her very first action was to immediately jump into battle and face down Fujisaki ALL ALONE. Bishamon dug up an ancient hafuri shinki in order to face the sorcerer… Hiyori went in in her damn school uniform!

2) She then proceeded straight to the battlefield where literal gods were clashing against each other, despite the fact that she’s a human girl who is half-phantom, the known enemy of gods, and would undoubtedly be obliterated by Heaven if they knew who she was and who she had sided with (Kagutsuchi flat out calls her an “abomination”), and there, she helps convince Yato to do battle with Takemikazuchi in order to save Bishamon–which Kazuma notes she did despite the fact that Yato means as much to her as Bishamon means to him. She sends Yato into battle with a wish knowing that he could die simply because she believes it’s the right thing to do. This girl has a backbone of fucking steel, okay?

3) Then, when she believed Yato had failed in his mission to save Bishamon, she decided to do it herself.

4) She was absolutely ready to throw down in order to defend Bishamon, and the only reason it didn’t come to a fight between Hiyori and a god was because the god who found them was Arahabaki.



5) In the “Ebisu is kidnapped!“ chapter, the only reason they’re able to find Ebisu in time to save him from the kidnappers is because Hiyori used her ayakashi powers to track him:

And she had zero issue running all by herself to the hostage situation where kidnappers were holding a child at knife-point in a building swarming with ayakashi… Not to mention it was her idea to throw Yukine the surprise party…







It’s just been so long between chapters that everyone has forgotten that Hiyori was there through this whole thing too. She’s half-ayakashi but she’s not a goddess–she’s not going to go toe-to-toe with trained war gods, so it makes sense that she wasn’t the most prominent figure recently. I mean, the whole rebel against Heaven arc was barely about the Yato trio anyway, so you could argue they were all a little out of focus in favor of other characters…





NOW! With all that said, back to my first point about female characters not getting respect for doing things considered traditionally feminine, such as being caring and emotionally supportive.

Imma say it real loud: Being emotionally supportive isn’t any less important of a role than being a frontline fighter.



In fact, at its core, this is the primary goal that numerous Noragami characters keep aiming for and failing to reach: quell the aramitama, nurture the nigimitama. Rid yourself of rage and hatred; make room for kindness, selflessness, and care.

Over and over again, Noragami tells us that what truly saves people is the desire to love, support, and guide each other:

Every single thing that has happened in the present timeline of the manga to this moment has happened because of Hiyori and Yukine’s love and care for Yato. Every bit of character growth–not just for Yato but for everyone in the series–is a by-product of the emotional support and guidance that Hiyori and Yukine have provided. Hiyori–the little human girl who is just a girl, a “safe point”–is the guiding light for not just Yato and Yukine but for so many others throughout the series.

Hiyori’s kindness has reshaped Yato’s entire existence.

And Hiyori’s kindness is still shaping Yato’s existence right now.

This entire final boss battle with Fujisaki wouldn’t be happening at all if Yato hadn’t come to trust in Hiyori so much that he is willing to put his entire existence in her hands. He struggled with the fear of being forgotten and fading away for more than a thousand years, and he is willing to put aside all of that fear, to finally move beyond the manipulative chains that kept him tied to his abusive father’s side for centuries because of his unshakable faith in Hiyori’s love and loyalty. The only reason he can be this brave is because he knows that Hiyori is protecting him.

Listen guys… Hiyori is fighting a battle right now. It’s not a battle with fists or flashy spells. But it’s a battle with as high of stakes as any battle we’ve seen in Noragami so far. Yato’s life is in her hands–and, because Yato is the person who knows the most about Father, the person who has the highest chance of defeating him once and all, you could say that all of Heaven is poised and waiting to see the outcome of this situation, which dangles on the single, precarious thread of Hiyori’s memory and care.

And she’s not giving up. She’s not going to let Yato down. She’s doing something only she can to protect the people who are most important to her.



Hiyori’s role doesn’t seem diminished to me at all. She’s always been the heart of the story, whose unique vision and unwavering determination changes everyone around her for the better. There would still, absolutely, be no Noragami without her–that’s how strong the power of her “emotional support” really is.





As for where she’s going in future arcs, I don’t want to guess and be wrong, but I think that Hiyori’s kindness itself is going to play a key role in finally stopping Fujisaki.

Father’s plans, goals, and past are still shrouded in mystery, but one message we’ve gotten from him consistently is that his unending hatred of Heaven stems not from a desire for power of his own, but because of Heaven’s callousness. The carelessness and false righteousness of the gods that allows them to take human life without impunity, to destroy people’s lives as if they were meaningless toys and then to just be forgiven over and over–that’s what Father truly despises.

This is not to forgive his actions, but it’s pretty obvious that Father thinks he has a valid reason for doing the things he is doing. He’s striking viciously at anyone and everyone who is part of Heaven specifically to sow discord, fear, and misery. He doesn’t seem to believe that he can necessarily bring down the whole establishment–but he can cause them pain, over and over and over again, in the same way that they caused him pain.

Father’s entire goal is perpetuating a cycle of violence and vengeance that doesn’t distinguish between those who deserve to be punished and those who are innocent victims. He simply doesn’t care who is caught up in the wave of his despair and hatred; everyone who is a part of the system that maintains the unchanging co-dependence between weak humans who mindlessly worship for self-benefit and parasitic gods who feed on that belief as fuel for their own self-aggrandizement is equally fair game.



He hates gods and humans both for their selfishness, their weak wills, and their inability to take responsibility for their own actions, but most of all, it seems to me that he simply hates what personally happened to him, the loss he suffered that no one ever begged forgiveness for, that crime that Heaven committed against him and then simply forgot.



This isn’t the kind of suffering that can be soothed in battle. This isn’t the kind of evil that can be vanquished by just knocking the bad guy down a peg. It’s not even the kind of evil that can be killed off once and for all and forgotten about forever because Father isn’t wrong. As readers we can see–and agree–that the actions of Heaven are NOT always just, and that daddy has a point: the suffering that gods subject humanity to to justify their own definition of “peace” is a form of evil in and of itself.

Even if Yato defeats his father physically, I don’t think he can defeat the ideology Father represents with his current mindset. Yato is a god, someone who exists firmly within the system that Father so longs to dismantle, and he has chosen his side in the “war” by making his pledge to Amaterasu. His goal is to rid the world of his Father’s evil influence, not to reform the entire system to ensure that men like Father are never created again–at least not yet. You can’t put out a fire from inside the burning house, in essence.

But there is a person who exists outside of the system, who is neither fully human nor fully supernatural, who has seen gods both as a force for good and a force for wrong-doing, someone who understands that Heaven’s ways are not always just and that people are often the first victims of the gods’ unquestionable “righteousness.” There is a person who has the capacity to–without forgiving and ignoring the cycle of wrong-doing–still feel empathy for the kind of loss that created a being like Fujisaki.



It is my personal belief that Hiyori’s kindness, understanding, and view of the world is going to be the key to really “defeating” Fujisaki. Perhaps it won’t be directly; she might not be the one delivering the rousing emotional “this is where you went wrong” speech at the end of the day, but I firmly believe her mindset and the change she had brought about in other people will be what really save the day in the end, what really allows for the cycle of suffering and dependence to alter for the better so that not only Yato–but also so many other gods and humans–can be freed from an abusive system that only knows how to take, not to give.

Hiyori has had a profound effect on every other character in this series, some directly and some more indirectly, but if you ask me where she’s going in the future, my only bet is that, somehow, some way, she’s going to change Fujisaki–or at least the future he has envisioned–too.