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forthegothicheroine · 8 years

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Kamigami No Asobi recap, episode 1: Ticking Clock to Ragnarok

What’s more capital-R Romantic than a plucky maiden being romanced by otherworldly deities of questionable morality and common sense? That’s my logic for recapping this anime on my blog, anyway. We’re going to watch an extremely overworked Japanese high school girl deal with romantic entanglements involving gods from several different pantheons, but first let’s establish a few things.

I read a lot about Greek mythology as a teenager, but my friends who are actual classics students probably know these stories better than I do. I know a little about Norse mythology, mostly stories that show up in operas or children’s books. I know a smattering about Egyptian mythology, mostly about Isis (who does not appear in this show.) I know almost nothing about Japanese mythology, so episodes focusing on that pantheon will have me dashing to wikipedia.

Also, there will be a few regular features in these recaps.

Ragnarok Clock: How close, as of this episode, are we to ragnarok? This will be illustrated with that doomsday clock from Watchmen, altered appropriately.

(The snake is Jormungandr.)

Where is Odin? Odin and Ra are the big, glaring omissions in this cast. I don’t pretend to be able to fathom Ra’s actions, but I will take a guess each episode at what Odin is doing while his family is having high school anime drama.

Team ___: Look, it’s a reverse harem anime, I’m going to pick teams. These teams will change with my whims. Tough.

Does Thoth push Yui up against a wall? Trust me, it’s going to be a thing.

Now, on with the show!

Aaannndd...it’s ragnarok time! That was fast! Beautiful men in silly outfits are ripping apart the sky as the world ends around them and a girl begs them not to fight. We don’t yet know who any of these people are, but there’s a nubile blonde man flexing so hard his shirt and pants pop off! If that doesn’t say classical mythology to you, I don’t know what does. Our heroine is not particularly phased by this flexing, as she would really rather the world not end.

FLASHBACK! Or, since this is the rest of the series, maybe I should have labeled that opening scene FLASHFORWARD? I don’t know.

It’s time to formally meet Yui, a young purple-haired shrine maiden who will be our protagonist. If I can be serious for a moment, I really think the fact that she’s a shrine maiden is what holds this show together. The gods are important to her everyday life; sure, she’d be surprised to meet them in the flesh, but it wouldn’t existentially destroy everything she thought she knew about the world.

Yui is endearing in the way reverse harem protagonists often are: she’s a sweet girl who is nowhere NEAR prepared for the amount of bullshit that’s about to be dumped on her lap. We feel for her because really, no high school student should have to deal with this.

She’s busy practicing her swordsmanship for an upcoming ceremony, which makes her late for school. (Again, I empathize with her here- that sounds way better than school.) At school, everyone is talking about their futures, which is immaterial because RAGNAROK IS COMING! REPENT! Ahem. Yui cries without understanding why, though I believe it’s because she’s realized she’s the protagonist and shit is about to get wacky for the rest of her life.

Yui barely has time to get home and reflect on not knowing what she wants to do with her life when the plot attacks! Color turns negative, a mysterious voice calls her name, and the shed out back starts to glow! The source of the glow appears to be a magical sword, but there should be a caution label on it, since touching it may lead to you being struck by lightening and transported to Narnia.

Which is exactly what happens to poor Yui.

Okay, it isn’t actually Narnia. (Although maybe it is? Lion Jesus and the Greek gods seem to cohabitate there peacefully, so I guess it’s in the same spirit?) Anyway, it’s a big fancy mansion/university with tweeting birds and glorious architecture, and Yui awakens there on the floor. The magic sword has shrunk to a convenient pendent, there for when she finally awakens as a magical girl. Presumably.

Yui takes this all in stride, calmly wondering if she’s travelled in time. Hey, it could happen. The whole place is eerily empty except for one tall drink of goth...

Hades! He’s my personal pick for most attractive of the gods, although you can’t convince me that Hades, a man who lives underground and never comes out, would take such good care of his flowing locks. He laments that Yui is so unfortunate as to have been caught up in this cruel game, because kidnapping girls is only okay when he’s the one doing it.

Actually, I’m not sure if Persephone exists in the world of this show or not, but more on that later. The arrival of Hades is heralded by blooming poppies.

Yui is quite rightly stunned by his mopey good looks, but Hades warns her not to come near him for it will only bring her misery. She is admirably unimpressed by this statement, but gets distracted by a cute rabbit. (A girl after my own heart.) The rabbit leads her to a classroom with a lilac-haired pretty boy whose arrival is heralded by blooming irises. He is...

...Tsukito, god of the moon! The lilac ponytail may seem a bit much now, but trust me, once you’ve met the rest of the gods he will look positively conservative. He’s more reasonable and easier to talk to than Hades, but also doesn’t know what’s going on. But there’s no time to get acquainted, because our conversation is interrupted by...

...Takeru, god of the sea! It may not look that bad in this picture, but holy frick does this hair piss me off when it’s onscreen. He looks like green Naruto! I am automatically set against him, and it will take a good deal to win me over with this handicap. His special flower is...um...I don’t know, I’ve seen these flowers before but I have no idea of their name. They’re blue with white stripes. Anyway, he’s our token tsundere, so that’s another strike against him.

Thoroughly annoyed by this asshole, Yui continues exploring and discovers, once and for all, that she’s in a giant building on a magical world with floating islands and flying horses. All of this is a lot to take in at once, so she runs down the stairs and immediately bumps into...

...Loki. Let me get this out of the way, since it’s what I’ll be thinking the whole show long: WHAT IS WRONG WITH HIS HAIR? The black nail polish is a respectable tradition (I’m wearing it right now), but that hair is inexcusable. That hair is a blight upon the concept of divinity. That hair is one of Loki’s monstrous children, right alongside Hel. In fact, Hel is probably glad she got the skull face instead of that hair.

That said, hair that bad is totally in-character. He gets pink and white chrysanthemums for his introductory flower.

Loki is interested in two things- invading Yui’s personal space and tracking down his blonde friend. These two things will continue to be his main interests throughout the show.

Loki doesn’t find said blonde yet, but Yui does. He’s a regular Disney prince, chilling out with friendly woodland animals attracted by his purity of heart. He is, of course...

...Balder! Balder is very cute, even though he looks exactly like Legolas. Looking like Legolas isn’t a bad thing, anyway. He gets a bunch of introductory lillies, and is the only person so far who is actually nice to Yui. Unfortunately, he has incurable clumsiness, the weakness usually given to female love interests. Fortunately, he cannot be hurt by any of his many trips and falls, because everything in the world made a vow not to hurt him.

Almost everything. Tick tock goes the ragnarok clock...

This clumsiness results in him falling on top of Yui and knocking them both into a bed of flowers. Unlike if this had happened with literally any of the other characters, I genuinely believe Balder did not do that on purpose. They tell each other that they have beautiful eyes and it’s all very romantic because Balder is actually capable of being attracted to a person without becoming correspondingly hostile. (Take note, half the rest of the cast.)

One of the people who should take note is Loki, who runs onto the scene to fly into a jealous rage over Balder touching anyone else. We’ll get into the Balder/Yui/Loki dynamic in future episodes- it’s more complicated than a simple love triangle- but here we see Loki having a snit, one of the show’s major themes. It’s hard to be very scared of his snits, though, since he has mostly short hair with two long bits on the side and a skinny braid in the back. Seriously, what is with his hair?

But we’ve got bigger gods to worry about! That voice and accompanying color-negative are back, and she has to track their source. And now, ladies and gentlemen, the man you’ve all been waiting to see. Possessor of the best hair on the show (in that it’s both flattering and character-appropriate), the king of heaven himself, it’s time to meet...

...Zeus! Now I know what you’re afraid of, because I was afraid of it too. Don’t worry- Zeus has no predatory intentions towards Yui aside from kidnapping her. He’s much more interested in using her presense to torment the other gods while he sits back and cackles.

While she comes to know and befriend most of the other gods and call them -san, Zeus stays -sama throughout the show. You’d BETTER call Zeus -sama. He is not a love interest, and so gets no flowers.

And he has a horrible terrifying child form he sometimes turns into for no reason. I will not inflict it upon you, because unlike Zeus, I am merciful. Seriously, it’s like a horrible creepy doll with reflective gold eyes. Brrrr.

Zeus’ ostensible purpose in kidnapping a bunch of gods and a teenage girl and forcing them all to go to high school for his amusement is that the gods are growing too remote from their worshippers, and need to personally experience and learn about humanity. This doesn’t sound like the kind of thing Zeus would give a shit about, so I assume the real purpose was something like “Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if I forced Hades to go through puberty again?” Yui is there to help make the gods into better people. I guess it’s kind of like the plot of Small Gods, but with less turtles.

Yui is still not terribly pleased about having been kidnapped, and accuses Zeus of being tyrannical. Which...yes. Yes he is. Tyrant is a Greek word. If Zeus decides you’re going to be in a reverse-harem anime, there’s really not much you can do about it. As Yui storms out we get a quick glimpse of our other resident hot dad Thoth, but he’s still in shadows both literally and figuratively.

As she collapses on the ground outside in fear, Yui is approached by another blonde- a friendly, preppy, incessantly cheerful lad who is introduced with a burst of sunflowers. Surprise surprise, he’s...

...Apollo! (The show calls him Apollon, but I refuse.) Apollo is going to annoy me in future episodes by giving everyone irritating nicknames, but he doesn’t do anything annoying in this episode so I’ll go easy on him. Unlike all the other gods, he’s delighted to be here, trusting that his father knows best. (Whether he actually does or not remains to be seen.) Apollo goes into full gallant flirt mode, sparkling at Yui as he kisses her hand and pulling her in for a full-on kiss.

Zero to I’m-your-boyfriend-now, that’s our Apollo.

With the episode over, it’s time to check in!

Ragnarok Clock

Where is Odin? During this episode, Odin is wandering the halls and enjoying the peace and quiet that comes from Loki and Thor not being there.

Team ___: Team Balder. Birds flock around him to sing!

Does Thoth push Yui up against a wall? No. Takeru pushes her up against a desk, though.

#kamigami no asobi

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