Manga: Noragami 20

Noragami Vol 20
Rating: 5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review! 

Now that Yato has promised Hiyori to confront his father, he must find a shinki powerful enough to take the crafter down, while Bishamon, who knows what the crafter looks like, discovers her life is in grave danger. 

The last volume ended on a rather ominous cliffhanger, and I'm sure you'll all agree that it's been torture waiting to see what's going to happen next in this series?! Yato has told the Heavens what he knows and now he has a deadline in which to kill his father but in order to do so he's going to have to find a Shinki to help him. His first port of call being to ask Nana for help but her new guardian isn't thrilled with the idea. 

For me, this is a series that gets better and better, it started out quite simple but then brought in more and more plot threads, deepening the plot more with each volume. This volume however? It's perhaps the most twisty one yet?! It had my heart fully stopping at one point when Yato realised Bishamon was in danger, and then with the way the chapter played out. I was screeching pretty much the entire time I was reading this volume, with a brief little interlude with Ebisu that was the only time I was chill reading this. Kazuma is the main source of all of my screeching and wow...his character is going a little bit dark side in this volume and we've seen him go from being a certain way, the Kazuma that we're used to...to the Kazuma in this volume. He also had a conversation with Hiyori that had her finally coming to terms with her feelings for Yato and I was pretty much...well...my soul had left my body at this point. 

While we have the angst with Yato and Kazuma, I oddly found myself feeling quite sorry for the Stray, something that I never thought would happen. We got some insight in to her and more background on her life with Yato and his father, and what things wrere like for them. I'm kind of uneasy about Yukine befriending her but intrigued to see where this is going to go. 

There are some amazing twists to this volume in the lead up to the showdown that's inevitably coming our way between Yato and his father, and things get angsty on the romance front. The romance has always kind of been a very subtle thing, but feelings are named in acknowledged in this volume and I feel like after all the building up of the characters, the relationships and the plot...we're hitting the climax of the story. 

The art continues to be wonderfully drawn, and the plot continues to move forward at a wonderful pace giving us action, intrigue and humour!