There isn’t an Olympic slalom course that has the twists and turns Karasu wa Aruji o Erabanai has. It’s always a tricky balance, trying to genuinely surprise the audience without seeming too pull the surprises out of you know where. If you can play fair – give the reader-viewer a real shot to figure stuff out – and still keep them from seeing it coming, you’re a damn good writer. And that clearly applies to Abe Chisato. I don’t feel cheated by any of the developments in the past few episodes and I only saw a couple of them (like the Natsuka one) coming. That said, I still have questions but we’ll get to them soon enough.
First things first, the matter of the rhetorical evisceration of Asebi. That Asebi is awful is pretty much indisputable at this point. The exact nature of her awfulness is a matter of interpretation to an extent, however. What we see here is a sublimely manipulative person with no concern whatsoever for the welfare of those she sees as beneath her (which is almost everybody). What’s really striking is that she appears to have no remorse or indeed, any sense that anything she did was wrong. She’s also cocky as hell, because she seems to presume she can twist Nazukihiko around her finger like she did his sister, despite the inescapable fact that he’s better at seeing around corners than a right-angle periscope.
There’s a lot of blame to go around here. Fujinami allows herself to be twisted, obviously lonely and desperate for companionship (and utterly sheltered). Asebi manoeuvers her into getting rid of Samomo (not to mention stealing Wakamiya’s letters to the other princesses), who Asebi sees as a risk to reveal her secret invitation of Kasuke to the Cherry Blossom Palace. But no excuses, Fujinami allows it to happen. And even if she didn’t intend for Samomo to die, she still killed her. And then we have Takimoto, who catches Fujinami in the act and then moves to cover it up (killing Kasuke in the process of doing so).
What was Asebi’s real thinking with Kasuke and the red kimono – did she intend for Masuho to be raped like she did Futaba? We’re not given an explicit answer, and as Wakamiya says, he can’t prove Asebi’s malice. But he knows what he knows and so does everyone else now, and he can certainly let Asebi know that he loathes her. The fact that Asebi is genuinely surprised to hear this is testament to how utterly disconnected from reality she is (very).
Needless to say, Asebi is far out of the running in the consort derby now. The next twist is that Hamayuu is present in the palace – having been secretly harbored by Masuho no Suseki after her seeming departure. And she and Nazukihiko are old “running mates” as he puts it – calling her Sumi, seemingly her given name. Here’s where I’m a bit uncertain, but I think the takeaway is that Sumi (is the similarity of her name and Sumio’s significant?) was a playmate of the crown prince as a child, but that the story of her parents being falsely accused or murder and executed and then being recruited as an assassin was true.
Indeed Sumi is right – Masuho no Suseki was the logical candidate and would have made great sense (even if we don’t really know why “only the Western House can protect” him). But Nazukihiko’s reason for rejecting her is related to his grand vision. As I suspected he styles himself a social reformer, and one of the reforms he seeks is to change the “warped” (by the Empress and the old Kin’u) relationship between the throne and the four houses. The only way he can do that is by marrying outside the four houses, thus avoiding showing favoritism to any of them. And since Sumi is now a free agent, having bailed on her mission for the South, she qualifies.
Not exactly a storybook romance, and Sumi’s condition that she tend to the Prince on his deathbed is rather grim foreshadowing. But it fits who Wakamiya is. This will hardly make things simple. He may be avoiding favoring one house over the others but now Wakamiya has indeed made enemies of all of them. And he seems about to lose one of the very few allies he can count on, as Yukiya declares his intention to go back to his family in the North, having served the Prince for a year as promised.
This is not a simple matter. Yukiya clearly feels loyalty to Nazukihiko – in fact I would say he’s come to love him as a surrogate older brother. But he loathes the world the Prince inhabits as much as loves the Prince himself. Yukiya can’t understand the compulsion Wakamkiya feels to be at the heart of this nest of vipers – why not let that burden fall on Natsuka (as so many seem to want) and influence things from the shadows? If he does, the boy promises, he’ll stay and serve. But Wakamiya refuses, protesting that if being the Kin’u is taken from him there will be nothing left. Yukiya then follows through on his pledge to depart – the reason being, clearly, that he has no wish to see Nazukihiko cut down by traitors and no doubt in his mind that it will happen eventually.
This represents a transition in the story, clearly. New developments are teased – a strange monster with a big appetite, and a potentially important new face. And it seems very likely that Yukiya will wind up back in the service of the Prince, possibly sooner rather than later. But it’s going to be a while before we see those leads pursued, as Yatagarasu is taking a two-week break (there’s going to be a recap episode with cast commentary next weekend). That sucks, but it’s better than waiting an entire cour I suppose.
animealex
June 30, 2024 at 6:01 pmI think Hamayuu meant, that since the prince’s mother was from the Western House, had he formally allied with them by marriage, they would genuinely protect him as one of their own. All other Houses would be too unreliable: The South wants him gone, the East is, well if father like daughter, quite dangerous even to have as an ally and the North has military might, but not accomplished politicians and schemers. So, like I speculated earlier, getting West and North (through Yukiya’s lineage) would have been the conventual move to secure the crown prince’s power. (South and East are weakened at the moment.) But the prince doesn’t do “conventual”. I also hope, that his doesn’t spell his eventual doom.
Asebi being shown as “The Lady Raven” of this generation through Yukiya’s vision was an extraordinary moment for me. I thought back when I started suspecting Asebi and I think it was when Wakamiya and Yukiya scouted the Cherry Blossom Palace and the prince said something like “,,,and the East has a well earned reputation for scheming” and I was like “Huh, but that’s Asebi, the boring princess classic (TM) type!” and from then on, I always questioned every move she made and was convinced it was just a facade, but I never understood her motive. And I also never would have guessed the involvement of Wakamiya’s sister. I had the chief of the Wisteria guard pegged as somehow involved, but never thought why she would be involved on Asebi’s side. It didn’t make sense! I guessed the Empress hand behind it somehow, but like I said before, why would the South and East align in such schemes? I suspected quite complicated political reasons. but in fact, it was much simpler than everything I imagined. Well done!
Asebi is now one of my favorites. Yes, she’s a vile human being, a complete and utterly unfettered sociopath, but damn girl kept her cool even when everything was brought to light and the way she arranged her intrigues without getting her own hands dirty or even leaving anything besides circumstantial proof is impressive! And the Empress seemingly saw her for what she was, when she gave her that name. I guess game recognizes game… (Now I wonder, who would come out on top, if they both were of the same rank and “playing” against each other.) I would’ve liked it perhaps even more, if Wakamiya’s sister in a fit of rage would’ve killed her. It’s always nice, when master manipulators get done in by the consequences of their own plans, but I don’t think Asebi has now many friends (even among her own family) and perhaps justice will catch up with her later.
Regarding Yukiya: I guess he will either see, even though he’s welcomed home, that he brings problems to the family he loves or in time he realizes, that the fish starts stinking from the head and decides to start helping the crown prince reforming that mess of a court. Perhaps both.
And now for something completely different: WTF was that monster eating the poor girl? Oh well, let’s wait and see.
Thank you to Enzo for covering the series and thank all other commentors on this site to play it fair (no spoilers here; nice!) and delivering quite good discussions!
Guardian Enzo
June 30, 2024 at 6:12 pmIndeed, this one has generated more comments than any show I’ve covered in a long time I think.
Fair point about Nazukihiko’s Mom, I’d forgotten about that.
Raikou
June 30, 2024 at 8:57 pmWow, so many things that I did not predicted. Especially Fujinami is actually Asebi’s partner in crime and Hamayu still in the palace. I gotta say, this is superb first cour/arc.
Seems like second cour is focusing on problems outside of palace. Pretty confident that Yatagarasu is top 10 anime of the year.
Scampi
June 30, 2024 at 9:55 pmIt was really good but I wish they spent some more time to explain how Hamayu got harbored by Masuho. The way they showed it was like she just popped up out of nowhere. A few seconds of flashback would have done it for me, these two girls are really likable.
Scampi
June 30, 2024 at 9:44 pmIn hindsight, the most obvious hint to this episode’s fall out was that someone in Fujinami’s position definitely wasn’t supposed to be taking sides, and in the end her favoring of Asebi did indeed turn out to be Asebi’s greatest weapon. Asebi received her first letter from the Prince in EP2 before Yukiya even started working in court, and before she realized the Prince was her first love. Then things start falling apart around Tanabata after Asebi realized the Prince was the boy she fell in love with. It was impossible to prove her intention, but from the Samomo grapevine she did knew that the West was decorating their residence in red kimono and ornaments, and if she really wanted to guide Kasuke the right way she could have told him to look for the pink kimonos they have already set up. This happened all in EP6, and both her light and dark sides was really working in full force there. On one hand she showed her beautiful koto skills in front of the ladies, and on the other she was writing a letter that got two people killed. Was this the Eastern Lord’s true intention in sending her to the Palace?
The Prince declared that he would ascend the throne in one year’s time during the Imperial Council, and time is running short if he wants to keep to his word. As for the Houses’ responses, the North seems to care more about their daughter, the West is frustrated, and the South and East are ciphers. If the Eastern Lord is anything like his daughter he will be a pretty terrifying force to be reckoned with. Will Nazukihiko be able to rope Yukiya back before it happens? What are we supposed to call him then? If they start calling him “kin’u heika” it’d certainly take some time getting used to.
Also did he seriously think Hamayu fell head over heels for him after making her sit through “I don’t care or particularly love you” speech twice lol. Good punch there girl.
Guardian Enzo
July 1, 2024 at 7:25 amIf Naz was playing by the rules, Masuho was the logical choice. He has family connections with her house, he doesn’t dislike her, she has spine and integrity. It’s only because he decided to throw out the rulebook that he went in another direction.
Scampi
July 1, 2024 at 8:23 pmMan’s secretly a romantic at heart. Him thinks husband and wife crow nestling next to each other is not as bad as court life, but in my opinion no matter how quaint it is it would totally suck when it rains.
Snowball
June 30, 2024 at 11:48 pmFor a moment I thought Yukiya would be out of the picture permanently and that would have sucked because I find him to be one of the most likeable and compelling leads in a while, but I’m glad the preview proved me wrong.
I have never really liked Asebi to begin with as I found her to be painfully dumb despite that ended up being a farce and I’m glad these last few episodes have justified my dislike for her.
As much as I like Wakamiya, that punch was well deserved.
say
July 1, 2024 at 1:48 amThis is the only episode in which they skipped some explanation from the manga that I regret was cut off. And I guess we’ll never get those pieces of information since we are jumping into Book 3 with the next arc.
Seeing how they decided to rush to the adventurous part, I fear this one will be another one-season anime from Pierrot, like we never got the final of Hikaru no Go, other seasons of Akatsuki no Yona, or even Kingdom. I really like Pierrot’s style, but their productions seem doomed to not be full adaptations.
Guardian Enzo
July 1, 2024 at 6:45 amI don’t see any reason to suspect Kingdom won’t be fully adapted (if the manga ever finishes, ROFL).
These aren’t really studio decisions anyway. Production committees decide such things.
Nicc
July 2, 2024 at 8:28 amNow that’s how you end a cour. That two-week break might be necessary for us to catch our breaths after all that just went down.
It wasn’t just Kasuke who Asebi used, but also Fujinami. In hindsight, that probably seems obvious now and considering how much affection Fujinami had for her. She really wanted Asebi to marry her brother and we just how far she was willing to go to let that happen. Her being sheltered seems to be a problem amongst some of the others, just like how it seemed like Shiratama didn’t seem to understand how pregnancy works and that allowed Wakamiya’s bluff to work. Somebody should teach Shiratama about the crows and the bees later. Right, Fujinami didn’t intend for Samomo to die, but she did kill her. She assumed that Samomo could just transform into a raven and fly away, but her kimono got in her way.
The Wisteria Guards’ involvement was to cover it up and it explains the summary execution of Kasuke. While Fujinami loses her mind over the revelations, Asebi remains calm and composed. It’s like she did nothing wrong at all in her own mind. I agree with animealex that the name Asebi was right on the money. I wonder if the Empress really did figure her out just from that first meeting. As Wakamiya said, it’s all circumstantial evidence that he cannot prove directly, but he still let’s Asebi know that she loathes her.
Okay, so it’s three strikes and everybody’s out. He’s still gotta pick somebody, right? Well, Hamayuu makes her return in this episode, with Wakamiya calling her as Sumi (I also wondered if there was a connection to Sumio). It looks like the both of them go way back and were childhood friends. I’d say that the safest choice was to go with the North, whom Wakamiya himself said he had good relations with. The best choice would have been to go with the West and I’m hoping that we get more from them in the second half. That is, if he going “by-the-book”. He intends to topple and rebuild the relationship between the throne and the four houses. Right, Hamayuu is a free agent and not associated with any of the houses or is even a noble now and so she’s the only one that fits. Instead of the South just wanting his head, now all of them might be. It seems that winning the throne may end up being the easy part…
Now, for what we did not see… I expected somebody from the Empress’ faction to speak up. I’m thinking that how there were no interruptions was part of Wakamiya’s plan. He probably got Natsuka to keep her and her allies at the palace while all this was going on. We also don’t get to see the ending of Wakamiya’s visit to the Cherry Blossom Palace as it just cuts to the evening where Wakamiya tries that same speech he used on Masuho no Suseki. It kind of works and he gets a knuckle sandwich from Hamayuu for that. We’re also left to fill in the blanks as the time passes and Yukiya’s service is up. He intends to go back, but he’s willing to serve Wakamiya for life if he’ll be anything else other than the kin’u. That’s non-starter for Wakamiya and so Yukiya is off (Not before getting one more kumquat from Wakamiya, though). In between that, we see some kind of monster that’s eating people and a transformed raven that goes wild and starts attacking people. Lastly, we see a new character enter the picture.
This seemingly wraps up the engagement arc as we move on to a new one. I got one last thought about Asebi. That day she saw Wakamiya for the first time was a precious memory to her. He remembers that day too, but I’m thinking it was only because Sumi was there too. Her being a tomboy back then makes sense as she’s brusque as an adult. This show is taking a break and just in time for me to check out the new shows for the summer season.