The return of Karasu wa Aruji o Erabanai is certainly a lot like welcoming back an old friend. With a 20-episode run this series was always going to have an odd release schedule, but it’s a shame that it had to hiatus for three weeks. Nevertheless it did pick a good time to do it. The first “half” of the series was a lot more than half, but it definitely had a distinct conclusion. We’re in new territory here story-wise (in every sense). Though happily that doesn’t extend to the OP and ED – I love them both and I’m glad to have them stick around.

The new territory is physically Taruhi, the home village of Yukiya, and the Northern region. We pick up where we left off, with a weird ape-like creature doing really nasty things. Meanwhile, back in Taruhi, Yukiya is back to his old routine – pretending to be a sluggard not much capable of being useful. The novels (and manga) flesh this out in more detail, but Yukiya has meticulously crafted a fictional persona for use at home. This is fundamental to understanding who he is – both that this persona is a lie, and that he chose to live this way. It now strikes me that Nazukihiko saw something of a kindred spirit in Yukiya, as they both intentionally project a public face that’s starkly different from their true one.

Sleeping in and missing the plum harvest fits the character perfectly, but then it’s also pretty normal for a 14 year-old boy. I think Yukiya enjoys that element of his performance – he can take it easy and slack off – but it’s all for the purpose of easing things for his family and especially his elder brother the heir. He has almost everyone in Taruhi fooled, including his father. His younger brother idolizes him and thinks he’s fun so doesn’t really care either way. But Yukima and Yukiya’s mother seem to see through the act.

The hinted strange phenomenon soon breaks the idyll of Yukiya’s life in Taruhi, though. As he’s flying off to the harvest (too late) Yukiya spots another yatagarasu seemingly foundering, and the creature – foaming at the mouth – attacks him mid-flight. Eventually Yukiya crash lands and stays behind to protect an old man as the others are headed for shelter. He’s saved by a stranger on a raven “horse”. Except this is no stranger at all, even if he introduces himself as “Sumimaru”, aide to the Crown Prince.

Wakamiya’s purpose in being in the North is to investigate stories of a strange drug supposedly being peddled in the Ravine, some sort of ecstasy-inducer which eventually debilitates the addict so badly they eventually lose the ability to return to human form.He asks specifically for Yukiya’s help, and Yukiya unsurprisingly tries to refuse. He’s carefully cultivated the fiction that he was utterly useless to the Crown Prince in the Center and they were thrilled to see the back of him, and his father seems only too keen to believe it. But then, why is this man who worked with the lad for a year so keen to enlist his help know? Again, Mom and Ani-ue see the truth of it.

The drug, which the Prince refers to as “Sagecap” (senningai) seems to be the MacGuffin for this arc. But there is a new character (we saw her briefly at the end of the first cour) who seems important. Koume (Miyamoto Yume) is shown with a man who might be her father – later, it appears she may have been the only survivor of a village that’s attacked by the monster from the cold open. Who she is and why she matters is not immediately clear, but she does seem to be not that much older than Yukiya (just throwing that out there).

Structurally this seems to be a pretty big change from the first arc, which was actually a blend of two arcs from the novels which occurred simultaneously. At first glance it seems a more traditional conflict/resolution-driven storyline, but with Yatagarasu I’m inclined to believe the essential nature of the series will assert itself before long. Indeed, once Yukiya and Wakamiya are reunited things feel much more familiar. It’s a reminder to me of just how much I’ve come to love these characters and the dynamic between them. I’m more than happy to watch the pair of them solve mysteries and battle monsters for a while.