First of all, it’s incredibly nice to have Karasu wa Aruji o Erabanai back. But damn – this is our first episode in a month. And before that, there’d been none since June 22. When you’re talking about 7 out of 8 weeks being absent, that’s almost at the point of being a split cour. Which begs the question – why not just be a split cour at this point? Things work a little differently at NHK than most anime broadcast outlets, it’s true. But skipping so many weeks certainly didn’t do Yatagarasu any favors in terms of keeping its hard-won audience.
So, was the experience meaningfully impacted here? For me, not so much. I’ve been reading the manga adaptation, which helps. And I was already so totally engrossed in the story that I managed to lose myself in it almost immediately. The first couple of minutes felt a little strange, but after that – meh, it was no big deal. That said, given that the one lonely ep in that two-month stretch was the first of a new arc, it’s all the more reason to believe it would have better to just stop after the first cour and pick up now.
Indeed we pick up right where we left off – no recaps or anything. Yukiya and “Sumimaru” have come face to face with the horrifying creature which decimated the village (one of them anyway). Nazukihiko is no pampered noble, as we know – he can handle himself in a scrap, and beheads the creature with relative ease. It’s a scene of utter devastation – especially when the prince looks inside some of the barrels in the storehouses. There appears to be only one survivor, who Yukiya discovers. But this is no human – or if it ever was, it’s in the process of transforming into one of the man-eating monkeys. Yukiya would have preferred to have been saved a little faster, but Wakamiya does save him.
It’s still not clear just what we’re looking at here. Are these monkeys who can shapeshift into humans (a game-changing idea if you’re a yatagarasu), or humans somehow (Sagecap?) turning (or being turned) into monster monkeys? What’s also not clear is why Koume, the girl we met earlier, is left alive. Yukiya and the prince find her in a chest, without a scratch on her and out cold. She still is when the three arrive back at Taruhi, where she’s understandably restrained and locked in a cell to await her awakening.
Wakamiya heads back to the capital to wake them up to the threat – taking “smelling salts” with him – while Yukiya’s father leads an army into the countryside to search the decimated village and surrounding areas. This is an opportunity for Wakamiya, clearly. He can be decisive, commanding – prove his worth in a crisis the nobles have tried to pass off as fantasy. Once he shows off his spoils of war, even the skeptical (not least to him) leaders of the four great houses can deny that something strange and terrible is happening in the North.
That all leaves Yukiya back in Taruhi, where Koume finally wakes up. This is the most extended interaction we’ve seen between Yukiya and his family (there’s more in the manga), and indeed with his own people. And it’s entirely welcome – a different side of this fascinating boy than what we’ve seen up to now. Yukima is nominally in charge of Koume’s interrogation but it’s Yukiya who asks the pointed questions. Here, in this moment of crisis, he has no choice but to drop his facade of ineptitude and reveal himself to be the clever fellow he really is. Yukima was never fooled in the first place, of course, and defers to his younger brother willingly.
As I suspected, we’re seeing a fascinating dynamic develop between Yukiya and Koume. He himself admits he has no idea how to talk to girls his age, but he also has every reason to be suspicious of her claims of ignorance. Her story – she got drunk at a party with her father and remembers nothing after – could very well be true. But it stretches credulity to be sure, and Yukiya – hyper-protective of his own people and especially his family – is skeptical. To exacerbate things, his mother invites Koume to stay on in the household when it becomes pretty clear that her missing merchant father is very likely dead.
One of the things I love here is the authenticity in how Yukiya is rattled by being pushed out his comfort zone (Nazukihiko is an expert at this) – in the way very smart kids his age are. They’re smart enough to realize how much they don’t know, and that’s unnerving. I also love the bond between Yukiya and his mother Azusa. These two are not biologically related and she’d have every reason to resent his presence, but the two of them absolutely adore each other. And Mom – perhaps not wholly in error – sees something more in her boy’s fascination with Koume than suspicion and protectiveness. She uses this as another means of discomfiting him, forcing he and Koume together, with interesting results.
There’s much still to be explained in all this, that’s to be sure, though Koume’s role may prove to be the most important mystery from a character standpoint. Who is the mysterious priest (?) Tobi (Matsuda Kenichirou – Bond Forger!) so interested in what’s happening in the Capitol? What specific role does the drug Sagecap have in causing this crisis to happen? It’s certainly different from the style of the first cour, but Yatagarasu is so good at storytelling and these characters are so interesting that honestly, the series isn’t missing a beat. It truly is great to have it back.
Snowball
August 18, 2024 at 6:24 pmNo offence to Nige Jouzu and Sengoku Youko but summer seemed quite barren without Yatagarasu. It’s good to have this show back.
Guardian Enzo
August 18, 2024 at 6:43 pmWell, it’s just so unique a narrative style for anime. Like Seiro no Moribito, Dororo – you don’t see this sort of thing very often. You really miss it because other shows (like the ones you mentioned) can be great, but they don’t fill the same niche.
Nadavu
August 18, 2024 at 7:48 pmI have a bit of a problem here with the monkey people soo easily taking out an entire village of raven shapeshifters. It was addressed somewhat with the poisonings theory, but still. I don’t see how an entire village of people who can fly away at will is exterminated with no survivors. Also, just judging by size, I feel the giant raven shape is more than a match to the monkey shape.
(no spoilers, please)
SomeDude
August 21, 2024 at 11:13 pmIt seems they messed up one of the two, but the drugging and its effectiveness probably did them in. We also don’t know what the drug they used does, I can understand the skepticism though.
Collectr
August 18, 2024 at 10:52 pmThe show is only twenty episodes, so they skipped 6+ weeks to end at the season boundary.
Perhaps it was the hiatus, but it feels like the show has taken an enormous left turn. Economy of plots implies that the drug Sagecap and the emergence of killer ape transformers are connected, but so far, Karasu is generating more threads than it is resolving. Are five episodes enough to tie everything up? Or will viewers be left dangling, waiting for (or hoping for) a second group of episodes?
Nicc
August 20, 2024 at 6:06 amThis show was back, then went on hiatus again due to the Summer Olympics, and now it’s back again. I wonder what kinds of sports Wakamiya and Yukiya would enjoy watching.
Right, the show has been out of the spotlight for long time, but to me it didn’t miss a beat. Indeed, the show was the same way too with no recaps from the previous episode a while back. They are face-to-face with that monkey, but Wakamiya knows how to handle himself and takes it out. They look to find any survivors, but all they see is carnage. There’s blood and dead bodies everywhere. Wakamiya looks into some barrels. We’re not shown or told what he sees, but that comes up later on. Yukiya seems to find a survivor, but he quickly changes into a monkey and Wakamiya has to rescue him. The monkey seemed to understand Wakamiya to a certain degree. They do eventually find an unharmed survivor when they come across an unconscious Koume inside a chest. As the only surviving witness, she’s brought in.
Wakamiya heads back to Central while Yukiya is left behind. Back at Central, Wakamiya unilaterally summons all of the lords and ministers for a meeting. Now. The severed head of one of those monkeys certainly woke everybody up. He explains that they can take human shape and look just like them. Thus, he’s going to send out the army to the countryside and to focus on isolated villages like the one he just visited. Once again, I’m always fascinated about what isn’t shown. Wakamiya is calling the shots and the lords and ministers treat it like a direct order from the emperor. It seems that’s he running the show now, minus the formalities.
Back at Taruhi, Koume finally wakes up and there are a lot of questions for her to answer. Right, it’s Yukiya who asks the tough questions. And there are a whole of them when it comes to the monkeys. We see Natsuka doing his own research and he can’t find anything in the history of Yamauchi that can offer up any clues. This is brand-new territory. What we know so far is they can disguise as humans, they have tremendous strength and have a certain degree of intelligence. The barrels that Wakamiya saw were men being preserved to eat later. The women and children are eaten fresh, yikes. A big question for Koume to answer if she’s even a raven to begin with and that’s why she’s tied up and put in a cage. Right, her story doesn’t give many clues as she was unconscious for the important parts. It’s shown later that she does transform into a raven and so at least that question is answered. Her father is missing (Most likely dead, yeah) and so his family takes her in for the time being.
Being protective of his family as he is, he doesn’t really trust her. Frankly, it’s hard to blame the guy. Outwardly, Asebi seemed like a “nice girl” until she revealed herself to be more demon than raven. He’s probably still has leftover trauma from that. And, right, it’s also he’s not used to dealing with girls his age. In the meantime, there’s something afoot in the Ravine. Just what does the sagecap have anything to do with this? I’m glad to have this show back again on my Saturday schedule.