YATAGARASU: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master

Episode 16

For a story about giant, shape-shifting three-legged ravens, YATAGARASU: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master has had surprisingly little actual magic. It's been so understated that I was shocked to see Nazukihiko (whose name, embarrassingly enough, I just finally memorized this week) shooting magic arrows at a breach in the very physical border between Yamauchi and the outside world this week. The wisteria arrows turn cracks in the barrier into wisteria vines and branches, preventing what Yukiya thinks of as “ghost fires” from shining through into the ravens' territory. “Ghost fires” implies a supernatural explanation for the blue lights but with the description of them being part of the outside world, we need to wonder: are they truly supernatural, or are they the only explanation Yukiya, who has lived in the closed Heian-style world of Yamauchi his whole life, can reasonably come up with?

It's an interesting question and one that stands to have far-reaching implications for the story. Yukiya notes that the warping effect he experiences as he approaches the barrier is familiar before we flash back to him falling off the side of a mountain, so he's been to the border regions before. Nazukihiko says that any yatagarasu who leaves Yamauchi can never return but there's the very real possibility that Yukiya did—and if he could, maybe there are others who have as well. It then follows that the sagecap or whatever created the were-apes could have originated with people trafficking over the border, a thought that occurred to the prince as well, although he's since discounted the idea of anyone making the crossing. But that doesn't rule out someone passing an item across or a crossing that the prince doesn't know about existing… possibly in Underground.

Underground is an entirely separate kingdom within Yamauchi, started by people who were so terrible even the Ravine didn't want them. That was half a century ago at least, and now there's a ruler and a nonaggression pact with the rest of the ravens, although that's revealed to be on somewhat shaky ground now. It seems possible that the Ravine is now the de facto barrier between Yamauchi and Underground. If we put the pieces of Koume's father's career together, that could reveal an image of a very porous border indeed. I'm with Yukiya in not trusting Koume at all—everything she says and does seems very calculated, and her expression as she ran through her family home in Center wasn't someone hoping to find their lost father: it was someone determined to make any evidence of his return disappear. As she says to Yukiya, her father's vanishing means that she has the opportunity to start over—and something about the way she says it makes it look like she may have put herself into that chest with some sleeping medicine to distance herself from him. Or possibly that it was always the plan for them to separate, and she's afraid of what his return could mean for her cushy new life.

She's also foolish enough to think that things are going according to plan. Yukiya's got her number, but Hamayu, now the kin'u's wife, is no one's fool either—and she seems to agree with Yukiya's assessment. Keeping Koume at court with her as a lady-in-waiting may be a sneaky way to force Yukiya back into her husband's service but it's also an opportunity to give Koume the rope to hang herself with. And now that Yukiya is about to follow that metaphorical white rabbit into Underground, Koume's got no reason to assume that her plans won't come to fruition.

How will all of this workout? Perhaps we should go ask Alice.

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YATAGARASU: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.