YATAGARASU: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master

Episode 20

Yatagarasu has known what it was doing from the beginning. While we may not have fully suspected Koume because of the twist from the first arc, where Asebi turned out to be, as they used to say, no better than she should be, it still laid the groundwork for the reveal of the true villain in Koume's mother Hatsune. Evil didn't lurk this time behind an innocent face, but a beautiful one, with her thorns disguised by the roses of her appearance and expensive wardrobe. The moment Koume stepped into her mother's house and we saw all of those gorgeous, costly kimono – which Hatsune appeared to be collecting rather than wearing, so as not to blow her cover – it was clear precisely who had been behind everything. Jihei took the time to hide his daughter, after all, and to make sure that his deeds couldn't rebound on her after his death. Hatsune left her child behind, which says that she never did care much about her.

Is Hatsune truly evil? The story leaves room for us to think about that. She was, she tells Koume, sold off by her father at age thirteen to cover his gambling debts, and she had zero compunctions about selling young women to the flesh-hungry monkeys in return for more expensive products to sell. She perhaps left not when things were becoming too difficult but when she felt her business interests could be better served by some distance; she became Jihei's, and the monkeys', broker by moving north. Having never felt loved or helped, she figured that the only person who could help her was herself, an accusation she levels at the elder prince. He has to care about the welfare of all yatagarasu? Please. Where was he when she needed help? That's a pretty lie the nobles tell themselves, as far as Hatsune is concerned, while the everyday ravens are left without a wing to shelter beneath.

She may not be entirely wrong. As we've seen in this arc, there's a huge, horrible gap between the court ravens, the hill ravens, and the ravens who live on the socioeconomic fringes in the ravine and underground. Some have learned how to fend for themselves and levy what they have into a form of power. But others, like Hatsune? She's been forced to make one terrible, selfish decision after another based on her perception that if she didn't, she'd die. She truly believes that she was backed into a corner she never should have been in.

But she's also wrong about all of the royals talking out of both sides of their mouths. Nazukihiko, the kin'u, truly cares about his subjects, never mind their social status. As Tamayu explains to Yukiya, the reason why he isthe kin'u is he cannot kill another yatagarasu. When he turned his sword around to throw it hilt-first and hit the raving bird with his scabbard, he was doing it because he couldn't kill him. That's why he has guards and retainers, although we could argue that they also keep a check on his worst impulses, although he seems to go and do whatever he wants to. Maybe that's another trait of the kin'u. As the yatagarasu among yatagarasu, he is charged with their care and protection. He tells Yukiya in the end that he was born with the power to repair the barrier because it was needed, and by personally engaging with events in his kingdom, he's doing much the same thing. And as we see when he symbolically shelters Yukiya beneath his wing, each raven he interacts with is akin to a wisteria arrow fired at a cracking barrier: a step taken to shore up his world and to keep it safe from outside predators. But he's only one man, and as Hatsune demonstrates, his protective wing cannot shelter everyone.

The human world, with its ghost fire electric lights to keep away the superstitions that live in the dark, is encroaching upon Yamauchi. There's no guarantee that Yukiya can keep the kin'u safe, or that Nazukihiko can see his people through this threat. But both of them are determined to try. I hope we get more seasons or an English translation of the novels to see how their journey continues.

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