This Week in Anime

Yatagarasu Is the Anime to Watch Right Now

Steve
Nick, I can honestly say that I have not.

If you ask me, that's absurd.

Absurd that more people aren't watching Yatagarasu, I mean.

If there were ever a week that necessitated that, it's this one! I suggested this column topic before we even got the landmine of an episode that just detonated, so chalk that up to fortunate timing. Yatagarasu has spent most of the season as a slow burn with a lot of buzz, but now it's more akin to a raging fire with fans screaming left and right in shock and delight. It's the perfect time to hop aboard, catch up, and look at all the pretty kimonos.


Don't worry about the blood in that last one.

Wish I could look so dignified sitting in my office chair with a scotch on the rocks.

Weirdly, though, it's not the only recent imperial court drama to feature corvidae in its title. We can thank Raven of the Inner Palace for blazing that trail. Add on top of that last year's Ōoku adaptation and the popular Apothecary Diaries, and you've got what looks like a pattern. Does this mean I foresee palace intrigue supplanting the isekai onslaught in the coming anime seasons? One can hope!

That's a hump I've suffered in the past, but I think I managed to smooth it out by reading The Tale of the Heike epic while following The Heike Story anime. Somewhere amongst the litany of ministers and nobles with multiple slightly different titles, things clicked and rewired my brain. I recommend it! But it's also really cool and considerate of this production to have that guide, especially when the first episode throws one or two dozen names at you.

Look, it's basic math: the more important you are, the more names you have. You collect them. Like Pokémon.

I'm still not fully caught up with Better Call Maomao, but its early episodes make for a hilarious comparison. The setting, in that case, is more or less secondary to the poison gremlin and her medical mysteries—pretty straightforward stuff. Meanwhile, Yatagarasu dunks you in the deep end of an ongoing political struggle that only grows knottier. They might share a lot of genre signifiers, but their approaches diverge immediately.

That's the crux of everything when it comes to these court dramas. As modern authors and audiences, we instinctively latch onto their dearth of liberty—a monarchy sustained by the subjugation of everyone from its nobility to its peasants. What I especially like about Yatagarasu is how it hones onto the system itself as its own self-sustaining prison. Even the crown prince, destined to be the most powerful figure in Yamauchi, is but a cog fixed in that machine, and he spends the vast majority of his effort fighting against those machinations as best he can.

Man, I love Yukiya. I may be biased toward any character introduced by getting the snot kicked out of him, but Yukiya really earns his place as the heart of the story.

It's also where you can see Yatagarasu's narrative structure shine. If you find the Cherry Blossom Palace side of things too dry, you've got Yukiya's loud mouth and the Prince's wacky schemes to raise your spirits. If you think the boys are too boisterous, then you have the subtler mind games and intense melodrama of the prospective consorts. And if you like both sides, then every episode is a treat.

It's a gorgeous show! I was initially surprised to see Yoshiaki Kyougoku at the helm since I know him best as Laid-Back Camp's original director. Cup noodles and campfires are a far cry from murder plots and double-crosses. But you can see the continuity in the amount of polish this production gives to Yatagarasu. The storyboards, colors, composition, compositing, and so on are consistently excellent and evocative.

The main draw of these court dramas is the byzantine plots stretched over a long time and large cast, so Ōoku's strong conceit and writing let the anime get away with a lot. But I'd say the pageantry is an integral part of their appeal, too. As much as we might admonish these systems for their practices, their aesthetics are engrossing. I love to look at ornate kimonos and austere architecture framed by natural beauty. And, to your point, Yatagarasu often finds intelligent ways to compose these scenes, for example, utilizing the hugeness of the Cherry Blossom Palace to emphasize the loneliness of its denizens.

Meanwhile, Yatagarasu consistently throws stunners left and right. It can be quiet, moody, bloody, and melodramatic. In all cases, it pulls you into the screen.

They've even got a third leg to help pick up all those tasty morsels. And for good reason, because you'll need all of your appendages and faculties to follow along with how deep these schemes go.

And I guess we can get into spoiler territory now. If you haven't watched the show—and you should want to watch it now because we've done a bang-up job selling it—then proceed at your own peril. But seriously, check it out. It's the spring season's dark horse. Or dark raven. I mean, they call some ravens in this show horses, but we don't need to get into all that.

HUGE glow-up.

Hey, considering she did it on the spot, with a knife, and as a symbol of her realization that she'd rather choose the shackles of a monastic life than be bound forever to the petty politicking and depersonalization of the ruling class, I give her a thumbs up.

It's legit insane how many plot twists and payoffs they squeezed into this week's episode. Recent episodes have been rife with equivalent developments, but their sheer concentration here is like a gigantic exhalation of air after holding one's breath for 11 weeks.

To be fair, the ladies had some light homicide going on as well. But that, too, we're finding out, wasn't what it seemed.

I love that Yatagarasu is, like, 85% just ordinary imperial intrigue you'd find in any other Japanese regime at the time and 15% about humans who can transform into big birds on the fly. Entire episodes can go by without reminding you of that. But the balance feels right to me—just a dash of crow people.

It's another place where the worldbuilding shines, because all of the crow stuff, while subtle, is inexorably integrated into all aspects of life in Yamauchi, like how the Cherry Blossom Palace is built wayyy high up, only accessible by crow carriages. Or the believably confusing distinction between kin'u as a political position and kin'u as a literal golden raven.

All's well that ends well! Shiratama only went a little knife-crazy in the interim. No harm, no foul.

I won't lie, the screencaps of Shiratama going full-on Dear Brother melodrama mode are what got me to pick up the series finally. And then it treated me with none other than Rie Kugimiya delivering those dulcet mindbroken tones. This show is just one delight after another.

Yeah, basically every character is a nuanced product of their environment—specifically, the literally cutthroat environment of royalty. Merely existing in that world is tantamount to both hurting and being hurt. That's what ultimately bonds Yukiya and the Prince together since they're both brilliant and capable scions who realize that playing the fool was their best chance at minimizing the damage inevitably left in their wake.

It kind of seems like an oversight not to provide the other audience with a surrogate for her sense of compelling interiority, but I suppose no story is flawless. I mean, it's not like Yatagarasu would keep emphasizing her simplistic naivety just to pull the rug out from us at the most dramatic moment possible.

It's so great. Like, she felt off all season, but I didn't know how or if Yatagarasu could construct a heel turn that wouldn't seem silly. And to be frank, we haven't gotten through all of it yet, so the jury is still out. But I'm super glad they're going there. It feels right. Like, all season, you have characters saying that the East House is known for their craftiness, and all of these seemingly disconnected events have come together to prop up Asebi as the default consort candidate, so the narrative has been laying the groundwork all this time.

I concur. The writing and its twists have consistently subverted my expectations for the better, so I trust Yatagarasu to do something interesting with this. And let's not forget that the anime will continue airing into next season, so this isn't even the climax. We've got more crow craziness waiting in the wings.

I haven't seen that one myself, so I'll throw in Chris and Nicky's column for reference. But yeah, of this recent batch of court dramas, I've vibed the hardest with Yatagarasu. It's a classically constructed story that respects my time and intelligence, and that's an increasingly rare find in anime. I'm glad to have it.

However, only Yatagarasu has sage words about social media usage.

So ahead of her time and so right.