Nick and Steve dive into the political intrigue of supernatural crow people and discover one of the best anime airing right now.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.
YATAGARASU: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master, The Apothecary Diaries, Raven of the Inner Palace, and The Twelve Kingdoms are currently streaming on Crunchyroll, while Ōoku: The Inner Chambers is available on Netflix.
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Nick
Hey there Steve, tell me, have you heard?
Steve
Nick, I can honestly say that I have not.
You gotta be kidding me! Everybody's heard! About the Bird! Everybody knows that the bird is the word!
If you ask me, that's absurd.
Absurd that more people aren't watching Yatagarasu, I mean.
Trust me, if they're reading this column, they've heard. Our coworkers and boss have been just shy of evangelists for the show for weeks now. They literally just recorded an unscheduled podcast episode just to talk about it.
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.
It's probably just victory wine. You know how those wacky, wealthy nobles just love to drink!
Wish I could look so dignified sitting in my office chair with a scotch on the rocks.
So yeah, in case anyone here hasn't made time for A Court of Crows and Ravens, Yatagarasu is the latest in a mini-trend of courtly dramas, all built around the conflict, intrigue, and mystery of semi-fictional palace life. This one just happens to have more bird murders. Birder, if you will.
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!
On the one hand, that would most certainly raise the average for any given anime season. On the other hand, that would be my personal hell. As much as I enjoy the intrigue of these types of shows, they can be miserable for me, particularly because I'm terrible at keeping track of names in general, especially names from my non-native language where half the characters have the same clothes and haircut. The only reason I'm here to cover this show today is thanks to the kind souls at NHK who have complete character list with profiles and everything.
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.
I don't know, man. Ever since reviewing The Twelve Kingdoms, I spontaneously convulse when people get multiple names and titles.
Look, it's basic math: the more important you are, the more names you have. You collect them. Like Pokémon.
The point is, series like this come with at least a minor speedbump at the start, which is why I suspect the most popular ones are those that eschew the stuffy politicking for something else. Yatagarasu manages to work because it has two parallel narratives with different mysteries that bleed into one another. Meanwhile, The Apothecary Diaries has moé Walter White.
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.
True, Yatagarasu is full of people digging their talons and beaks into the fetid flesh of courtly life, while Maomao wants nothing more than to stay the hell out of that business for her own good. Yet I think they have a real kinship in how they both readily recognize the cruelty of their systems.
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.
That's the part that hooked me the most. All the conniving and veiled threats in the palace are engaging, and they flesh out the cast in important ways, but Yukiya's outsider perspective gave me a foothold.
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.
He's a great audience surrogate since he's the one character who absolutely does not want to be mixed up in all this. We learn later on that there are a lot of personal reasons behind that, but for much of this first part, he's the snarky kid standing to the side and mouthing, "What the f*ck???" as all this bird business goes down.
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 also excellently produced, which is much more important than you might think. While there's sparingly little action, a lot of effort is spent on smaller but no less momentous sequences. Asebi's koto playing sticks out for just how well it captures the ethereal beauty of her performance. I've seen/heard a lot of koto playing in anime, but this is one of the only times it's stuck in my brain afterward.
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 direction really sells it all. Along with keeping each episode engaging even as we wait weeks for things to pay off, it just sells the sense of place and emotional intensity of any given scene. You can sense when a character is holding something back and be aware of everything not being said in any given dialogue. That's all important because if you don't have that level of atmosphere, you get Ōoku: The Inner Chambers.
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.
I don't even really mean the quality of the art. Yatagarasu's direction is always sharp and motivated, so even episodes of people talking in different rooms are engrossing. Ōoku always had the energy of a daytime soap opera, and it dragged a lot. Even crazy scenes, like an old lady threatening a monk to get his dick wet, felt dull.
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.
Most importantly, it backs up all that pomp and circ*mstance with some really well-done storytelling. It's excellent at laying out breadcrumbs, which only makes sense considering all the corvidae.
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.
Hell yeah, let's get into the most important and controversial plot twist in the whole show: Masuho's haircut.
HUGE glow-up.
I dunno; I think she needs to get into the salon and have it touched up before I can make a call. Maybe she should try bangs.
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.
Good for her. I'm really glad she got that moment of self-actualization and that no other big events happened immediately before or after!
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.
It's wild because so much of the drama with the potential consorts has been veiled behind innuendo and implication. The Prince and Yukiya's storyline is always active and moving things forward, but it was weeks before we started understanding anything beyond the surface for the ladies. Yukiya would be out there fighting for his life. Meanwhile, there's a huge fight among the ladies-in-waiting over the name of an instrument. Now, BOOM, everything's coming to a head.
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 mean, it seems like somebody forgot they're a goddamn bird person and dying from a fall. I hope she had a very private funeral, or else that lady was going to get roasted even before the cremation.
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 pretty fun. There were multiple moments where I'd forget that everyone on screen can turn into a giant corvid and get shook by one of them going Crow Mode. I especially love that there are levels of presentability about it, like how if you wear your magically appearing Feather Robes, it's the equivalent of showing up to work in your gym sweats.
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.
It even ties into the mysteries, like the intruder who dies in bird form and thus is nearly impossible to identify. I sure hope there aren't any wild double-bluffs or emotional meltdowns over that!
All's well that ends well! Shiratama only went a little knife-crazy in the interim. No harm, no foul.
Some very harmed fowls, though.
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.
What I especially like about Shiratama's story is how that freak out isn't just an "oh, she's kind of messed up" moment but a perfect example of how the demands of courtly life and noble lineage have wrecked her sense of self. Shiratama isn't some crazy monster but a woman who's had her existence whittled down since childhood and who's finally reached a breaking point.
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.
Eh, not everyone is that complicated. Like, Asebi's just there to have everything explained for the audience's benefit. Otherwise, with how little she has going on, she might as well be a lamp that's very good at string instruments.
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.
So yeah, if anyone was wondering why Lynzee and James convened an emergency podcast to yell about this, it's because nearly everyone watching this show has been waiting/hoping for some kind of twist with Asebi. This doe-eyed damsel has gosh-darned and gee-willikered her way through the entire season, so the reveal that she might have been orchestrating a whole different conspiracy from behind the scenes is bonkers.
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'm really interested to see how it develops this part of her story. Some folks are probably expecting an Ace Attorney-style meltdown, but I hope it turns out Asebi really was as innocent as she seems and just took all the skullduggery as part of the game. It'd emphasize how even "innocent" minds can be contorted to fit the toxic conformity of the system.
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.
It's nice to have a show like this to look forward to, especially considering how I've struggled with some of its contemporaries. You briefly mentioned Raven of the Inner Palace, and as much as I tried to get into that show, something in the early episodes just never clicked with me.
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.
Of the recent crop, I'd give it and Apothecary Diaries the biggest recs. They have very different structures and tones, but both approach similar ideas from different paths.
However, only Yatagarasu has sage words about social media usage.
So ahead of her time and so right.
