For a story about giant, shape-shifting three-legged ravens, YATAGARASU: The raven does not choose his master had surprisingly little actual magic. It was so understated that I was shocked to see Nazukihiko (whose name I embarrassingly only finally remembered this week) shooting magical arrows at a breach in the physical barrier between Yamauchi and the outside world this week. The wisteria arrows transform cracks in the barrier into wisteria vines and branches, thus preventing what Yukiya considers to be “ghost fire” from shining into the ravens’ territory. “Ghost fire” implies a supernatural explanation for the blue lights, but given the description that they are part of the outside world, we have to ask: are they truly supernatural, or are they the only explanation Yukiya, who has lived his entire life in the closed Heian-esque world of Yamauchi, can reasonably come up with?

This is an interesting question that should have far-reaching implications for the story. Yukiya notes that he is familiar with the distortion effect he experiences when approaching the barrier before we see him falling off a mountainside, so he has been to the border regions before. Nazukihiko says that any Yatagarasu who leaves Yamauchi can never return, but there is a very real possibility that Yukiya did– and if he could, then perhaps there are others who could. It follows that the sagehead or whatever created the wereapes could have come from humans smuggled across the border, a thought that also occurred to the prince, although he rejected the idea that it was aone make the crossing. But that doesn’t rule out the possibility that someone might pass an object across, or that there might be a crossing that the prince doesn’t know about… perhaps underground.

Underground is an entirely separate kingdom within Yamauchi, founded by people so terrible that even Ravine didn’t want them. That was at least half a century ago, and now there’s a ruler and a non-aggression pact with the rest of the Ravens, though it turns out that’s on somewhat shaky ground now. It seems possible that Ravine is now the de facto barrier between Yamauchi and Underground. If we put the pieces of Koume’s father’s career together, it might actually paint a picture of a very porous border. I agree with Yukiya that she doesn’t trust Koume at all – everything she says and does seems very calculated, and the look on her face as she ran through her family home in Center wasn’t that of someone hoping to find her lost father: it was that of someone determined to make all evidence of his return disappear. As she tells Yukiya, her father’s disappearance means she has the opportunity to start over – and something about the way she says it makes it seem like she might have itself into this box with a sleeping pill to get some distance from him. Or maybe it was always the plan for them to break up and she’s afraid of what his return might mean for her comfortable new life.

She’s also foolish enough to believe that everything is going according to plan. Yukiya has seen through her, but Hamayu, now the Kin’u’s wife, isn’t fooled either – and she seems to agree with Yukiya’s assessment. Keeping Koume at court with her as a lady-in-waiting may be an underhanded 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 underground, Koume has no reason to believe her plans won’t work.

How will this all work? Maybe we should ask Alice.

Evaluation:

YATAGARASU: The raven does not choose his master is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.