The phrase “never a dull moment” could have been invented for Karasu wa Aruji o Erabanai. I’ve pretty much resigned myself to the agony of it being over after next week. I have experience with the ultimate example of that pain, Seirei no Moribito (a series with which Yatagarasu – and very little else – has much in common). It took over a decade for the entirely of that series to finally be translated (most of it by a fan) and as far as I know there’s no translation of the novels happening here at all. The manga is being translated – for now – but it’s miles behind the novels.
It’s the anime or bust if one wants to know where this story goes, then. And nothing else scratches that itch – anime in this category come around only every few years if we’re lucky. The Koume storyline seems to be what the series is going to wrap with (though if she and Yukiya are a thing, that has a lot more play in itself). That leaves the larger matter of Wakamiya and his ascension – never mind his reign – to the ether. In this sort of story everything is connected of course – “threads” in the truest sense of the word.
Koumei and Jihei’s story has been full of lies and deception from the beginning. But not all lies are created equal, and that’s really the crux of this episode. It was indeed Jihei we saw strung up dead at the end of the last. Koume confirms that, and in the matter of her shock and grief at least she’s genuine. There was a letter with the body, one clearly intended for Nazukihiko and his circle to read. As Rokon says, Tobi and the Underground played them – got them to flush out Jihei so they could take him out themselves. The letter is certainly good theatre – but one suspects (don’t tell Natsuka) it’s not much more than that.
The tale Jihei (voiced by Setsuji Satoh, so brilliant in Dororo – another of the unicorns in this category) spins is certainly riveting. The well literally ran dry, leaving him unable to support his wife and daughter. The former left and the latter went out to work so Jihei could gamble and idle, until one day he got lucky and used his winnings to buy another well. This one turned out to be dry, too, but not empty. After pouring an offering of sake down the well to plead for the Gods to turn the taps back on, Jihei hears a voice (Nakao Ryuusei) thanking him for the drink. And a little bag of bones comes flying out of the well, along with instructions to take it to a physician.
I have no doubt there are elements of truth in Jihei’s tall tale, written as he surely knew he was likely to be killed. The incident with the well and the bones probably happened just as he describes it, and up to a certain point the chain of events he recounts is probably accurate. But clearly, Jihei intends to try and paint himself as the sole perpetrator of what happened – he’s about to be dead anyway. He’s protecting someone – Nazukihiko sees that clearly, but Yukiya has let all this get too personal and it’s blinded him. The $64,000 question is, who is Jihei protecting?
If Jihei did indeed dose the sake so that his daughter would sleep through the slaughter at Sadou, that lends credence to the notion of her innocence. For the moment Wakamiya chooses to head to the well in question to try and draw out the monkey who seduced Jihei. And it works, more or less. The monkey says he’s been around since all Yatagarasu could do is caw. And that Yamauchi is doomed due to “inconvenient truths” the Yatgarasu have been ignoring (so, global warming?). Wakamiya loses his cool for once and jumps into the well to try and catch the silverback, but fails in the attempt and clearly as far as this well is concerned, the jig is up.
At this point it’s Yukiya’s turn to lose his cool (I liked the prince’s reply when he claimed he was calm – “Have you ever been calm and said that?”) when he finds out Koume has been offered permanent sanctuary by his Hahaue. Again, this is all too personal for him and Yukiya is still so, so young. More than anything he seems to be driven by an almost maniacal devotion to his people, and certainly profound love for his stepmother. And he’s remembered the two moles under Koume’s right eye – moles which an eyewitness described the woman selling sagecap to have.
Koume has been withholding information, that much is certain. But did she know what her father was really doing? Protecting her was certainly part of Jihei’s motive for lying – but it seems he was protecting his estranged wife too, who he apparently brought back to act as his accomplice so as not to directly involve Koume. Of course he wound up doing that anyway, and the lies could extend deep enough to where Koume was complicit in everything. I still don’t think so – maybe she suspected but I don’t think she knew the details.
Once Yukiya confronted her and effectively accused her of being the sagecap dealer – and shared the evidence for it – Koume took off after her mother (yes, moles can be hereditary in some cases), Hatsune (Satou Rina completes the triumvirate of big-time seiyuu introductions this week). Her decision not to accept Azusa’s offer of sanctuary is further suggestion that Koume is largely innocent, but just what she plans to do after confronting her mother – and whether she indeed wanted Yukiya to chase her, as he surmised – is still to be determined. One episode isn’t nearly enough to bring closure to all this of course – but this adaptation has been so superlative that I expect it to deliver as satisfying a conclusion as realistically possible under the circumstances.
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