Stuck the landing.
Let me be clear up front: I never had an expectation that Karasu wa Aruji o Erabanai would get a second season. It’s probably a miracle it ever got made in the first place. So my sadness today isn’t disappointment per se, more something fatalistic. “Sasuga” for anime, and not in a good way. While it’s theoretically possible something could come along down the line, more realistically I’m hoping someone decides to translate the novels (or more unlikely, that they’re licensed in English). That’s the only reason I ever got to see how the Moribito series turned out, and I figure it’s the least unlikely shot with Yatagarasu.
Speaking of Moribito, I can’t help but speak of Moribito. When I compare any anime to it, that’s’s basically the highest compliment I can give. I can count on one hand the number of series since Spring 2012 that have really put me in mind of that one, but Karasu wa Aruji o Erabanai absolutely did. There’s just something majestic and regal about the storytelling, something only really good epic fantasy can deliver in this particular way. You understand that you’re in the presence of greatness here, that you’re not watching something that rolled off the assembly line. Quality always stands out, in any day or age.
The resolution to the Koume affair (well, in the larger sense it’s still unresolved) was an interesting one. It seems that not only was Hatsune involved in the monkey business, she was the ringleader. That doesn’t seem to surprise Koume too much, given what she knows about the personalities of her parents. I suspect she’s idealizing Jihei’s part in all this a bit, but Hatsune makes it clear that she was the one who brokered the initial deal with the monkey in the well. In fact Jihei had no idea what he was transporting on that first business trip.
Jihei unquestionably took the fall by his own choice. Not just to protect his daughter, but to protect said daughter from the knowledge that Hatsune was involved (better to have one parent derided as a murderer than two). The problem is that Koume isn’t the sort to take things at face value, and being suspected herself forced her hand. Hatsune was right that coming to see her alone and unarmed, suspecting what Koume did, was a pretty naive move. Hatsune has romanticized her own role in this to be sure. In her mind she’s some kind of wronged victim just grabbing at what life had denied her. If a few (dozen) yatagarasu had to become monkey food to make that happen, it’s an acceptable price.
Yukiya does indeed come for Koume, just as she suspected he would – even if she had a cynical view of why it would happen. Yukiya has the integrity to be ashamed of having presumed Koume’s guilt, but things are hardly left in a good place between them. A lot better than they would have been otherwise of course, since Yukiya and Nazukihiko stopped Hatsune from strangling her. But Hatsune’s new lover is an even bigger problem, since he’s a sagecap addict and pretty far gone at that. Wakamiya reversing his blade and attacking with the hilt very much takes Yukiya by surprise (the explanation won’t come until later in the episode).
Stabbed by a hairpin would have been a pretty ignominious way for the true Kin’u to go out, but happily the prince survives. Hatsune is unrepentant, pointing out that her fellow yatagarasu were nowhere to be found when her father starting selling her body at 13. Both Yukiya and Sumio blame themselves for what’s happened, but Hamayu is having none of that. She tells Yukiya that it’s literally impossible for Nazukihiko to kill another yatagarasu, so deeply ingrained is his love for them and need to protect them. Also deeply ingrained is his lack of emotion – though I heartily agree with Hamayu that the prince absolutely does feel the same emotions the rest of us do. He’s just got too much responsibility to indulge them.
More and more over the course of the series, it’s become clear just what a huge weight Nazukihiko bears on his shoulders. Yukiya is a very smart and very perceptive boy – this is certainly not lost on him. He comes to understand that the best way he can protect his people whom he loves so dearly is to protect Wakamiya. Only Wakamiya can protect anyone in the end, and Yamauchi needs a whole lot of protecting. But it goes deeper than that. This is a young man who knows something about presenting a false face to the world for the sake of others, about subverting his own feelings for the sake of his people. He sees in the prince a kindred spirit, just as Nazukihiko saw one in him. And what grows between them as a result is a loyalty born of love and respect.
The revelation of just what constitutes Wakamiya’s “ghost fire” is beautiful and terrifying, and it’s executed in an exquisite manner. Yamauchi seems doomed, surely, even if the young price drags himself out of his sickbed and fires his arrows into an encroaching world too massive to comprehend. Yukiya comprehends his smallness beyond any shred of doubt, and he can only pledge himself to Nazukihiko in the humblest manner possible. The bond between them is a beautiful thing – the prince making absolutely clear what that pledge truly means for Yukiya, the boy steadfastly resolving to stay by his side. Such a pledge, freely given, is the only sort of loyalty that Nazukihiko can trust in his situation – and only from someone like Yukiya would such a thing be possible.
Yukiya ending up at the Unbending Reed Monastery after all is an ironic turn at the end of all things. The fate he accepted being the prince’s aide to avoid he now embraces as the best possible way to become worthy of protecting him. It hardly requires keen insight to see all the wealth of possibilities going forth from here, both for character and plot. Such was the case at the end of Seirei no Moribito as well of course, and while we never saw those possibilities realized in anime form, it was nevertheless a thrill to have them revealed to us and a privilege to have been part of the experience.
That’s very much how I feel about Karasu wa Aruji o Erabanai. Series which thrill our imagination like this are why I was drawn to anime in the first place, and I’ll never stop hoping the next one will come along soon, even as I’m grateful for the one that’s just finished. They’re rare as a cool day in a Kyoto summer, but that just makes them that much more precious when they do come around.
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