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For a narrative about big, shape-shifting, three-legged ravens, YATAGARASU: The Raven Does Not Select Its Grasp has surprisingly little precise magic. It’s so understated that I used to be shocked to see Nazukihiko (whose title I solely realized by coronary heart this week, embarrassingly sufficient) firing magical arrows right into a breach within the bodily barrier between Yamauchi and the surface world. The wisteria arrows flip cracks within the barrier into wisteria tendrils and branches, stopping what Yukiya sees as “ghost fires” from shining by the ravens’ territory. “Ghost fires” implies a supernatural clarification for the blue lights, however with the outline of them as a part of the surface world, we’ve got to ask: are they really supernatural, or are they the one clarification Yukiya, who has lived his complete life in Yamauchi’s closed Heian-style world, can fairly give you?
It’s an fascinating query, and one that would have far-reaching implications for the story. Yukiya notes that the warping impact he experiences as he approaches the barrier is acquainted earlier than we flash again to him falling off the facet of a mountain, so he’s been to the borderlands earlier than. Nazukihiko says that any yatagarasu that leaves Yamauchi can by no means return, however there’s a really actual risk that Yukiya did—and if he might, maybe others have achieved so. It follows that the sage cap or no matter created the were-apes might have come from individuals smuggling throughout the border, a thought that additionally occurred to the prince, though he has since dismissed the concept of aAn the crossing. However that does not rule out somebody passing on an object or a crossing that the prince does not know exists… probably in Underground.
Underground is a separate kingdom fully inside Yamauchi, began by individuals so horrible that even the Ravine did not need them. That was no less than half a century in the past, and now there’s a ruler and a non-aggression pact with the remainder of the ravens, although that appears to be on shaky floor now. It appears potential that the Ravine is now the de facto barrier between Yamauchi and Underground. If we had been to place the items of Koume’s father’s profession collectively, it might paint an image of a really porous border. I agree with Yukiya that I do not belief Koume in any respect – every part she says and does appears very calculated, and her expression as she runs by her household residence in Heart was not of somebody hoping to seek out her misplaced father: it was of somebody decided to make all proof of his return disappear. As she tells Yukiya, her father’s disappearance means she has an opportunity to start out over – and one thing about the best way she says it makes it seem to be she himself in that field with some sleeping tablets to distance herself from him. Or perhaps it was at all times the plan for them to interrupt up, and she or he’s afraid of what his return would possibly imply for her snug new life.
She’s additionally silly sufficient to assume that every part goes in keeping with plan. Yukiya has her quantity, however Hamayu, now the kin’u’s spouse, isn’t any idiot both—and she or he appears to agree with Yukiya’s evaluation. Holding Koume at courtroom as a lady-in-waiting could also be a sly approach to pressure Yukiya again into her husband’s service, but it surely’s additionally an opportunity to offer Koume the rope to hold himself. And with Yukiya about to comply with that metaphorical white rabbit into Underground, Koume has no purpose to imagine that her plans gained’t come to fruition.
How will this all work? Possibly we should always ask Alice.
Judgement:
YATAGARASU: The Raven Does Not Select Its Grasp at present streaming on
Crispy bread.
