Anime: Karasu wa Aruji o Erabanai

Last year, there was an alternative history royal palace political drama, which took me by surprise with its characters and world building.

No it wasn’t Kusuriya no Hitorigoto, which I dropped because it seemed too semi-episodic and lighthearted to match my expectations of it, nor was Koukyuu no Karasu either, as I did not watch that one yet, and it is usually referred as the worse Kusuriya, imagine that.

It was Oooku, which although it had a not very good first episode, and relied more on its setting, plot elements and characters than an actually good story, it was overall pretty good.

This year I heard about this anime expecting something similar, and just like with Kusuriya no Hitorigoto, the tone seemed very lighthearted and made me drop the show, but only for its first three episodes.

After that it becomes exactly what I wanted, and even better than Oooku, even if I enjoyed that other show more. Basically, the world building here is as good, but it is not established by flashbacks but rather actual plot progression, and there is a lot more story in here.

What makes Yatagarasu good is all the political schemes in it, and how every character act about them, both as perpetrators or affected people. And the best thing is how the initially seemingly unrelated plot elements such as the succession and choosing a bride, end up making a coherent and tightly tied whole.

Despite being low on action and having lots of talking, the show does have tension and suspense as expected from a political show such as this. Schemes, betrayals, negotiations, alliances, murders, assassination and coup d’état attempts, everything needed is here and is presented with a proper pacing to have the plot moving forward at every moment.

On execution, the series builds up and anticipates practically everything so nothing comes off as a copout, though perhaps it needed to show a bit more the line of the thoughts of the characters for the resolutions to feel resolved in a completely satisfying way.

Speaking of characters, it is not that the series lacks in characterization either. They seem to be archetypes at first but everyone ends up having a different personality and hidden dark secrets and objectives than it seemed at first. They have different tasks imposed on them by the different palaces and other authorities, almost all of them have their backdrop stories revealed, and are subverted in one way or another, feel the psychological pressure of what’s happening, and most get a catharsis and end up helping in the second arc.

Said arc raises the stakes even higher by having the political conflict affecting not only the royal palace but the setting as a whole, as the crow people get brutally attacked by monkey monsters, and the political relationships with the underground is about to crumble. It even introduces a big twist in the setting to the point that the show can’t be labeled as historical anymore, as it turns it into a Yomi no Tsugai kind of situation.

Possible negative aspects include how no one really develops, as most of them are already adults and established when the series begins so they don’t go under any major change, and several times their backstories are told more than shown. And I have to say that I wished to see what actually happened to the antagonists, which is not really shown, or at least not completely.

Oh and the mastermind and actual villain of the second arc isn’t really revealed until the end of the show, making that character lack both presence and fleshing, which the rest did have, coming as off as lacking compared to everyone else.

Then there is Yukiya the co-protagonist, who despite being shown as having a lot of potential, ends up constantly lacking in his role in the story. I mean, for him to not know a lot of stuff makes sense, as he wasn’t initially inside the palace, and that way he provides the author the perfect excuse for having the rest of the cast explaining stuff to him for the audience to know about.

But other than that, he mostly messes up, his line of thinking to keep up with the schemes and what the others expect of him to do are not fully shown properly, he kind of changes perspectives, as he decides to be loyal to the Kin’u and protect his land at the end of the show, but he doesn’t go through much change in his personality to fully feel like he developed in any significant way as of yet.

And of course the show is not complete yet, there is more story to be covered on sequels, yet I won’t really count that as a big flaw, as the ending of the series felt like an appropriate point to stop it until more comes out.

Oh and the presentation is on par with the writing as well. The character designs are simple, there isn’t much motion to lose your head over, but the rest from the artwork, the backgrounds, and the special effects are very well done. Especially the latter knew how to show different times of the day with changes in illumination, which modern anime in general lack. That gave the show a more thrilling mood, which it needed at times, and reminded me a bit of some retro times in the medium.

The sound effects are very well done and immersive and the music is really good except for the generic and upbeat opening which seem to belong in another series. The ending on the other hand sounds like a classic Japanese song combined with some strings, which gave it a very epic and grandiose feel more fitting for this anime. I was even surprised by the voice acting, because the seiyuus are all different from the ones I thought they were, thus most of them brought an atypical performance.

Bottom line, the setting is interesting, the world building is well done, the story and plot progress properly and more seriously and with higher stakes that it seemed at the beginning, the characters are a lot richer than they initially seemed to be, and the presentation is on par with everything else. Out of all the royal palaces political dramas in anime I’ve watched so far, this one is the best for me as of yet, and now I want more of it just like I am waiting for more Oooku. One of the best and more underwatched shows of the year in my opinion.