Buckle up, there’s a lot to unpack this episode!
Let’s start with the follow up to Raiju’s bombshell. While the Ayakashi King has stripped Odanna of his position as Hachiyo and has nominated Raiju to take over, there’s a clause where one cannot lose their position as Hachiyo based on just that. It also requires the certification seal of all of the eight Haichiyo to whether the individual remain on that position or not. However the reason why Raiju is so confident Odanna will never return is because somehow, he found out that Odanna has been hiding his true form all this time, and unmasked him at the imperial court in front of the Ayakashi King. And the problem? Turns out whatever Odanna’s true form is, it is serious taboo.
GOODNESS! To think I mused in last week’s entry: What is it about his true identity that Aoi would hate about him? He keeps going on about ‘being an Ogre after-all’, so what’s beyond that? What’s worse than being that? Is it something else entirely, or does it have to do with his history?’
Well gee, his very existence being a taboo was not on my bingo card!
Considering his very existence is so shunned upon that it’s freaking taboo, it’s honestly no wonder he has such low self-esteem, and it also explains A LOT why he felt so certain and scared that Aoi would come to hate him too. On top of that, now we can see there was an even deeper underlining reason why Odanna would go on about being an Ogre! What he was really referring to was was his true form. And considering Ogres in general are considered among the worsts, if not the worst Ayakashi of them all. It could explain a lot why Odanna specifically chosen to take on a form as such.
Oh and as if that wasn’t sad enough, this also further explains what Odanna meant when he said: If he were to ever lose the position as Tenjin-ya’s Hachiyo, then he wouldn’t have any place to go. He wasn’t exaggerating, in fact it’s just so much worse than we had originally thought. He literally has nowhere he could belong in the Hidden Realm because his existence is a taboo!
So what could he possibly be to be considered a taboo? Well, the only two things that come to mind at to moment is that maybe he’s some infamous legendary ayakashi that many feared before the Hachiyo system was established… Or maybe be of an existence similar to the likes of Umi-Bouzu. They had been long misunderstood due a combination of their form before purification, and the consequences Orio-ya faced when they fail to conduct the ceremony. So I half wonder maybe Odanna is something similar where he doesn’t quite belong, or maybe he’s from a different realm entirely.
But there’s one thing we do know about Odanna’s youth at least. When they had visited the ruins in Orio-ya (S1E20), he mentioned that he grew up in an environment of dense miasma, which is was why he could tolerate it better than others. And now today, we learned a bit about the violent era of the Hidden Realm that led to the creation of the Hachiyo system. The imagery seems to suggest, due to the chaos, the miasma was incredibly overwhelming at the time, and among the insurgents, and interestingly, has ogres being depicted as the violent insurgents. This makes me wonder if Odanna actually has been around for that long, and perhaps it was because of that era is why he decided to use an Ogre’s form to conceal his true identity.
So what was do we know about the catalyst that prompted the creation of the Hachiyo system? I found this was the most interesting bit of the episode. Over a thousand years ago, the ayakashi King at the time didn’t have much power and insurgents were causing chaos in the hidden realm. So in hopes to establish (or restore) peace and order, they decided to divide up the land into eight regions surrounding Youto, and each would be ruled by a powerful yokai.
Since then, they were successful and each of these regions have become an economic boon. Thanks to that and the heavy taxes from each of the region, this has made the nobles in Youto extremely wealthy. However, the nobles are no longer like the system and seek to abolish it, all because they are displeased at the thought of the Hachiyo gaining more power and influence over them. The new system they want to replace it with have the wealth of all of these lands be under control of the ayakashi king. Thus, we’re now seeing a new power struggle emerging between the two.
Of course not all nobles are behind this push, and even the ayakashi king himself was said to be reluctant about it… That’s why Odanna had been called the capital to consult him on this issue. But that all changed when Raiju unmasked Odanna, and the king threw him into prison and is said to be now leaning towards abolition.
So this makes me think of two possibles of what’s going on behind the scenes.
Number one: With the way Odanna had been speaking to Ao, the decision to kiss her at that moment when she assured him that no matter what he is, she would not hate him for it, and then choice to entrust her the obsidian key before he left, really made it feel like he knew he wouldn’t be coming back– at least any time soon. After-all, even Aoi could sense something was amiss, and knew she needed to follow up in that moment. For that reason, I have a strong suspicion that Odanna had somehow gotten the wind of Raiju’s plans beforehand, and knew the moment he stepped into the imperial court, he’d be walking into a trap.
But man… if were to be the case, it must’ve been both gut-wrenching but also bittersweet in a way knowing that Aoi vowed to trust him.
The second reason, I’m a lot more skeptical of, is based on how close Odanna and the ayakashi king are. For all we know the King may even already know what Odanna’s true form is, and this is them actually pulling a stunt to fool the opposing nobles. Heck, what if they were the ones to secretly leaked that information to Raiju? But considering Odanna REALLY doesn’t want Aoi to see or learn about his true form, I don’t think this is really the case here.
Since nobody knew what had happened to Odanna beyond his demotion, Byakuya had taken charge of Tenjin-ya by getting everyone organized. (Also we must thank him for kicking Raiju’s ass, literally. I had forgotten how much Raiju hates him haha, but I digress). The plan is to take advantage of the Tenjin-ya’s Seika-maru’s night flight program by using it as a cover to discreetly travel back and forth between Tenjin-ya and Youto. Since Byakuya used to be one of the ayakashi king’s chief statesmen at the Imperial Court, he’ll personally go to Youto to investigate since he has the connections to do so. Meanwhile, Aoi has been instructed to cook food for the event, which later turned out to be a way to sneak her to Nuinoin and Ritsuko’s castle. Besides the fact they are their only allies in the imperial court at the moment, Ritsuko’s also taken advantage of this opportunity to give Aoi a legitimate pretense to be there since he needs her help anyways. So thanks to that Aoi will be in care of Ritsuko. In the mean time, they’ll have Ai will serve as Aoi’ double at Tenjin-ya in order to not tip off Raiju, or anyone else who might be involved in this mess.
Frankly the food truck thing felt a bit glossed over, but it did serve its purpose. Being there meant Aoi got the meet the pink ayakashi (presumed to be the King). Though truth to be told, I’m half wondering if we’ll actually see it be used in a more pragmatic way should Aoi suddenly find herself needing to take a road trip to the other seven regions (since Orio-ya has been ticked off that list). In-fact, it looks like she’ll likely be heading to Land of Literature sooner than later. And the potential reason for that, is because of the ayakashi prince’s concubine is currently being treated there, which leads to the next development.
The reason why Ritsuko has requested Aoi’s assistance is in order to help the king’s grandson Takechiyo be able to eat properly. Despite Takechiyo’s mother being the prince’s concubine, as the first born child, he was originally set to be the heir to the crown. But as soon as the prince’s wife had a child of her own, despite being the eldest one, not only did they rescind his role as the heir and pass it to second child. As result, both Takechiyo and his mother were cast aside by those around them. And to make matters worse, because his mother is so heartbroken about it, she can’t bring herself to eat and is now hospitalized in the Land of Literature (Kasuga’s home). Now we’re seeing Takechiyo doing the same thing, having a difficult time motivating himself to eat because he feels like he had been abandoned by everyone, including his parents. That’s why the King asked Nuinoin (his cousin) and Ritsuko to take care of him in hopes to help him. Talk about a royal mess!
With that said, we now know what Aoi needs to do now. Earlier in the episode, we saw a pink haired man in a disguise visit Aoi’s food truck. Since we saw he has matching eyes with Takechiyo, I think we can confidently say the one he was referring to when he said: “I wonder if he would eat this”, was in fact Takechiyo. This is where Aoi’s cooking can help ayakashi open their hearts will come into play. By helping Takechiyo, she will form a crucial connection with the king, to help get her foot in the door when it comes to rescuing Odanna!
Overall, although it was just a tad overwhelming with how quickly we were getting information, I did enjoy this episode a lot. It was also really nice to see Ritsuko again. She’s so nice, and I loved that we had a moment where she was being that mother figure for Aoi when it comes to talking about love. Aoi’s not convinced yet that she’s in love, but Ritsuko can see how much her feelings has changed, and did a great job of giving her advice on how to cope with it without making it feel overwhelming in any way! I was also really happy to see the animation quality was sooooooo much better than it had been for the past two episodes. It gives me hope that they’ll push for the good quality when it covers the important parts!
