Autumn 2021 First Impressions – The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Mikado is a bookstore employee with a strange affliction – he has the power to see the dead, and he’s continually haunted by creepy, threatening apparitions. Enter Hiyakawa, an exorcist whose methods are somewhat unconventional. Hiyakawa involves Mikado in an exorcism, which is so intense that it leaves Mikado unconscious. When he awakens, Hiyakawa nearly demands that Mikado come work for him. Their souls happen to be very compatible, he says, and this bodes well for the possibility of combining their powers.

Mikado is apprehensive, because he wants nothing to do with the ghosts he’s been trying to avoid. The actual act of exorcism, however, turns out to be somewhat erotic, and Mikado is eventually won-over. Eventually Hiyakawa is contacted by the local police to aid them in the search for the remains of several missing and murdered women, and Mikado soon learns what sort of power he and Hiyakawa can wield if they allow their souls to combine.

Impressions: The (somewhat unplanned) spooky season first episode spectacular continues with The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window. This series comes at its supernatural subject matter from a decidedly more BL framework, to mixed results. The first episode does an interesting job of taking on some of the typical tropes that I’ve become used to seeing in a lot of BL that’s been adapted to anime – one character is extremely forward, another is more reserved and apprehensive, and their early interactions (sexual or otherwise) are a little more adversarial in flavor than one might hope for in a real-life relationship.

In this case, the mechanics of the characters’ interactions with one-another are somewhat more oblique than simple intercourse (though not by much). Their initial encounters, during which Hiyakawa explains the process of their “souls touching,” is hidden behind a lot of sexual innuendo and turned into a moment of spiritual ecstasy related to exorcism, rather than an actual sexual act. Essentially, Hiyakawa connects with Mikado on a spiritual level and infiltrates his soul to build exorcism power. Though Mikado might be resistant to this connection for various reasons, it’s so pleasurable that he eventually relents to becoming Hiyakawa’s investigation partner. I think it’s pretty obvious to almost any audience what’s actually implied by these situations

There’s… a lot to unpack here, and some of it is pretty off-putting. I’m reminded of the first episode of Kill la Kill, in which heroine Ryuko Matoi is approached by the sentient school uniform Senketsu, who forces himself on to her body. The scene reads like a sexual assault or, at the very least (if you’re insistent on ignoring the gender politics and framing of the scene), a forcible act, which ties into the series’ broader themes of clothing in the series as being emblematic of fascist control. But its availability to be interpreted as important to the thematic construction of the story doesn’t make the scene any less uncomfortable, and one wonders if its central message could have been presented in a slightly different way (and the answer may be “no,” but it’s a question that’s rarely even asked).

In the case of The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window, I doubt that it’s intentionally trying to discuss any “big” ideas using Mikado’s and Hiyakawa’s exorcism interactions; rather, it’s just attempting to tell an interesting and somewhat sexy story, albeit awkwardly and in a way that’s kind of off-putting at first blush. Yet, I have to compliment the fact that it seems to have taken some dusty old tropes and attempted to re-frame them in a way that serves the supernatural nature of the story.

Pros: Having poked around the internet a little bit, it’s obvious that this episode wasn’t a favorite among other reviewers. Generally I tend to skew toward the overall opinion in that regard, but in this case I actually really enjoyed this episode in spite of some of its issues. After thinking about it for a while, I think that it’s because it seems to be unapologetic about its weirdness, and I can appreciate that.

This episode has kind of an odd cadence; the relationship between Mikado and Hiyakawa develops really quickly and Hiyakawa is kind of a weirdo in addition to that, so it managed to throw me off a little bit. However, I think that it falls into a routine fairly quickly, and while the tone is a bit goofy I think I sort of dig it. If I were into calling things “guilty pleasures” (jokes on everyone, I never feel guilty about it), this might be one.

Cons: The early exorcisms read as non-consensual, and Hiyakawa’s strange, steady manner of speaking only adds to the creep factor. I’ve heard that the manga also starts off awkwardly in this way and settles into something a little less uncomfortably sexual after finding its footing, so maybe this won’t be such a huge issue going forward… but if so, it seems odd not to take that into account for an adaptation and make a proactive improvement.

The episode’s climax also revolves around a group of dead and dismembered women, which is pretty par-for-the-course when it comes to horror but which brings with it a lot of sexist baggage that’s been elaborated upon more thoroughly elsewhere.

Content Warnings: Non-consensual sexual content (symbolic, non-graphic). Depiction of a corpse comprised of sewn-together body parts from several victims.

Would I Watch More? – I’d initially marked this as “paused” on my Anilist, but the more I think and talk about the first episode, the more I find myself interested in watching more of it. It reminds me a bit of how I felt about the somewhat-maligned (and mostly forgotten) Angels of Death; its over-the-top writing and gore initially put me off, but curiosity kept me coming back to what turned out to be an interesting, extremely goofy, and often problematic survival-horror story. I wouldn’t call it good, but it was entertaining and my time never felt wasted. I don’t feel like this episode was wasted time either, and I’m curious enough about the story to want to know more.