Sometimes one can get too comfortable in a niche. It can be cozy and comforting and when the niche is something like boy’s love/yaoi, there’s the added in-group cache of “no one else appreciates this, but at least we appreciate it.”
There’s a wide spectrum when it comes to boy’s love. There’s out-and-out yaoi like Youka Nitta’s Embracing Love series and many others where yaoi is definitely front and center in the story. Other manga/anime fall into the “will they or won’t they” category where the BL interest is plain but the characters (often teenagers) may not be ready to act on their desires.
And then there’s what I call not the “will they or won’t they” but the “are they or aren’t they” group. This is where the BL is teased and played up, but one or both characters won’t acknowledge the attraction between them, so you aren’t even sure whether to call it BL or not.
At some point watching the first episode of such a series, regular anime fans who aren’t okay with BL will just move on. They see what looks like a BL or BL-adjacent story and flee without giving it a chance. The problem is that you can miss some seriously good stories this way.
Which brings me to The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window. This paranormal suspense series based on the manga by Tomoko Yamashita is a hidden gem. It’s a tightly constructed mystery with beautifully realized characters that are based on solid knowledge of human psychology. There are twelve episodes total, and by the time you’re watching the second episode, you are hooked.
... But you have to get beyond the first episode to get there.
Kousuke Mikado is a shy bookstore clerk. Unfortunately for him, he’s had the ability to see spirits his entire life, which scares him to death. One day, a tall handsome man named Rihito Hiyakawa is summoned by the bookstore manager to exorcise the ghosts that are rumored to hang around the store. Upon spotting Mikado, Hiyakawa is immediately taken with him.
Hiyakawa: You are my destiny...
As Mikado tries not to look at a dark spirit standing nearby, Hiyakawa sees it and without asking permission, puts his hands on Mikado.
Mikado: Hey! Stop! Pull out! I said get out of me!
Hiyakawa: It’s all right. I’ll go slowly. It should feel good. It feels really good for me... I’m going to touch it now.
And he does. No, he doesn’t touch that. By touching Mikado’s heart, Hiyakawa can access Mikado’s “core,” which is akin to his soul, and together they can perform the exorcism more efficiently that way.
I should mention here that non-consensual touching is one of the hallmarks of bad yaoi. The dominant one is a controlling bastard, and like a M/F taken-by-the-barbarian romance, manhandles the passive one against his will.
Hiyakawa’s not respecting Mikado’s boundaries, his supernatural “entering” of Mikado which is mind-rapey, and the unbelievably on the nose double entendres (pull out... get out of me... it’s all right... I’ll go slowly) all led me to think that I knew what this series was about. And so I settled in for eleven more episodes of campy, stupid BL fun.
What I got instead was an absorbing and deepening mystery that quickly pulled me in. Hiyakawa runs what he euphemistically calls a “cleaning business,” and hires Mikado with his extrasensory ability to help him move lingering spirits on their way. Mikado discovers that Hiyakawa often assists the police with their unsolved criminal cases. In one particularly gruesome case involving body parts, the pair are led to a high school girl, Erika Hiura, who appears to have some connection with what happened.
Erika has a yakuza bodyguard, Kazuomi Sakaki. At first it appears that Sasaki controls her, but actually it’s more the other way around, as Erika is a first-class manipulator. Her paranormal ability is that she can absorb the souls of spirits who refuse to leave earth... but these same spirits are used to commit crimes.
As Mikado and Hiyakawa investigate the case, they meet a psychic reader, Keita Mukae. At first Keita seems like a charlatan as he has no ability to actually read cards, but in fact he does possess real psychic gifts that enable him to solve his clients’ problems.
(Around Episode 3 or 4, the comments at Crunchyroll turned from “ooohhh BL” to “this is really good” and “this series is underrated.”)
Hiyakawa’s police contact is Lt. Hanzawa, a gruff but good-hearted middle-aged detective who appears to know him from way back. Mikado picks up on this, and eventually he becomes curious about Hiyakawa’s past.
It turns out that Erika is being exploited by her father, who sells her psychic-criminal abilities to a man known only as “Sensei.” The odd thing about Sensei is that no one can remember his face or name after they meet with him.
The episodes build on each other in a natural progression as more and more is revealed about Hiyakawa and about Sensei. It is, however, Mikado’s past that unexpectedly provides the connection that explains everything.
In Episode 7 it all comes together, as the entire group - Mikado, Hiyakawa, Erika, Sasaki, and Keita - recognizes the real threat and resolves to do what needs to be done. All the slow building of characters and their relationships, revelations of the past, and seemingly unrelated scenes are brought into sharp focus, like a kaleidoscope that suddenly presents a clear picture with one final shake.
I liked one of the comments that somebody wrote about Episode 7 - “Depressed Avengers Assemble!” Not all of the group is depressed, but the quote captures the feeling. Even if life leaves you feeling battered, you still gotta do what you gotta do.
By the end, Mikado and Hiyakawa undergo a sort of role reversal. Mikado has developed inner strength, while Hiyakawa’s false front of confidence is dissipated and he is left vulnerable.
Yamashita’s thesis is plain as day. Each person must take responsibility for the hurt that they cause others, and if they began life as victims, somehow, in some way, they need to process those emotions in order to move on. There are no exceptions to this rule. And forgiveness and letting go doesn’t mean that you need to see that person again: indeed, you might instead leave them wallowing in anger and grief on the floor as you walk out the door with your lover, because we are only ever responsible for our own shit and nobody else’s.
There’s a maturity to this story that I admire, and as a writer, I also appreciate the tight story structure. It’s a story that respects all the characters as being worthy of compassion and redemption, but again, only with full accountability. And it doesn’t do it with a lot of melodrama and overhyped emotional scenes either, the way I’m afraid too many psychological anime series tend to do.
The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window is so good that I almost found myself wishing that the BL aspect had been left out to make it more accessible to mainstream anime fans. And then I caught myself. While it’s true that the story could have worked without that angle, the yaoi attraction added emotional heft. I have no idea if Yamashita intended the BL as a simple hook for fujoshis or if she genuinely felt the story wouldn’t have worked without it, but as a m/m romance writer myself I shouldn’t be assuming anything, nor should I question the validity of any writer’s choice.
... As it is your choice to see The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window - and I hope you’ll consider it. I believe you’ll find it worth your while.
