Overall, this was pretty good. I was surprised there would only be 20 episodes. There are pretty much three points I want to cover: the animation, the characters, and the storyline.

Regarding the animation... it's pretty bland. The animation as a whole has a bit of its own style, especially in the characters (possibly trying to replicate the stylization of people in the manga), but the action scenes are not particularly fluid or impressive, and there isn't any particularly beautiful scenery etc., either. Which, like, is totally fine; this is not an action show and doesn't require super fluid and gorgeous animation. But is something to note if that's what you're looking for.

Regarding the characters, they're not bad. I can't say that any of them are particularly deep, with the exception of maybe one of the concubines in the first cour, but that's mostly by virtue of being complicated, which is not the same as deep. For each of the characters, you could summarize them pretty easily in a phrase or two and it'll hold for the 20 episodes.

That's not to say, however, they aren't endearing; I pretty quickly grew to like the main character and am rooting for him to succeed (and be a bit more appreciated by the other members of the cast haha). I don't think there's any character that annoys me per se.

There are few characters that I want to delve a little deeper into (aside from the MC), mostly the Prince's older brother and his retainer/bodyguard (? not sure his position, the red haired guy). The red haired guy's character design stands out pretty strongly and we haven't gotten an explanation into that which I'm hoping we will, and in the last few episodes, the Prince's older brother's actions have been a little perpendicular to the direction of the narrative, for his supposed role in the story. If anyone is to get character development and become a little more complex, I really hope it is him.

There are some pretty cliche approaches to the characters/their development (e.g., the red haired concubine) and the Prince's shtick with emotions, but it hadn't really bothered me too much. Also, to some degree, the design decisions around the Prince, like, makes sense within the context of the world, so I get it.

Regarding the story line and the worldbuilding: I think this is where the story shines. The story is pretty slow, but I enjoyed the way all the pieces are slowly being put together through the various mysteries/events that go on.

Spoiling a little but not too much, the way the yatagarasu connect to the "real world" is really interesting, and not something I've seen a lot of in similar fantasy anime. We're also brought to attention to a few societal issues/behaviours within the yatagarasu themselves; e.g., what's essentially crow-slave-criminals for transport and inequality. It's only briefly touched upon, but with the way the Prince is meant to save the yatagarasu, I'm tentatively hopeful they'll come around to it.

As I mentioned, I felt the ending of the season was a bit abrupt, but it wrapped things up well enough and left enough to want for more. There are some smaller story/world points that I like less and others that I like more, so overall I'll leave it here and say that for a first season, I think it did a good job in convincing me to continue along with the story. I'll be reading the manga once it catches up and with a second season if they make one. I'm under the impression that the source was a light novel; I think you can tell that the anime perhaps doesn't always make the most of its medium, but I can see it working a lot better with a novel or manga.