<blockquote>
  <p>Where does the term Tokyo Raven come from and what does it mean? </p>
</blockquote>

<p>The correct parse is almost surely <code>Tokyo [Ravens]</code> rather than <code>[Tokyo Raven]s</code>. As in "ravens in Tokyo"; not "more than one of a Tokyo Raven". </p>

<p>"But what ravens?" you might ask. "I sure didn't see any in the anime!"</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Is it explained in the light novels?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Yep. It turns out that the light novel adorns a number of phrases with the furigana レイヴンズ "ravens". For example, from the back cover of the first volume (to use the most obvious example, since I don't have this OCR'd and hence can't Ctrl+F through it), there are already two distinct instances of this: </p>

<ul>
<li>[陰陽師たち]【レイヴンズ】 ("shamans" or something, depending on your translation)</li>
<li>[闇に舞う鴉たち]【レイヴンズ】 ("crows who dart through the darkness"). </li>
</ul>

<p>There's not a one-to-one equivalent of this practice in English, but a reasonable approach is to understand it as "ravens" being used as metonymy for "shamans"/etc. And this is true in-universe, too: shamans are sometimes referred to or described as "ravens" because of their tendency to don black, raven-like cloaks, as Yakou did. </p>

<p>This furigana thing occurs multiple times in the actual body text of the LN (in volume 1, at least), but it'd take me a while to hunt down the actual quotes. There are also direct (non-furigana) uses of "ravens" (鴉) as metonymy for shamans. </p>

<p>Of course, there are many shamans (i.e. ravens) in Tokyo; and many "crows who dart through the darkness" (i.e. ravens), if by "crows" we mean "weird shadowy supernatural things". Hence, <em>Tokyo Ravens</em> - ravens in Tokyo.</p>

<hr>

<p>But your confusion is reasonable: this would probably be lost on people who have only seen the anime, since the furigana double-meaning thing obviously doesn't work with the spoken word. </p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Is there a historical basis for it or is it something the author made up?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I know very little about real-world onmyoudou, but I'm not aware of the raven being a motif or symbol there. (Of course, research is made difficult by the fact that <em>Tokyo Ravens</em> itself pollutes google results for this sort of thing.)</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-01-17T04:20:54.953Z
2016-01-17T04:20:54.953Z
senshin
<p>I don't recall the title of <i>Tokyo Ravens</i> being explained over the course of the anime (though it's possible I missed something). Other than the Raven Coat, I don't remember any particular references to ravens. Where does the term Tokyo Raven come from and what does it mean? Is there a historical basis for it or is it something the author made up? Is it explained in the light novels?</p>

<tokyo-ravens>
What is a Tokyo Raven?
# What is a Tokyo Raven?
Posted by: username_0 on 2016-01-17
I don't recall the title of *Tokyo Ravens* being explained over the course of the anime (though it's possible I missed something). Other than the Raven Coat, I don't remember any particular references to ravens. Where does the term Tokyo Raven come from and what does it mean? Is there a historical basis for it or is it something the author made up? Is it explained in the light novels?
**Tags:** tokyo-ravens
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## 1 answers
### Answer by username_1 on 2016-01-17. Score: 6 | Accepted answer
> Where does the term Tokyo Raven come from and what does it mean?

The correct parse is almost surely `Tokyo [Ravens]` rather than `[Tokyo Raven]s`. As in "ravens in Tokyo"; not "more than one of a Tokyo Raven".

"But what ravens?" you might ask. "I sure didn't see any in the anime!"

> Is it explained in the light novels?

Yep. It turns out that the light novel adorns a number of phrases with the furigana レイヴンズ "ravens". For example, from the back cover of the first volume (to use the most obvious example, since I don't have this OCR'd and hence can't Ctrl+F through it), there are already two distinct instances of this:

* [陰陽師たち]【レイヴンズ】 ("shamans" or something, depending on your translation)
* [闇に舞う鴉たち]【レイヴンズ】 ("crows who dart through the darkness").

There's not a one-to-one equivalent of this practice in English, but a reasonable approach is to understand it as "ravens" being used as metonymy for "shamans"/etc. And this is true in-universe, too: shamans are sometimes referred to or described as "ravens" because of their tendency to don black, raven-like cloaks, as Yakou did.

This furigana thing occurs multiple times in the actual body text of the LN (in volume 1, at least), but it'd take me a while to hunt down the actual quotes. There are also direct (non-furigana) uses of "ravens" (鴉) as metonymy for shamans.

Of course, there are many shamans (i.e. ravens) in Tokyo; and many "crows who dart through the darkness" (i.e. ravens), if by "crows" we mean "weird shadowy supernatural things". Hence, *Tokyo Ravens* - ravens in Tokyo.

---

But your confusion is reasonable: this would probably be lost on people who have only seen the anime, since the furigana double-meaning thing obviously doesn't work with the spoken word.

> Is there a historical basis for it or is it something the author made up?

I know very little about real-world onmyoudou, but I'm not aware of the raven being a motif or symbol there. (Of course, research is made difficult by the fact that *Tokyo Ravens* itself pollutes google results for this sort of thing.)
---
