Anti-Climax Boss: King Ukon by the end, is a frail, old man with many regrets. Shuri and Tatara are flabbergasted by how pathetic this big evil dictator actually is. Heck, he's killed offscreen — and not by the rebellion, but by a group of angry peasants.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Ichimatsu of Hida who is a Hot-BloodedMaster Swordsman who would fit nicely in a Shounen series and brings levity to a story filled with brooding introspective characters. The author had a panel where she stated that Ichimatsu was inexplicably popular.
Fridge Brilliance: Asagi's health. He was and is a sickly kid. Later we learn that he's (possibly) the son of Ginko and her father Ukon. The genetic problems resulting from incest caused him to be sickly.
Quite a lot whenever Ageha is around. He's canonically bi though he has a charged, complicated dynamic with Shido stemming from then he was a slave in Shido's household. It's mostly one-sided as Shido is oblivious and Ageha would never admit it to him.
The friendship between Nachi and Hijiri offers some cute scenes.
Moral Event Horizon: Ukon retroactively crosses this when he kills Ginko's husband and drunkenly rapes her. Previously, the reader was vaguely aware that he was a paranoid, incompetent and decadent king but most of the machinations and plots of the book are the result of his children. Then we see what he was like in his prime...
The Scrappy: The author has multiple side panels mocking King Ukon's unpopularity and for good reason. Ukon has almost no redeeming features, being incredibly incompetent, petty and paranoid - essentially a manchild given too much power. His parenting is beyond awful and since his children are the rulers of Japan, the cause of much grief. He's also not compelling as a villain and is mostly a weak ineffectual cowardly old man lead to ruin by Ginko. Sarasa and Shuri are both disgusted by how lame Ukon is and leave him to die an ignominious death offscreen.
The Unreveal: We never really know whether Asagi is really Ginko's child with her father or just a replacement for said child when they died at birth. Lampshaded by Asagi himself.
