This story is outstanding.
The start is a little slow as the world is being set up and the characters are introduced, but that exposition is necessary for the complexity of the story and characters.
This is one of the best explorations of relationships I’ve ever seen–husband/wife, in-laws, parent/child, siblings, old flames, friends, master/student, internal politics, external politics, and internal battles. I can think of one or more profound examples of each of those in this book.
The flashbacks for one of the characters to her youth seems a bit jarring at first, but make sense in the greater scope of the author’s work. And are necessary to explain the character’s motivations and abilities. Those other stories are YA superhero crime-fighting, while this is a mature fantasy in a setting based on traditional Japanese culture. The settings seem to be at odds, but make more sense as the book progresses.