LONGEST. PODCASTLE. EVER.
(Come on, someone had to.)
I really liked this story as a piece of historical fiction. Not being a student of Japanese history I don't know how speculative it actually is (fantastical elements aside), but I enjoyed it.
From a fantasy perspective (and the voice of Lyle Konkiel just echoed in my head as I wrote that), I felt the fantastical elements were given very short shrift. It's like... okay... there are demons and monsters and ghosts, but aside from that one ghost that gives the information to Lord Yamada and the monsters the prince (I forget his name) fight, there's really no NEED for the fantasy. Had there been an informant that could've been bribed with food or money, had there been mercenary guards, had the CONCEPT of ghosts been discussed without actually seeing them, I think the story would've been just as good, if not better -- and the whole thing with the demons... I felt a little cheated not seeing more of them. I feel that for a fantasy or sci-fi story to really justify the genre label, SF or F needs to be a part of the climax, even if it's not the point of the story... and in this story, it wasn't. Lord Yamada simply washed off the ink, then pulled a Scooby Doo ending on the princess's brother.
Also, the ending -- when Yamada and the prince got drunk -- went on FAR too long, and I think the whole "my son" thing felt tacked on. I think you'd really have to be a student of Japanese classical literature -- haiku/tanka format, and more than just counting syllables -- to really have picked up on the fact that the child emperor (Takahito, was it?) was Yamada's son.
Make it a non-fantasy story and I'll like it a lot better.
As for the reading, Steve Anderson is a talented voice actor, but he always sounds pained, like he's trying too hard to get the words to come from his diaphragm, and like he's actively trying not to read too quickly. Okay in small doses, but I think he may have contributed to my feeling that the story went on TOO long.