[Spoiler] Koukyuu no Karasu Episode 2 Discussion

The script quality is quite impressive. The show not leaves behind a single thing it introduces. It builds around everything we saw before which makes the whole story feel coherent and well directed.

It does cut some corners in pacing, and tries to hide these cuts behind stuff like comedy which can disappoint some people. For me it just adds a "telling a tale" vibe to it, which is definitely the goal of the show. You can tell because it uses many traditional story telling elements, both lyrical and visual ones.

There are some flaws tho, like:

• introducing random "puzzle solving" elements out of thin air is a thing you learn to hate with time from cheap detective stories
• the drama could be good but it struggles to express itself properly due to the low-mid animation budget and average voice acting work by everyone aside from Shouxue.

From a reviewer point of view, it's pretty easy to rate this show down, it also has borderline nothing to make it appeal for a mainstream audience, but it's fine. It's a hidden gem, the still-rough kind.

These are the notes I wrote while watching episode 2, then dropped the series due to the needless romance element they introduced at the end of it.
It is quite good for niche show hunters, but not for me after this.

The op and ed are so good. I'm wondering how they'll implement the romance aspect, seems difficult to do it well.
Deals a lot with murder and death, I hope that won't be the main thing this show dances around.

I'm looking forward to reading the novels for this series as I felt this case was quite rushed. Still a great episode nonetheless. Did manage to make me cry!

Love Shouxue and Jiu-jiu's relationship already!

That brief flashback of Shouxue and her mother at the beginning was just heartbreaking :(

Once again, I love the use of Chinese shadow puppetry in the series.

again another really sweet episode that brought me to tears a little....i cant wait to see where this ends up

This doesn't feel like a very good introductory arc, a lot of important character moments are happening before I've had time to be properly invested in them.

I'm loving the series but this episode did disappoint me a bit despite offering a lot.

I wasn't expecting the emperor's issues to resolve so neatly. Chinese inner palace dramas usually have the constant back-and-forth of secret plots and one-uppance, but everything got wrapped up so quickly. Admittedly, I think the empress dowager said some kind of curse before she died so I'm sure there's more to come, but it was just so odd to have all those involved quickly admit guilt without some kind of trap immediately being sprung. I was fully expecting the emperor to suddenly die in the next scene from that curse or some hidden poison from the empress dowager's plan B.

Unlike the other comment I saw, I was completely expecting the emperor to ask Shouxue to be his consort. That is just a very emperor-like thing to do; the dramas I've watched have taught me that any girl that happens to catch the emperor's eye, he can force into becoming his consort as his word is god and he is raised to believe he can have anything he desires. I think the series should've explored more of inner palace political rituals and culture before it blind-sides people like that.

Also that lotus thing Shouxue does feels like a magical girl transformation scene and I am already tired of it, but at least it's nice to look at, haha.

I thought this was going to be like xxxholic and introduce a different character with a different issue for the raven consort to figure out each episode, but I guess this might focus on the raven consort and the emperor. Can't wait to see where this goes next.

Every time I discover a series I relate to I add some points.
Seeing your mom die? Checked.

Alsoooo, the art from the ending looks gorgeous. ;;

Thank God I didn't drop this one too early! Really great stuff, not gonna lie.