I must confess that was my favorite episode of Koukyuu no Karasu so far.  It followed the same basic format as the first three, but it had a more personal feel to it.  Digging a little deeper into the main characters is certainly a healthy trend, because it’s what’s going to give these mysteries more emotional depth.  All anime mystery series seem to follow this same general structure – weekly mini-cases, a few of which shed some light on the “canon” mystery, and then a big arc at the end that finally brings that to the table as the main course.

This time around, the MacGuffin is the Skylark Princess.  And her skylark, of course.  Court ladies in this series definitely shouldn’t be buying any green bananas – life expectancy seems very short indeed.  This one died after slipping and falling into a pond (which the official subs irritatingly insist on calling a lake).  Her poor little skylark hasn’t passed on to Paradise for some reason, and Jiu Jiu begs the Raven Consort to help it do so.  This case she takes free of charge, though whether out of a fondness for birds or her lady in waiting I’m not sure (I suspect some of both).

Shouxue’s relationship with Jiu Jiu is a big part of this episode’s fabric.  While normally in stories like this you’d expect the emperor to be socially stunted, he’s actually quite normal – no doubt due in part to his outsider upbringing – while it’s Shouxue that’s awkward as hell.  On her investigation she hears of the current Crane Princess (the emperor’s mother is the former) gifts fabric to her ladies, and Shouxue fears she’s derelict in not giving gifts to Jiu Jiu.  She winds up re-gifting the ivory hairpins the emperor gave her, which thoroughly pisses Jiu Jiu off.  It later pisses him off too, and Shouxue is equally puzzled as to why this is the case (as obvious as it is to us).

While Shouxue is too much like a modern anime teenaged girl in mannerisms, she’s pretty relatable as a person.  She’s essentially kind but utterly clueless about how to deal with other humans.  This is partly why the emperor is so interested in her, of course – he’s a fixer by temperament.  We learn a little more about him, too – especially his relationship with a servant named Ding Lan, who was a close friend when he was a child.  The Empress Dowager had him tortured and killed because of that – and the main reason for the emperor’s sleeping difficulties seems to be nocturnal visits from Ding Lan and his mother.  Placating their spirits is no doubt a big part of what drives him.

One of the things Ding Lan taught the young emperor was how to carve animals from wood – a skill which proves very useful in resolving the skylark’s dilemma.  This is a very satisfying denouement, seeing not only the mystery solved but also the character of Shouxue take a major step forward in her development.  And in her relationship with the emperor, too, even if she’s not sure how to take being called a willow tit (he meant it as a compliment).  These two have nice chemistry, and each has an interesting story on their own.   There are far worse things around which to build a story than that.