The voters have spoken, and Koukyuu no Karasu is this season’s Patron Pick.  Thanks to everyone who voted and, needless to say, a special thanks to everyone who supports LiA financially.  Because there were really no bubble series this season I opened up the voting to everything I’m not currently covering (including Netflix series and drops) but Raven of the Inner Palace – benefitting from the fact that I’ve been writing about it, perhaps – came out on top (for the record, Romantic Killer placed second).

I’d be lying if I said I’m not pleased, because I was leaning towards covering this show anyway.  It’s far from perfect, but it is genuinely interesting.  I don’t cover a lot of LN adaptations (obviously) but this one doesn’t fit most of the usual stereotypes.  That said, the pacing and narrative structure is weird to the point of being awkward.  Episodes have a way of starting and stopping at seemingly random places.  And there’s a seismic quality to the pacing – not a lot of exposition of the main plot for weeks, and then a plotquake when the tension builds up enough.

This was definitely such a case.  If last week seemed like an infodump, this was a tidal wave.  I’m rather torn about it in fact, because in effect it was a very interesting premise exposited by literal explanation.  This seems to be a recurring theme with LNs, and it’s far from the best way to go about telling a story (though probably the easiest).  But if you’re going to have exposition by explanation I suppose it’s better if it’s interesting exposition, and this certainly was that.

We did get a tail on the body of last week’s mystery at the start.  The ghost of the willow tree is Princess Mingzhu, who took her own life under that tree when the old silver-haired dynasty was overthrown rather than be captured and executed.  The image of her Shouxue sees in the storehouse shows her with a comb which she immediately seems to find relevant.  But that element of the story soon takes a back seat to the story of the Raven Consort herself (which is obviously connected to it).  The Emperor takes another field trip to interrogate the priest Yuyong Xue, who reluctantly shares with him a detail of the secret history he’s been tasked with protecting.

This confrontation between the two protagonists has been brewing for a good while, and it finally comes to a head here.  Shouxue doesn’t want the Emperor’s pity to be certain (what prideful person wouldn’t be offended?).  But she has a good reason why she shows him no deference at all despite his station – because her own is historically every bit his equal.  He’s the Summer King, she the Winter King – so it was decided by the Goddess Niao Lian, who founded this kingdom in the hazy past.  His line is tasked with rule, hers (non-hereditary) with worship.  The destruction of this balance – caused by spurned love, naturally – led to a thousand years of war in the kingdom, before the founder of the dynasty to which Shouxue belongs came to power and re-established it (albeit on his own terms).

Niao Lian is really the key to everything, it seems.  It’s she who binds (literally) the Raven Consort to the Inner Palace, preventing her from ever leaving.  Or loving, or indeed having any of her own material desires.  Romance between the Winter and Summer Kings (which of course is blooming here) is forbidden utterly.  Shouxue hates this more than anybody, but seemingly harbors no hope that it could ever change.  The Emperor – a serial fixer – sees it as his duty to free her.  The problem is doing so seemingly cuts against his duties as the Summer King.  I would have vastly preferred having all that come out in more organic fashion, but that ship has sailed.  Koukyuu no Karasu now has its cards on the table, and it’s a good hand – let’s see how it chooses to play them from here.