Man, the fall 2022 season has put out a lot of female-led anime, hasn't it? And a lot of said female lead characters are actually treated with respect and important to the plot rather than just simply being eye candy. I mean, we got stuff like Bocchi The Rock, Gundam: The Witch From Mercury, Do It Yourself!!, and the subject of today's review, Raven of the Inner Palace. I don't really remember how I first discovered this, but thought the premise seemed interesting. Parts of it reminded me of Saiunkoku Monogatari, which is also a Japanese-animated Chinese period drama, though Raven of the Inner Palace is more of an episodic mystery series. We don't get a lot of Japanese-animated shows about Chinese characters much anymore, though I think part of that is because China has started putting out their own donghua in recent years, so Raven of the Inner Palace is a breath of fresh air in an era saturated with nothing but isekai stuff. But I woefully underestimated just how invested in this show I'd wind up being, because Raven of the Inner Palace is a damn fine anime.

In a fantasy version of imperial China, deep in the inner palace, rumors tell of a mysterious consort known as the Raven Consort. Despite her title, she doesn't serve the emperor, and legends say that she can wield mysterious arts to fulfill any request, be it finding lost items or putting curses on people, all for a fair price. Xia Gaojun, the newest emperor, visits the Raven Consort, a young woman by the name of Liu Shouxue, with intent to find information on someone who died. Neither Gaojun nor Shouxue know that their fated meeting will become a taboo that will not only overturn history, but expose the truth behind just what the Raven Consort really is.

As far as animation goes, Raven of the Inner Palace has a very subdued yet pleasing art style. It's not exactly the flashiest or most dynamically animated show out there, and compared to other shows coming out around the same time as this, one could easily call it subpar. But what Raven lacks in dynamicism and vibrancy, it manages to make up for with good, down-to-earth character designs and creative storyboarding. While the series is very dialogue heavy and relies quite a bit on telling rather than showing, probably to save on animation costs, Raven manages to get creative with it by making use of cut-out shadow puppet imagery whenever a character repeats stories told them by others. To quote another reviewer, they bring the tales to life, cleanly splitting reality from legend and showing how rumors oversimplify and contort, turning people into archetypes. The series also spends a lot of time exploring the nature of rumor and how it clashes with reality, so it’s wise of the adaptation to highlight those divides in its visuals. The character designs are also pretty distinct as well, with the outfits fitting the time period without going overboard with ornamentation. Shouxue in particular is drawn with a particular delicacy that really highlights her ethereal nature in lieu of the fact that she's just a teenage girl thrust into a destiny she didn't quite want.

Speaking of the characters, the main cast is delightful to watch. All of them have their own distinct personalities and goals, and subtly change and develop over the course of the series. Shouxue in particular is the main backbone of the series, and the producers were careful to empathize that even though she's both revered and feared as this mysterious sorceress, she's still just a teenage girl trapped in a patriarchal society full of power imbalances, court politics, and generational oppression. Though she's been trained since childhood to act a certain way, whether to keep herself safe or hide her inner turmoil, Shouxue is still shown as being a compassionate person who willingly goes out of her way to help others, even at personal cost, so any loyalty and praise she does receive actually feels earned here. This is in stark contrast to another series that came out in the same season, Bibliophile Princess, which seemed way more interested in shilling the main character Elianna as this awesome Mary Sue who can do no wrong while never letting her do anything herself, outright removing important aspects of her personality that made her feel more well-rounded, and claiming she supposedly did a lot of awesome things while never bothering to actually show her actually doing them on screen.

Raven's story, themes, and their execution are much better handled here than Bibliophile Princess. In the latter, any attempts the show made at political intrigue fell completely flat because all of it mainly consisted of women being ridiculously petty and catty towards Elianna, often for really stupid reasons, and their stories made no effort to even be somewhat subtle or compelling in any way. Elianna's views were never challenged, its themes were surface-level at best, and none of the other characters had much personality or depth beyond their main archetype. Raven goes out of its way to show how strict monarchies, their ridiculous policies, and systemic failures hurt people, both rich and poor, even for generations, which can lead to a culture of constant deceit and backstabbing, among many other things. Sure, I bet there are other series that have tackled similar premises, and executed them better in some cases, but really, what was the last anime that's about Chinese court drama and politics that came out in the last thirty years? The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Saiunkoku Monogatari, which aired from 2006-2008 over the course of 78 episodes. If there are others that came out after that, do feel free to correct me, but in this era of non-stop isekai saturating the anime market, it's honestly refreshing to see an anime like Raven of the Inner Palace in this day and age.

That being said, as much as I want to praise this anime as being the best thing ever, several things hold it back. For one: the opening theme song. The song itself isn't bad...but the guy they brought in to sing it has this really obnoxious voice that not only clashes with the show's tone and atmosphere, but is just really annoying to listen to. I almost feel like the opening theme would have been better off if they had gotten someone with a nicer voice to sing it. The ending theme is much better in this regard and fits the feel of the show much better, as does the rest of the soundtrack. Also, show, was it really necessary to repeat the same narration at the beginning of literally EVERY SINGLE EPISODE?! We get it! We know what the Raven Consort is! We don't need to have that opening narration bashed into our heads in every episode, for God's sake! Your viewers are smarter than you make them out to be! Plus, there's one character who initially starts off as a villain, but after a certain point, the show hastily tries to write him as a tragic victim out of nowhere, seemingly forgetting about his previous malicious actions, making it really hard to sympathize with him. Furthermore, the anime ends on a fairly open-ended note, and it only covers a few volumes of the light novels. Luckily, Seven Seas announced that they're going to release the light novel series in North America in 2023, and since it's complete at seven volumes, you'll be able to read the entire series when it all comes out.

Raven of the Inner Palace isn't necessarily the flashiest anime, and we all know it'll likely never reach the level of popularity other series like Chainsaw Man, Jujutsu Kaisen, Spy x Family, and Demon Slayer achieved, but if you're into court dramas and artsy mysteries, or just want a Saiunkoku Lite, definitely give Raven of the Inner Palace a shot. I did, and I don't regret it one bit.