The Raven of the Harem #01 — Cock Wrangling
October 1st, 2022
You'd think they'd want to steer clear of explicitly saying these are teenage concubines.
Impressions:
I don't know that there was any reason to expect otherwise, but the titular character being a flighty teenager who can be manipulated with both food and being told that she's cute does the premise no favors whatsoever. I'm also not sure that I entirely understand why the ending is a cliffhanger. This girl teleports people who displease her around. She summons ghosts. But her hair glowing when it gets wet? Now that's some serious supernatural voodoo! Did you not put two and two together that she was a witch beforehand? Or did I miss something and glowing hair is the sign of the ultra devil?
It's not all that interesting of a first episode though. There's some court intrigue, then she wanders out to pal around with one other concubine, saving her from another bully concubine by being haughty, before we return to the intrigue. Dude's mother was harassed until she killed herself by the sadistic maven of the court, who of course, cackled madly and smirked at a child about it. Hamlet this isn't. We don't even really engage much on either the supernatural or the intrigue sides though. Not even to the level of something like xxxHolic. This is apparently a multi-episode arc despite so little happening, especially through the entire middle of the episode, and no story element lending weight or drive to anybody. Next episode could very well begin with "Three months later." This is supposed to be your hook. Get the audience interested and invested. Melancholic nobles being plotty about dead relatives but not actually executing those plots ain't it, chief.
Posted in Raven of the Harem | 1 Comment »
I thought it was pretty good, actually. Enjoyed the overall look and feel, and found the lead character reasonably engaging. The ending was a bit obscure.