halfcactus

Mysterious Lotus Casebook is a 40-episode wuxia series about solving mysteries in the jianghu. The format is short mysteries of the week that tie in with the overarching mystery that precipitated the fall of the main character's sect and his own presumed demise.

The individual cases are not particularly interesting in themselves (and they definitely run more on vibes and tropes, glossing over the finer details), but for the first half of the show they're fun, move at a satisfying clip, and loop nicely with the main plot. So it kind of sucks that in the second half they start rushing through the mysteries and relevant plot bits, when neither the mystery arcs nor the main plot developments are strong enough on their own. There's an inverse relationship between the emotional build-up and the story falling through the cracks of its own writing. It wouldn't be so bad for me if it weren't for the final """twists""" which I feel undercut the strength of the main character's arc (on top of the developments being Bad). (More on this later lol.)

( things it did well (no spoilers) )

( things it did badly (contains spoilers, hidden under code) )