Mysterious Lotus Casebook

[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.)


It did do very well in:

1) characterizing the main trio and the various iterations of their relationship.

2) having a very fun side villain (Jiao Liqiao) who was vibing so hard she couldn't be bothered to subscribe to the main villain agenda (in spite of her ~birthright~).

3) characterizing the main character's journey of rebirth, dedication, and self-reflection, unsubtly but poetically represented by lotus flower and waning moon motifs, served with a side of broken sense of self-worth.

4) a surprisingly good depiction of a lovers-to-friends relationship.

5) a lot of the humor! The running joke where Li Lianhua claims to have a secret brother named Li Lianpeng(?? Mr. Lotus Seedpod) was funnier because of the unexpected payoff in the end.


However, it did badly with:
1) all of the main plot villains and sub-villains besides Jiao Liqiao and, to some extent, that one Sigu Sect leader who had the least amount of screentime. They were all sort of just foils and earthly aspects to overcome for Li Lianhua. Which would not be necessarily a bad thing if the execution had been stronger and more centered on the right themes.

They also showed

major villain spoiler

Shan Gudao as an asshole from his very first appearance in Fang Duobing's POV, which was??? weird??? and made the reveal that he was actually a manipulative asshole feel unnecessarily drawn out lol

2) everything about Nanyin storyline. I could sort of close an eye on the storylines about ~exotic and sinister southern villains~ and the ~dark arts~ (I usually zone out during these parts anyway), but not the last 3 episodes where they escalate the plot developments of the storyline and reveal that

MAJOR finale spoilers

Li Lianhua was the real Nanyin prince after all.

The racist and genocidal aspects were always pretty bad but this development was bad in more present-day ways which I think was why it was impossible for me to separate the show's fictional themes from its real-life ones. To make it worse,

major finale spoilers

Li Lianhua, this long-lost Nanyin royal heir, is told in an earlier ep that he has no bodhi tree.

I always thought that his journey to enlightenment and peace tracked with his emotional storyline, but it feels icky now that it seems like his lineage plays a part in it.

The way in which he ultimately "redeems" himself is to give the Styx Flower—the only thing that could have possibly cured him—to the Emperor. There are several other ways they could have written the sacrifice. They could have swapped the solutions in his last two acts of selflessness. He could have used his Yangzhouman on the Emperor, and the Styx Flower on the friend who'd betrayed him and wanted to atone for it. Or he could have just used the Styx Flower on a completely random passerby, which I personally think would still be in-character for LLH without taking away from its themes. Instead they chose what they chose.

Similarly all of the Nanyin characters are shown to be beyond redemption with no path for atonement, except for maybe the ones who assimilate (including Li Lianhua, who dies for it too), unlike the bad people from the Sigu Sect. superborb also noted the Nanyin characters having more onscreen character deaths in the final showdown.

tl;dr: yikes

I've heard some things about how the novel ends (mostly the final chapter) but I'm deeply curious if LLH makes the same ending choices in the book? In any case I signed up for "jianghu mysteries" and not "evil southern clan threatening the imperial state"... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯