This one is an exception for me. Usually, if I see a show or movie, that starts in a way, that suggests that we should know something about what's already happening (no matter how small those things are) and does not start with some flashback like "You must be wondering how I got here", and it's not a sequel - I drop those. Intention is clear: they want to show a "busy world", but more often than not that's just covering up bad writing, since neither the world nor the characters get a natural introduction. It may work in extremely rare cases, I guess, but I can't think of a good one.
The Crow Girl does it right, though. It feels completely natural, as if we are walking in on the characters going on about their days. The interactions that we see also do introduce the characters to us properly and, again, naturally. The introductions do not feel forced, and they are meaningful, starting to explore the relationships right from the start. This generally keeps up through the whole season, too, although quality does drop somewhat sometimes, but still the feeling of "natural" is preserved for the most part, which is really important for a crime series, especially when it's trying to be psychological, as well.
Until the ending happens. I won't spoil it, but the plot twist was shown in a way, that is only possible with because it's a visual medium. It's just the camera showing us 1 thing, when in reality it was another one. It felt like I was lied to, even though the twist itself does kind of make sense. I really wonder how this was handled in a book (probably just omitting descriptions at certain points), and I can get it, that it might have been difficult to do certain shots differently, but in general just obscuring the view would have worked much better, than this. Because of this, I can't give it more than 6/10.
