incidents and accidents, hints and allegations

The occasional fuzziness over what kind of black bird is being talked about-- crow, raven, or black swan-- is unavoidable because the Japanese word 'karasu', depending on context, can mean any large black bird. The translators (one of whom is a dear friend of mine from college, so if you wind up having questions I can pass them along) were in the position of having to pick a type of bird based on what seemed most appropriate to the symbolism on a scene-by-scene basis, but there really is no distinction being made: she's always a crow, always a raven, and always a black swan, all at once.