Saiunkoku Monogatari – 68

I’m not exactly sure why, but this episode was easier to understand than usual. It was another great one, by the way. It first becomes clear that Juusanhime and Shuuei are very close to each other. I recall that Shun mentioned something about Juusanhime’s true, unreachable love, but could this refer to Shuuei? If that’s the case, then it’s quite the tragic story. For the entire series, I imagined Ran as a mature guy who has had lots of experiences, but instead it was just a facade he put up because he kept running away. Now that he stopped doing his, we start to get to know his true sides a bit more. In that viewpoint, I can see why his triplet brothers decided to get him away from Ryuuki. It may have sounded a bit mean at the time, but I’m sure that they wanted to help their brother. Shuurei and Suou meanwhile are seen inspecting the prison of the palace in terms of health and facilities. There’s also a prisoner (Shun) that just refuses to leave his cell, even though he’s been released long ago. The reason he gives is because Shuurei keeps visiting him to urge him to leave, though I think there’s a deeper reason behind it. It also seems that Shuurei reminds him of someone. It also seems that even in the prison, Seiga has been active. A while later, when Shurei and Suou are leaving the prison, they get assaulted by a bunch of cheap assassins. These guys are clearly rookies, so both of them manage to escape quickly, but this does mean that someone without a lot of money is trying to get rid of Shuurei. Could this be becasue people already think that she’s Juusanhime? In any case, when Shuurei arrives back, Seiga stands there, waiting for her with the news that Juusanhime is ready to get picked up. Later, Shuurei is in the library, when she runs into Riou, where they chat for a while, Riou makes a bit of tea, and Shuurei plays the erhu for him. The former seems to be the norm for the family where Riou comes from. Riou then talks about how he might have hurt Riou in the previous episode because of the things he said. Shuurei, however, believes that Ryuuki likes Riou, so he’d never hate him, and Riou should apologize and that would settle everything. (by the way, why did Riou use the window as an exit? Does he want to avoid running into certain people or something?). Ryuki, meanwhile, has sought the company of Shusui, now that Shuuei and Kouyuu are gone. Meanwhile, he’s getting more worried about the fact that he’s going to have to marry Juusanhime, which suggests that we’ll see his more serious side soon. Shushui also talks about her worries a bit, how she always runs away and gets protected by everyone, despite being strong. Later, when Shusui is alone, she’s again bothered by the strange sound, and she mentions something about not having fulfilled a promise yet. Riou then runs into her, and he seems to realize that his eyes are causing trouble for her, so he tries to help her, though she refuses. Then Ran arrives, and tells Riou to leave, while he himself carries Shusui to her room. The latter (nearly unconscious), mistakes Shuuei for Shouka, and begs him to kill her. If I recall correctly, then Shuuei once had (or still has) a crush on Shusui, so seeing this probably has to have made a deep impact on him. We later see him in hiw own room, when Juusanhime visits him again, and again it shows how close the two of them are. The episode ends with Shuurei, who finally gets to formally meet Juusanhime, whom she has to impersonate. I’m not sure why, but I liked this episode more than usual. My guess would be that it’s been a while since I managed to understand an episode of this series that well, and it actually inspired me to look up the small parts I didn’t understand, and write a whole summary. And of course, the events that happened in this episode were quite intriguing, and the creators can do great things with them. I really wonder why Shun just refuses to leave his cell, and why he’s going to be important to the story.]]>