There are just two things I don’t like about Saiunkoku Monogatari: the fact that the slow subs have forced me to watch it raw, meaning that I don’t understand half of most of the episodes without Impz’s help, and all these random hiatuses it’s been having. For the past few months, I realized that it’s really important for this series to continue on a weekly basis, otherwise it loses me a bit in the middle of the action. Thankfully, it seems that the final episodes of the second season won’t have anymore random hiatuses like that, so that eliminates the second point for now. ^^;
And really, Ryuuki stole the show this episode! Finally, he’s actually starting to develop, along with Juusanhime. His sadness on the boat towards Shuuei really surprised me, and it seems that he’s really regretting how he ran away from all of his responsibilities, yet again. There’s even a possibility that he won’t be able to return as the king, which is especially unnerving, considering that a few episodes back, we saw that one of these guys had plans to take over Ryuuki’s throne.
In her turn, Juusanhime finally reveals her history with Shiba Jin. It seems that at one point, her mother died (of which circumstances, I don’t know, though; I’m not even sure whether that was revealed). Shiba Jin was then sent to kill her off too, but he couldn’t. Eventually, after three days if I picked this up correctly, Shiba Jin ended up cutting out his own eye and went along with her to the main house of the Ran Clan, and ever since the two had been in love. The two of them spent most of their childhood years together, along with Shuuei, but at one point Jin killed his own father. I’m not sure why, but if I had to guess, then it’d be because he tried to do something against Juusanhime. Probably to finish the task that Jin never could complete.
you’re pretty much correct and getting the story pretty well without the subs, psgels. *good job* don’t worry, the Ran arc will end in this season. hopefully the animation staff would be able to receive the upcoming volume 13 of the novel and start season 3 in time ^^6 (but i bet they’ll be a lot fillers since the anime is surpassing the story now…)
hmm…unless their gonna insert the side stories… muha, that’ll be interesting… ^^6 (they already inserted 3 sides within season 1 and 2 alone, which were very minor thanks to the flow of the story, but the major sides would be kinda tough to insert unless they plan on doing tons of flashbacks…)
Ah, glad to hear that I did understand things correctly. By the way, which episodes were the filler-ones? I’m curious, because I didn’t even notice that they were fillers.
in season 1, there were original scenes made for sake of adjustments just for the animation alone (meaning you don’t see it in the novel, which were practically non-side-fillers) thery were:
1) Ryuuki going down with Shurei to sell hairpins,
2) Ryuuki drinking Shurei’s poisoned wine at the party,
3)that whole episode of the Seiran and Ryuuki tournament which made Ryuuki realized Seiran’s true identity (the novel was arranged differently),
4) the 15th episode of Kouyuu’s past (
4) the 15th episode of Kouyuu’s past (
(sorry, but i guess the posting system is limited ^^6)
4) the 15th episode of Kouyuu’s past (
oh my gosh, what’s wrong with this posting system!? how come the answers are the same!? x0x i’ll give it one more shot…
4) the 15th episode of Kouyuu’s past , the novel wasn’t detailed on how Kouyuu was adopted back then) and where the 4 bishi’s sat together drinking and Kouyuu being drunk,
5) episode where Shurei, Ryuuki, Eigetsu, and Ryuren went off on a ghost hunt for that elder Sa’s mysterious soul…total filler–like, that was supposed to be Shuei and Kouyuu’s experience…only with a different ghost and different time period…, and
6) in episode 29-ish where the Ryuuki gang secretly watch and protect over the Shurei gang on their way to the Sa province.
good, looks like i know what the problem was. continue with the rest:
the Side’s, meaning side stories that completely follow the novel along with accurate time periods, are as follows:
S1 episode 11: the episode where Shurei got sick, and the whole gang came to see her plus Shouka and Bara-hime’s past semi revealed.
S1 episode 12-13ish?: the episode where Eigetsu and Shurei first met up along with those massive turmoils along with Yougetsu revealed to the Shurei gang.
S1 episode 21?: the episode of Seiran’s past. that side was only released in the novel magazine but not in the individual novel volumes
S2 forgot which episode: the episode after the whole Eigetsu Arc done where Ryuren takes Shurei, Eigetsu, and Korin off to the search of the “8 Mysterious Wonders of the Sa Province”
——
err~ that’s about how much i can remember right now, can’t believe they inserted more than i even remembered ^^6 that was a shocker though… and i didn’t even list the “edit-out/arranged” scenes yet… dude, i’m really worried about our “season 3” already…
with the number of fans that the anime has, do you honestly think they would skip on reaping the goodies for themselves?
i bet they’d have season 3. the fillers are not enough to swing them off the novel’s storyline. if they were intending a different ending for the anime, they would have inserted the basis a few episodes back, although, they could do an OVA ending like that of rourouni kenshin.
besides, they have gaiden 3 and much of the other gaidens not animated yet. add the side stories of the manga. i think they’d wait for the other books to come out and release the anime’s final season much much later on, just like what they did to kyou kara maoh.
4 episodes won’t be enough to wrap up the story . the most feasible thing to happen would be for it to end where the 12th book ended… with everything hanging up in the air.
Shun does have a point, though. Saiunkoku Monogatari comes from Madhouse, the same company that very faithfully adapted the Claymore-manga, until the final few episodes where it ruined itself with a cheesy and disappointing ending, because of the danger to catch up with the manga…
well, yeah, but claymore introduced their deviations starting ep. 20 and how many episodes do they have now?
i mean, if it would deviate, i really think they would have started earlier than just a little before the novel’s lull. 🙂
let’s see what would happen next, but i would still bank on the fact that saimono’s reach ain’t the typical age group who would watch anime, but rather including those who are older. commercial wise, it has a wider audience.
kaeboo-chan’s actually on the point, only the opposite. according to what Yukino-sensei said about her novel, this story was intended for an older, roughly late late teens to adult female audience to begin with [generally called the “lady” genre]. not to mention that the initial release of this story was in drama cd format, which only the adult female range would most prefer to purchase due to their ability to purchase along with it’s entertainment flexibility. average adults don’t have the time to just sit in front of the TV for one show every single week. but then this story has gotten popular to the point where animation and manga production was possible, therefore the younger audience had the chance to be let in. and due to the fact that it was aired in public children time on japan’s biggest educational channel (NHK) that the staff had no choice but to cut scenes and make original dark scenes/themes brighter and not natural for those who followed the book. in terms on the story would flow, i personally bet they will still make the themes bright due to their circumstances, and will most likely to have unnatural light-themed fillers for the kids. i know it’s depressing for us lady-aged girls, but just keep in mind that the animation is just an “advertisement” to the original story, whether they’d be a manga or a novel. so you’ll always have the original source to go back to if you just can’t stand the animation anymore. but then again this is the disadvantage of the western world unless you’re an asian, or an asian-language major. because it’s most likely not have the Saimono novel translated into english due to the chinese theme of the story. the only thing we can do is to do fan trans of the novel i guess. but then again, it really depends on our time too. i have the chinese edition volumes up to date which is vol. 10 plus 2 side story volumes. the current japanese release is up to volume 12 with it’s 3rd side novel released. there are chinese blogs that have trans the current vol. 12 into chinese and posted, that’s how i got up to date with the story. but to trans them to english is a whole other massive construction…