I don’t know exactly what it is, though even though Saiunkoku Monogatari is a serious story, the added comedy-elements manage to crack me up every single episode. It probably has something to do with the great quality of the dialogue, combined with the already fleshed out characters. Still, I really like this addition of comedy to this anime, it keeps the story nice and fresh. The creators also know exactly when to use comedy and when to be serious, and both drama and comedy never contrast each other too much, in comparison to a show like Trigun, to take an extreme example, where our main character is an enormous goofball one second and full of sadness the next second.
Saiunkoku Monogatari really remains one of the most well-written anime-series this year brought forth. Probably because it’s so heavily rooted in diplomatics and politics. This episode also was a really great watch. Shuurei managed to be the only one who didn’t get captured. Because of this, Kourin is seen as Shuurei by the enemy. She’s quite smart as well, even though you wouldn’t say it. When she was asked to write down a piece of text only a goverment official who studied for the national exam could now perfectly.
For now, it seems everything seems to be a plan of Sa Taiho’s younger brother, Sa Chuushou. Still, I’m suspecting that things aren’t as simple as with the previous arc, in which there was just one person who had a grudge against Shuurei. This time, we also have the Satsujinzoku and its leader, Meishou. They seem to be working under Sa Chuushou for now, though I’m suspecting that they’ve got some plans of their own.
A lot of new characters have also been introduced this episode. First we have Soujun, someone familiar to Ensei in some way. And is it me, or did he just call Seiran Tei Yuushun? I’m suspecting that that’s the name he took on when he ended up in the Sa Province. Then we also have Lin Senya. He’s probably going to play a major role in the next episode, though I think that there’s something fishy about this guy. He’s just way too nice and appeared out of the blue. Could he be Meishou in disguise?
