Category: Saiunkoku Monogatari

So apparently Saiunkoku Monogatari went, just like myself, on a two-week hiatus, so I didn’t miss anything of this series. Today, the next episode arrived, and I must say that this series is getting better and better. And seriously: Seiga is a bastard!! First he guides Shuurei, dressed up as Juusanhime into a horse carriage to spend the night, only to pull a Sakujun on her. If it wasn’t for Ran, who happened to be passing by, things would have turned out even nastier. And then later we see him making shady deals with the ones who actually PLAN to assassinate Juusanhime! And really, he TOO tries to mess with Shuurei’s hair. Ryuuki, meanwhile also seems to have paid a visit to the mansion of the Ran-family. Probably to get acquaintanced with Juusanhime, but I think that he also secretly hoped to see Shuurei somewhere, which happens near the end of the episode. Juusanhime also mentions her loved one to him for the first time, and I liked how both of them realize that they’re in the same boat: that they’ll never be able to live happily with their loved one. Speaking of Juusanhime’s loved one: I think I know who he is: the prisoner who refused to go out of his cell in the previous episode. While I still don’t know the details, it does make sense how such a criminal like him can never really be fit to marry someone of such a high status as Juusanhime.]]>

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.]]>

Ah, so finally Juusanhime appears. Really, she turned out totally different from what I imagined of her. I expected a mature young girl, probably along the lines of a younger Kochou, but instead she turned out to be Shuuei’s younger sister, quite energetic and quite talented at fighting. So this is the woman who will eventually be married to Ruuki, and I wonder what she’s going to add to the overall storyline. In the meantime, Shuurei relieves her anger upon a very unlucky lump of dough, and she gets her first major mission from Kouki: safely escort Juusanhime to the palace. Shusui also returns, and nearly commits suicide! Ran also has some worries now that he’s not with Ryuuki anymore, and the two of them meet each other in this episode. There was a lot talking involved, so I couldn’t understand exactly, but apparently Ran had someone he loved, taken away from him by his triplet-brothers. Shushui puts up a strong face in front of him, though she herself is also troubled by hearing a very strange and annoying sound. Could this date back from when she was still working under Souka? All signs point to yes, since she freaked out when she saw small Riou. Most part of the episode is spent on Shuurei, though. It’s great to see her out of her old outfit that she wore in the past few episodes. I’m again not sure if I understood everything correctly, but it seems that Kouki favours Seiga at the moment, and he lets him in on quite a few things that he doesn’t let Shuurei know. Which makes me wonder… aren’t there any other people working on their department besides the three of them? Or was Kouki really in such a huge need of more people? On a side-note, I’ve been getting increasingly more annoyed with how the speeds of my images, hosted on putfile have gone down, so I’m experimenting a bit with different image- and filehosts. Can someone tell me whether the images above actually show up? And please notify me if they don’t. ]]>

Ow bugger. Saiunkoku Monogatari kept getting more interesting with every single episode progressing, and now the creators have to tease us with a recap-episode. Basically, the important moments for Suou and Shuei of the past six episodes are recapped, suggesting what some of the commenters have indeed been hinting at, that the two of them will play a major role in the upcoming arc. There is a bit of new material here and there, but that’s mostly quirky dialogues between Seiran, Ryuuki and Kouyuu. I did appreciate the few serious scenes amongst them, though.]]>

I’m still surprised at how short the different arcs have become now. There are only three or four episodes for each one. Ah well, not that I’m complaining. It’s refreshing when compared to the thickly atmosphered first half of the second season, where the pacing was really slow. This episode marks the end of what I’d call the Seiga-arc, because it indeed turns out that he was using Shuurei all along. The episode was as good as usual, and I really enjoyed it, but it also was one of these episodes with a lot of complicated talking, which led to me, not understanding 50% of it. If only the subs for this series weren’t coming out so slow… Anyway, from what I understood, Tantan went to his mother, and Shuurei now has a job with Ki Kouki, and most of the other low-ranked officials that were with her found a position with Reishin, it seems. Kouki was quite a bastard, by the way. He called Shuurei all kinds of nasty stuff before offering her a job. The other things that went on at Tantan’s mother’s home were beyond me, though. I’m still not sure what Seiga was after, and what Tantan’s role was in it. The end of the episode also shows some very interesting developments with Ryuuki, as small Riou appears right in front of him in the throne room. We also learn the identity of the guy who was behind the counterfeiting and the salt: it’s the noble we saw a number of episodes back, and complained about how the nobles are getting more and more insignificant.]]>

Now this is what I call an excellent episode! This arc is finally beginning to shine again after the countless episodes of building-up, and the main plot also finally gets moving into a very interesting direction. This was by far the best episode of the series yet, since the month-long hiatus back in August and September. There are three storylines that were important in this episode: the one about small Riou, the one about Suou and a new one, which has to do something with salt. If I understood things correctly, then someone is preventing salt-merchants to arrive in the capital, and Shuurei’s going to be busy for the next couple of episodes to try and sort that one out. The storyline that surprised me the most was that of small Riou, though: he’s big Riou’s son! Not only that, but he just hangs out with Ryuuki in the library like it’s nothing, even though both his brother and father went after Shuurei. I’m still curious about the relationship between big Riou and Ryuuki, as there doesn’t seem to be any hostility between the two of them. Tantan’s story featured some great build-up in this episode. He basically says his goodbye to Shuurei this episode by letting her play the erhu for him, because he knew that his father was going to drag him in another one of his plans. Could this have something to do with the salt? On a smaller note: Seiran remains absent in this episode, an Ki Kouki makes his first move towards Shuurei. Oh, and Shuurei and Ryuuki see each other again, and Ryuuki eats some of the lunch that Shuurei prepared.]]>

This episode was mostly build-up. The animation-quality was lower than usual, and it mostly consisted of Shuurei, trying to bring some structure into the other low-ranked officials, after she gets annoyed that they don’t even try to save their own job. Oh, and Seiran finds out what Suou said about porn-magazines, which was quite hilarious, if you ask me. The silver-haired guy seems to be called Seiga, and it seems that he’s one of the few people who actually do something, and he ends up helping Shuurei. I wonder how he ended up in such a low spot in the government, though. The Sakujun-lookalike called Ryo Anjyu also introduces himself to Shuurei in quite an eccentric way. He basically lets her peal a peach, and eats it in front of her, leaving afterwards. We also learn that Suou’s father still has some kind of role to play, and Suou has been giving him some onigiri he learned to make through Shuurei every single day. I originally thought that he couldn’t care less about his father, but this episode showed that there definitely is a bond between the two. It just seems that his father didn’t learn his lesson just yet, as he’s been inviting strange people to visit him as well. What surprises me, though is that there hasn’t been any focus on Shouka as of late. As a matter of fact, I actually don’t recall having seen the guy AT ALL since the start of this arc, apart from just one small scene in this episode. Has he been away or something? This episode, there’s also a shot of the library, where we see none other than small Riou again, but then again, he’d probably pick a time to pick up some books when Shouka’s gone from the library. There’s also surprisingly nothing about Shuuei in this episode, but I guess that he spent most of his time travelling to his three brothers.]]>

It’s episodes like this that make me regret switching back to the raws for this series. I’ve often noticed that I’m usually able to follow an episode without subtitles if it’s around the middle or end of an arc, since you do somehow know what to expect. With introductions, the story is entirely different, though. I doubt that there was any episode in Saiunkoku Monogatari that introduced more new characters than this one, apart from episode 1, perhaps. I’m really reminded back to when I first started this series, and was virtually the only one who was following it. Back then, I really had no clue what was going on. ^^; In any case, the previous arc was really there to introduce Suou, who seems to be a major character for the rest of the series. I think it’s because of him that Shuurei ended up back in the palace, to help him work off the punishment for what his father did, though I could be wrong. One of the few things I did understand of this episode was when Shuurei got fed up by all the males surrounding her and discovered that her supervisors were into pornography. The truth indeed is that Shuurei is a bit uptight, and she definitely had an idealistic image of males, due to being together with Seiran and Eigetsu so often. It’s nice to see her witness some more… average males when they’re together. It’s a good thing Suou was with her, otherwise she would have lost it. ^^;]]>

Well, one of my predictions came true: this arc is much more fast-paced than the previous one. In only four episodes, the case of the counterfeiters has been solved. Compare that to Eigetsu, being stuck inside that cave for roughly ten episodes. I think the largest purpose of that arc was to introduce Tantan-kun, who looks like he’s going to play a major role in the final parts of this anime. I indeed had a feeling that it was his father who was behind the counterfeiting and the abduction of Kailing’s child. It seems that someone made him do it, though, which hints to a connection with Riou. In any case, this episode was as heart-warming as ever, and I’m really glad to see that Saiunkoku Monogatari is catching steam again. And I think that we can only expect even better things from now on, as Shouka, small Riou and big Riou should be getting some more attention again. You can especially see that in the very last scene of the episode: I’ll be darned if that wasn’t some kind of foreshadowing, with the newly sprouting flowers of the tree being subjected to a gust of wind. I’m also glad that I’m warming up more and more to the comedy, which has returned with the beginning of this arc. Especially Seiran’s impression of Shuurei was priceless.]]>

I expected the quiet mood to last for a few more episodes, but this episode was surprisingly dark, obviously I loved it, and I’m beginning to understand why Tantan-kun was included in this show: his nonchalant nature clashes incredibly with that of Shuurei. At one point, we see a conversation between him and Shuurei, where he rather rudely wonders why Shuurei puts so much effort into investigating the art counterfeiters, when there are others who can do it just as well. Let’s just say that Shuurei starts yelling. ^^; The second half of the episode also reveals some more information about Kailing, and why she was so passionate about the art counterfeiters: it’s her daughter who’s been making them! I’m now beginning to understand how the creators are planning to trump the disease of the past arc. Apparently, her daughter is small, but very talented at painting; and we can only guess at this point how many other children have been used for this. It also seems that the mysterious guy we’ve been seeing at the past few episode is Hakumei’s brother, also in love with Shuurei. They also seem to be related to Kailing, which means that they’re going to play a major role in this arc. I really like the direction in which it’s going so far, and this arc can potentially be the best arc of the series.]]>