Category: Saiunkoku Monogatari

Shiurei is just like Haruhi Fujioka!

Okay, maybe ten times more awesome, but still, the two of them do share the same weakness. They both react in a very different way. Haruhi learned to crawl into a closet and wait till it’s over, while Shiurei sought refuge at Seiran.

In any case, a few things which happened at the previous episode became clear. First: Shiurei didn’t come back because Ryuuki wanted her to. In fact, he doesn’t even know she’s in the palace. She just got a good offer for a job as the masked guy from last episode’s assistant. For some reason, Kouyuu finds it a good idea to keep her existance away from Ryuuki. Ensei also serves this guy. I find this a bit strange. After all, Ensei looks like he’s some kind of war hero. Then why wouldn’t he join the royal army?

We start the episode with Shiurei coming back to the masked guy after running one of his errands. His direct assistant praises her, and then the masked guy calls to her. For some reason, he adresses her with “Kou Shuu”. I guess she decided to use a nickname, but doesn’t this seem to obvious? If I remember correctly, women are not allowed to work in the palace, which was the reason Shiurei had to work as Ryuuki’s wife in the first place. But still, the same rule still applies. Could it be that Shiurei was employed as a man, in order to bypass this little problem? But still, Ryuuki remains smart. Why hasn’t he figured it out yet? I mean, one look at her name and she’s discovered, no? *kicks lack of japanese*

In any case, the masked guy seems to be dealing with a lot of books and paperwork, and he gives Shiurei a lot to do, as there are a lot of piles of books and paper which have to be cleaned up. We then switch to Kouyuu and Ran as she walsk by, carrying a pile of books. The two of them talk a bit. I assume that this was about Shiurei, and how it would be troublesome if she was found out. The reason behind this still remains a mystery until I can get my hands on the subbed version of this episode.

That evening, it seemed that Shiurei asked Ran and Kouyuu to join her, Ensei, Seiran and Shouta for dinner at her home. Ensei doesn’t have too many manners, and Shiurei asks Kouyuu to help her continue her studies. Seiran, meanwhile, notices that Ensei keeps wandering off towards some place, which doesn’t seem to be too smart.

The next day, the masked guy gives Shiurei and Ensei another job of delivering some papers. When they’re done, they complain a bit about the ridiculously hot weather, and they wonder why the masked guy wears a different mask at each different occasion. For some reason, Ensei keeps calling Shiurei a princess. Even though he had yet to be introduced at the time Shiurei played for queen.

A bit later, Shiurei carries a couple of books, and she runs into Ryuuki. It takes a while for him to notice her, so she quickly hides. Ryuuki meanwhile decides that he’s seeing things again. When Ryuuki has left, a random guy pops up from out of nowhere, and offers to carry the books for Shiurei. He introduces himself as a very weird guy, and he seems to be getting all exited over the strangest things. When the two of they say goodbye, he tells her his name. He does this while making a bishie-pose. The combination that he’s no bishie at all, along with the fact that he carries a pile of books turns this into a hilarious sight. His name seems to be “Ojii-san”, by the way. I think he was kidding when he said that…

When Shiurei returns to the masked man’s office, he seems to be sleeping on a couch. Then, a small thunderstorm starts. It doesn’t take too long (about a minute), but it takes long enough for Seiran to be worried about Shiurei, and Shiurei to scream on top of the masked guy while the masked guy tries to comfort her. This doesn’t end up well when the thunder ends and Ensei the masked guy’s direct assistant enter the room, which results in a totally hilarious scene.

That evening, Shiurei’s still worried about what happened, while she studies a bit. Ensei then brings her some onigiri. The two of them then talk a bit about something my horrible Japanese couldn’t understand, while Seiran and Shouta listen from another room. Shiurei knows that the two of them are listening as well, because one of the onigiri looks horribly deformed (Shouta’s work ^^).

The next day, Kouyuu talks to Ryuuki a bit, surrounded by piles and piles of books. The latter really is down because of his lack of seeing Shiurei. He has some kind of plan, but the episode’s not long enough to show this. We then see “Ojii-san” talking to the masked guy without his mask, indeed laughing at his own performance a couple of days earlier. The two of them are up to something. probably they plan to do something to Shiurei as well, in order to break Ryuuki. I couldn’t understand what that might’ve been, though.

We never get to see the masked guy’s eyes and forehead, by the way. Every time we see him in screen, the screen stops around his nose. He probably has something that the viewer must not see at this point in the show. Then their discussion turns light again, as Ojii-san forces the masked guy to put up a horribly ugly mask, and wear it for the rest of the next day. This mask has a very interesting facial expression. While his normal masks are just emotionless, this mask has a very sad look, almost as if it was crying. The masked guy doesn’t seem to happy with this. ^^

The next day, a startled Shiurei gets a demonstration on how this guy manages to drink his tea without putting his mask off. Later that day, the masked guy apparently unmasks Ensei. Or he at least says something that startles Shiurei and Ensei. Kouyuu, meanwhile is wondering about something related to Ryuuki. That night, Ensei gets caught by Seiran while trying to sneak out again. The two of them talk a bit as well.

As predicted, Shiurei doesn’t stay away from the palace for long. It begins with Ryuuki sending her all sorts of ridiculous gifts, like three chunks of ice, a pile of flowers, a pile of boiled eggs, and one straw doll. Shiurei is of course totally freaked out by this. Ryuuki also keeps having dreams of Shiurei, running away with Seiran, which aren’t too good for his sleep, as Ran and Kouyuu find out later. ^^

We also have the introduction of a new character. He seems to have come to the castle for some reason, but permission to enter is refused. Then, Shiurei runs into him, offering a bit of food and a place to rest. It then appears that this guy, who’s apparently named Ensei, is an aquaintance of Seiran. Though the latter isn’t too fond of the former, which leads to interesting discussions. Ensei used to have a big function, though I couldn’t understand what kind of function, unfortunately.

That evening, Kouyuu and Ran pay Shiurei’s family a small visit, in the name of the emperor in order to ask her to come back. I couldn’t catch the reason behind this, though I wonder what excuse the emperor tried to use. Shiurei eventually gives in, while Seiran sends Ensei along with her, probably in order to protect her.

Ensei isn’t the only new character to be introduced, as we also get to meet with a masked guy, at the end of the episode. We see some quick flashes of him during the entire episode, though we really get to see him introduced by the end of it, near the cliffhanger. I’ve no idea what this guy is, but apparently, he has an important function.

Kourin also moved away from the royal castle, as Shiusui tells Shiurei’s father. She seems to be doing well, wherever she is, and the two of them hope that she’ll become okay again. Shou Taijin (apparently, that’s the name of the advisor-old guy) also behaves weird in this episode, but that’s probably because he carries a little pot, which contains the ashes of the other old guy who perished in the last episode.

Overall, this episode was fun to watch, especially the emperor doing silly things again. But still, the show remains a bit boring. But that can also be because I couldn’t understand half of the things which happened.

Some very interesting events happen this episode. We start with where we left off last week: Shiurei’s being tied down and Ryuuki’s about to walk into a trap. Ryuuki, however, noticed this in time, and manages to finish the assaulters off. Seiran, meanwhile, has a dream from the past, at which he was to comfort the young Ryuuki when he was fleeing from his brothers again. Shiurei’s father sees this and smiles, but dashes quickly as he hears footsteps running. Apparently, he doesn’t want to be found out, so he flees.

Ran Shiuei enters the door, and sees Seiran unconcious. He orders his soldiers to search the place, but nothing is found. Ryuuki, meanwhile, finds Shiurei, he unties her, and gives her a big, unexpected hug. She faints afterwards (after all, she does remain poisoned). Ryuuki freaks out. Koyu, meanwhile, gives a little rant about Kourin. Last episode, she wasn’t assaulted at all. She actually attempted to poison herself from doing such things to Shiurei. I’m beginning to like Kourin more and more. Can she get even more awesome?

When the doctors put an examination on both Seiran and Shiurei, it appears that Seiran will be fine. Shiurei’s a different story. There’s no antidote at all, and she’ll be in danger if something isn’t done. Ryuuki freaks out even more when he hears this. The advisor arrives, and the two hold a small conversation. I couldn’t really follow this, but at first, the advisor is reluctant to give out the antidote. After Ryuuki shouts to him, he gives it anyway, and Shiurei is saved. The strange thing is that this guy was smiling thoughout this talk. Why would he want to do that?

Ryuuki leaves and Shiurei’s father enters, and I was getting more and more questions about this advisor-guy. For some reason, he makes Shiurei’s father angry, though not to the point at which hostilities begin. The old man also gives a flashback of a strange man on a horse. Probably the former emperor. Some shots about the time during the fight of the sons of the emperor are also shown, with people barely being able to stay alive. I then realized that Shiurei’s father might be the scary guy mentioned in the fourth episode. He’s some kind of assassin, or something in that direction.

Shiurei, meanwhile, wakes up, and Ryuuki gives her another big hug. We then see Shiurei’s father once more, talking to Shiusui (the older servant of Shiurei), for some reason dressed in the same outfit as he does. She apparently is one of the few people who does know that he’s this scary guy, and the two hold some kind of conversation. Why do I get the feeling that this woman is Shiurei’s mother?

I really have NO friggin idea what’s up with the old guy. Just before, he was making both Ryuuki and Shouka (Shiurei’s father’s name) angry for some reason, and now he walks up to the culprit from last episode, and the two of them talk like they’re best friends. The culprit-old guy is dying from the wound he got from Seiran, and makes his way out of the castle in hope for a miracle. He then runs into the advisor-old guy, surrounded by two sparkles. He might possibly be one of the sages, mentioned in the beginning of the story. Anyway, he lights up, and changes into a twenty-year-old version of himself.

He then professes his LOVE for the other old guy, the other old guy takes his last breath. Apparently, they were really close in the past. I have no idea what that was about, but I want some answers!

We then switch to another very interesting development: Shiurei will be leaving the castle. Ryuuki’s got some sense into him, so she’s not needed anymore. During her departure, the advisor doesn’t show up (what is up with him?) and Ryuuki finally manages to confess to her. She, of course, immediately begins to yell at him.

I’m very curious about where this anime’ll go from now on. Ryuuki surely isn’t going to abandon Shiurei, but she doesn’t have to work at the castle anymore. Not to mention that we’ve only reached episode 6 of 39, so there’s got to be something to fill these following episodes. But what?

I might’ve picked up a lot of the most nessecary things in order to be able to follow the story, there’s one thing I seemed to have missed: Seiran is indeed Ryuuki’s brother. This explains their relationship, and the fact that he was even able to be positioned this high in the military. Watching the second episode made me also see an unimportant, yet very amusing detail: Koyu has absolutely no sense of direction. This makes him even greater as a character.

Anyway, about the episode: the creators decided to let one scene involving two characters talking take up an entire half of an episode. This was just two characters talking, no more, which means a whole lot of trouble for me, trying to understand it. A lot of important facts were revealed, though I all missed them, unfortunately. This is what I managed to catch:

We start the episode with the initial goal of this anime being fulfilled: Ryuuki is finally taking up politics again, and the country has hope once more. We see the advisor smile, which is of course, logical, as his plan seemed to work. The other main characters discuss this, and they seem pretty happy about it. But then we see a character which has been neglected for a bit: Kourin. She looks at Shiurei, and you can almost put a sign on her saying: “Hello, I was ordered to do something bad to you, but I really don’t want to do it, what should I do?”. Or something in that direction. I like the fact that each character has some kind of deep role in this.

We turn to the evening, and Kourin’s caretaker (how the heck is that woman called again?) brings Shiurei some tea. She says that Kourin’s too sick at the moment in order to deliver her self-made tea, so she delivers it for her. The tea is actually poisoned, making our suspicions of Kourin indeed true. Still, it’s no deadly poison, Shiurei only faints, waiting to be kidnapped.

The events get discovered by Koyu, who happens to overhear Kourin getting cornered by someone, while he was getting lost himself. Kourin then gets to take a couple of punches, and the assaulter runs before Koyu manages to get to them. His yelling warns the other soldiers, and it is soon discovered that Shiurei is missing.

Ryuuki and Seiran both set off on their own, without any company. Seiran seems to know where the mastermind behind the kidnapping resides, while Ryuuki goes to rescue Shiurei. I have no idea how they know about the locations, and why they even dared to think to show up alone. Especially Ryuuki.

Anyway, for whatever reason, Seiran rushes to the culprit. The location seems to be inside Shiurei’s house. Why? I have no idea. It finally appears to be one of the old men who hang around at the castle. This is the one who hasn’t been active at all in the series. Then the horrible-half-episode-long dialogue begins. The old man then fully explains why he did it, how he did it, and why he thinks this is the best option. Still, I haven’t been able to pick up any of this.

Anyway, the old guy holds this behemoth of a conversation in order to let the air in the room be filled with some kind of strange smoke. Seiran’s getting a bit affected by it, though the old guy cleverly stands next to the window. Right when Seiran’s about to kill him, he shuts the window and puts on a gas mask. The fog in the room thickens heavily, giving Seiran a hard time to breathe.

He then calls a couple of cark-clothed henchmen, and orders them to attack Seiran. Seiran, however, still has some strength inside him left, and uses this by killing off the first bunch of henchmen. I have to say that I was very impressed with the battle-choreography. It looked really nice and smooth, even though it wasn’t much. The henchmen, however, are with too many, and they finally manage to overpower Seiran, but not before he throws a small knife inside the old guy’s shoulder. Then, Shiurei’s father appears. Apparently, he’s an excellent swordsman, as he kills off the henchmen in about two seconds. He lets go of the old guy, though.

Kourin, apparently, was taken in by this old guy. She was devastated when he found her, and he showed a lot of hospitality by allowing her to work under the castle. She has been, however, favouring Shiurei more and more, so she certainly got her doubts when she suddenly was ordered to poison her. A nice explanation of what happened. She also was too adorible when she apologized. There’s also some story about her caretaker, though I didn’t manage to pick that up.

Ryuuki, meanwhile, found the place Shiurei was taken. He gets attacked by another couple of henchmen (who are actually fairly surprised he was stupid enough to come on his own), though he manages to finish these guys off. Another bunch of henchmen then comes, and uses a fake Shiurei in order to trick Ryuuki to drop his sword. They succeed. Shiurei, meanwhile, has been viewing all this from a distance, and keeps hoping for Ryuuki to notice the trap. Cliffhanger.

I managed to see the first fansub of the series, and a couple of more things became clear. Mostly about the backgrounds of the story and people, and what position’s they’re at.

Shiurei’s family has a very important status, though despite the status, they’re incredibly poor. This is mostly because her father spent almost all of his money to good deeds. She’s not only asked to be the emperor’s concubine, she even gets to become his wife, which explains the awe everyone suddenly has for her.

Shiurei’s father is the castle’s librarian. He doesn’t make much money, though he’s a well respected man.

Ran Shiuei and Koyu are both assigned to keep an eye on the emperor. They’re both very talented commanders in the royal army, though especially Koyu isn’t too happy with his new function. They also spend most of the time idle, as the emperor keeps wandering off without a trace.

The emperor, who’s apparently named Ryuuki, is the youngest brother of five. Or six. I have no idea which is the right number, though different sources state different facts. Anyway, three, or four of his brothers died while vying for the throne. His only older brother left when he was young, so he’s been assigned to take up the throne, mostly to keep up the name of the royal family. The fight between his brothers explains why he always came so heavily beaten up to Shiurei’s father. He was the only one to comfort him.

When Shiurei got assigned as Ryuuki’s wife, Seiran, for some reason, got assigned as a captain of a certain squad (forgot its name, unfortunately). I still have no idea why, but it does explain why he keeps popping up in the castle, and not to mention why he got to participate in last week’s tournament.

Another interesting fact about the story itself: Long ago, there used to be demons roaming around the country. Then one legendary warrior came and defeated them, along with his eight supervisors: the eight sages. These eight sages continued to watch over the land, even after the death of the warrior. This’ll probably useful info for later in the series.

Anyway, about the episode, it was incredibly fun. We get to see the introduction of another side-character: Ran Ryuurei. Yes, indeed. He’s Ran Shiuei’s brother, and a very peculiar character as well.

We begin with Shiurei and her two servants holding a random conversation. We then switch back to a very hilarious scene, at which Ran Shiuei and Ryuuki talk for a bit, and Shiurei overhears them. She only hears a part of the conversation, and now she thinks that Ryuuki also has a relationship with Ran as well.

She then comes across Ran Ryuurei. He’s dressed rather odd, and when he tastes one of Shiurei’s dango, he utters some weird critizism. At least, in Shiurei’s eyes. He then randomly begins playing a flute, though it’s horribly off-key. Ran Shiuei then arrives, and recognizes his brother. He has no idea what he’s doing at the palace (heck, I still don’t know that as well), and tries to make him go back, to wherever he came from. Ryuurei just doesn’t want to, so he has to stay for a while.

Ryuurei then randomly disappears, to the great displeasurement of Shiuei, and ends up playing a card-game with the three old men. This was the first time I saw a comedical moment of theirs, and it worked pretty well. They were very angry that Ryuurei beat them all at once, and they won’t let him go until they defeated him. (Interesting note: this could be a sign for future episodes. This might show that they always act like this whenever defeated. If it does, then they’re going to play a huge and probably magnificent role).

With Koyu joining them, Shiuei and Shiurei finally get Ryuurei away from the old men. This was quite hilarious to see, especially Koyu apologizing while running away at the end. Shiurei then figures that it might be nice for the three of them to show Ryuurei a bit around the palace, but he only ends up taking a little nap at something that looks like the emperor’s throne.

When it appears that Ryuurei’ll be staying the night over at the palace, a place for him to sleep needs to get decided. Of course, Koyu gets to be the fortunate one to sacrifice himself. Needless to say that he’ll be waking up quite pissed the next morning. ^^;

Anyway, while Koyu’s getting the worst night of his life, the emperor’s heading to Shiurei’s bedroom, with a smile on his face which instantly screams that he’s been looking forward to that moment for the entire day. Then one of the three old men comes, and tells him something. The two have a serious discussion, though I have no idea about what that might’ve been. When Ryuuki reaches Shiurei’s place, she tells him how she’s studying very hard. She has probably very good reasons for this, though I have no idea what they are.

The next morning, after a little rant on Koyu’s side (^^;), Shiurei finally manages to calm Ryuurei down, to the surprisement of Shiuei and Koyu. Afterwards, the two have a bit of tea, which Kourin brought them. Ryuurei mentions a couple of things, and Kourin falls down because of these things. She’s being saved by the other servant, though this shows that there’s something on Kourin’s mind. Though I don’t know what. I guess we’ll have to find that out later.

Then Ryuuki sees the two of them walking, and asks who Ryuurei might be. When he asks for Shiurei to come with him, Ryuurei invites her to come along with him to the town, as he still has to pay her back from the dango from earlier. Shiurei agrees and Ryuuki feels a bit worried. he tells Seiran about this. I thought that he also ordered Seiran to follow them, but we never see Seiran again this episode, so they must’ve been talking about something else.

In town, we get to see that Ryuurei’s the total opposite of Ginko when it comes to playing the merchant: he sees a bag of beans, and buys it. He then trades the beans for a couple of eggs, the eggs for selery, the selery for firewood, the firewood for flowers, the flowers for a fish and the fish for pack of straw. He finally gives the straw to a lonely child, who just spilled hers all over the ground, making it useless. He ends up with only one piece of straw left, at which he keeps staring for a couple of seconds. Even though the meaning of this remains oblivious, I somehow found this very enjoyable, seeing Ryuurei just trade random, useless things for even more useless things. The face he kept when doing all of this was priceless.

Now that I think a bit about it, it appears to be that the two of them were looking for some kind of food, as Shiurei suddenly seems to be all giddly over a fish. But then again, she probably never ate any fish, so it she must be very curious about trying one. Still, it’s nice to remember this. It might come back.

Anyway, we turn to dinner, at which the two of them begin to get a bit closer, and finally, Ryuurei starts to fall for Shiurei as well. I was really reminded of the harem-shows at this time, though almost all of them had something that Saiunkoku Monogatari doesn’t have: an impulsive young male lead. Because of this tiny difference, I managed to enjoy this.

We then have some final discussion between Shiurei, Shiuei, Ryuurei and Shiurei’s father (these names look a lot like each other, don’t they?), and Ryuurei leaves. I don’t know what happened in this discussion, though it left a great impact on Shiuei. We end the episode with Ryuuki trying to make up with Shiurei, by buying her what looks like the most horrible and useless stuff ever. And in large quantities as well. Shiurei, of course, doesn’t like this. ^_^;;

Like I said before, I really liked this episode. Each of the characters is unique, and funny in his or her own kind of way. And even though the show contains healty amounts of comedy, it knows when to be serious, and leave the jokes aside. I really like the way this anime is going.

Good anime get you hooked at one certain point of the show. In shows like Good Witch of the West or Noein, this point was right at the first episode. In shows like Blood+ and Eureka7, this moment happens around episode 10. In Saiunkoku Monogatari, this moment came at episode four. This really was the episode which motivated me to actively follow this anime.

We start of with Shiurei almost quitting her function, until she realizes that she’ll lose her huge payment as well. We then switch to Ran Shiuei and the emperor, who talk a bit, and the emperor realizes he might’ve used the wrong methods to get Shiurei’s attention. Ran cheers him up a bit.

We then switch to the three old men, and for the first time ever, I understood what they were talking about: who was the one that tried to poison Shiurei? They don’t really find an answer. We switch to Shiurei and her father, who talk a bit, and Shiurei’s father tells a bit about how the emperor was when he was a little kid. It seems to be a sad tale, I think it has got something to do with him being bullied.

Back to Ran Shiuei and Koyu, they talk a bit, about how Shiurei seems to know. I think that was referring to her finding out that the emperor really is smart, and has been playing dumb. They split up, and Ran sees Seiran walk alone, so he heads for him. Seiran looks kindof worried, so he tries to cheer him up, which includes making a couple of strange but very assumptions. Then one of the old guys, who appears to be the head of the palace guards, suddenly sees the two of them. He challenges Seiran for a sparring match, because he sees him in an armor. Seiran loses, and the old guy teaches him a few lessons.

This, by the way, was the very first action-scene of the show, and I have to say, I like it. Although subtle, I could see some sword techniques being used, instead of the usual shash-long-enough-until-you-hit-something. Anyway, that evening, Seiran and Shiurei sit at a table, having a small dinner, which consists of a couple of bread-buns. Shiurei begins to feel a bit worried, so Seiran comforts her.

Ran Shiuei and Koyu, meanwhile, talk again about the poisoning, and we get our very first hint of a very interesting plotline to come. Koyu reckons some legendary evil guy tried to poison Shiurei. We get to see his outlines, and it appears that he has lots of followers. He may have done it, he may not have done it, though one thing is certain: he will be appearing at some point of the series.

The next day, a little tournament is hosted between the knights of the palace. Koyu gets to be the referee (I know there’s a better word for this, I just can’t think of it), and it appears that Ran Shiuei’s a palace guard as well. Surprisingly. Shiurei gets to sit next to the emperor, but then she sees her father who’s giving the audience cups of tea. She’s very worried, because her father is extremely clumsy. A loud scream only comfirms that, so Shiurei decides to take over his work. That was a very amusing scene, I couldn’t help but laugh, especially after seeing a lonely father alone in his room afterwards.

The tournament begins with Koyu reading a very long, and apparently embarrasing piece of parchment. We only get so see two fights: Ran Shiuei vs a random giant, and the emperor vs Seiran. Ran manages to beat the giant with ease, with a pretty funny aftermath. In the fight between the emperor and Seiran, Seiran seems to be on the offensive side, though the emperor manages to win in the end.

We turn to the evening, and apparently Ran came out as a winner. The emperor apologizes to Shiurei because he lost. He then sees Seiran walk, and follows him. When he meets up with him, he confesses how Seiran reminds him of his older brother, and how he apparently wants to be with him. Seiran replies with that he’s not the emperor’s brother, and that he shouldn’t confuse the two of them. The two of them get a bit emotional, and then Shiurei runs into them. The way they’re holding each other makes her think that the two of them have a secret love-relationship. Hehe.

Now with the subs out, I think I’m still going to continue with the raws. Besides, I’m having too much fun with this to be abandoning it for a couple of weeks until the fansubs finally manage to catch up. And it’ll also be a nice kind of experiment as well. Even though some parts may be extremely difficult to understand, I still like this series, and as I stated above, this episode just got me hooked.

Thanks to a couple of helpful commenters, the story of Saiunkoku Monogatari became a bit clear. Shiujou actually is an emperor, and Siurei was hired as a tutor for him. As women can’t be officers, she currently works as a concubine. Seiran was taken in by Shiurei-s family thirteen years ago, when he had nowhere to go, and ever since he’s been wanting to pay them back for their kindness. A couple of things indeed begin to make sense now…

Anyway, this episode, the emperor has a strange dream about his older brother, who bears suspiciously close resemblances to Seiran. Then he wakes up, with Seiran in front of him. The two have a strange discussion, I didn’t understand it, but it gave some ‘interesting’ impressions. Anyway, after that, the emperor admits that he’s a bit jealous of Shiurei and Seiran while they’re together, and he sees them being so close.

We then switch to that night, at which Shiurei has a small conversation with the little girl and an woman, probably both of them are concubines as well. The girl leaves, and returns with the message that the emperor really wants to speak with her. She looked pretty serious, though when Shiurei arrives at the emperor, it only appears that he went out and picked up a couple of wild roses. His hands, of course, weren’t used to the needles, so they’re full of scratches. Shiurei tends these, the two talk a bit, and somehow, Shiurei mentions Seiran’s name. Suddenly, the emperor demands her not to talk about Seiran, or something similar. Shiurei agrees, but she finds this kindof weird. The emperor then makes her tell a little story, at which he immediately falls asleep.

Apparently, he fell asleep in Shiurei’s bed, so she has no choice but to divide the bed into two with what looks like a role of carpet, and both of them sleep at one side. This makes for an interesting scene on the next morning, as the girl from before comes to wake them, and sees the role of carpet gone, and the emperor embracing Shiurei in his sleep. Needless to say that Shiurei doesn’t wake up in a pleasant manner. That was a nice moment. It also shows what an idiot the emperor actually is, he needs someone for everything, and just thinks he can do as he pleases.

The next evening, he again stands in front of her door in his bedgown, apparently planning to sleep next to her again. The two talk a bit, and she gives him a self-made hankerchief. I don’t know whether I picked up the next thing right, but if I understood it correctly, Shiurei didn’t give Seiran a hankerchief, which makes the emperor happy.

The next evening, there seems to be some kind of party at the palace. The emperor and Shiurei get offered some sake, but before Shiurei gets to even touch hers, the emperor snatches it away and drinks it himself. Later, it appeared that the sake wasn’t good anymore, giving the emperor a nice stomache-ache, so Shiurei carries him to his bed. When she finds out about the emperor knowing the sake was poisoned, she begins yelling at him, though he tells her to be quiet, or something in that direction.

Shiurei sits next to him for the next couple of hours, and suddenly, he begins a speach about how he’s afraid of the dark, mostly at his mother’s fault. It also appears that he was crying for some reason when he was young, and he was being comforted by none other than Shiurei’s father. The next morning, the emperor seems to be fine again, and he’s playing a bit with Shiurei’s hair as she wakes up. She’s a bit embarrased, though the two of them make up.

Then we switch to a scene at which Ran and Koyu meet up with a delivery-boy, which comes to deliver two flowers which the emperor sent them. I have no idea about the meaning of this scene… I mean… why would he even do such a thing?

The episode ends with Shiurei realizing something, and then getting angry at the emperor, to the point of yelling at and hitting him. I think that he wasn’t really sick in the first place, and that he’d just been acting all the time. After all, you don’t recover from food-poisoning in one simple night. And I can understand why Shiurei’s ticked off when discovering this. This really shows what an easy-going idiot the emperor is, he just does as he pleases.

I’ve probably picked up one of the worst series to be experimenting with the raws, as most of the series consists of people talking. Still, I need a better reason to drop this series, as I actually enjoyed this episode, despite only understanding 25% of it.

We start the episode with the fake Ran Shiuei (I hope that that’s how you spell it) meeting up with Shiurei’s father. I later learned that his real name is Shiujou. Seiren meanwhile gets a talk with the real Ran Shiuei and his friend, whose name I forgot. Apparently, they’ve known each other from before. They talk about something involving Shiujou.

Back to Shiurei and Shiujou, the former gives the latter a bit of tea, and the latter gets a bit embarrased at something which the former said. Then we switch back to a conversation between the two of them and Shiurei’s father. It then seems that she’s some kind of princess, though I think it means daughter of someone who owns a large building as a house, which I understood later in the episode. Shiujou then notices how uneven Shiurei’s fingers are. This is because her family is so poor, she has to do all of the cleaning, which gives her such rough hands. She then begins treating Shiujou as a little kid, which was fairly amusing to see.

We then switch to the next day. Apparently, Shiurei asked Ran Shiuei to study with her together, as she names a few historical buildings/people/eras/whatever, and Ran seems very impressed. After all, Shiurei was a teacher, so she knows a fair amount of facts. Then Ran’s ‘good’ friend enters the room as well. If I heard his name well, I think you could type it as Koyu, or something in that direction. It now becomes clear that the three are studying together, for some unknown purpose. Koyu then begins yelling at Ran, as usual, but he says something that makes Shiurei think. What he said… well, God knows.

Then we turn to a busy shopping street, as Shiujou and Shiurei take a small walk outside. Shiurei then meets up with some of her former students, and then finds out that one of them is in sortof trouble. Her parents own a shop which deals in hair ornaments, and left her alone to take care of it while they went out for something. Then she gets bothered by an annoying customer, which apparently just plans to take things without paying. Shiurei scares him off, and both she and Shiujou spend the rest of the day taking care of the shop, while the child looks for her parents. Shiujou obviously has trouble, and is a bit too shy, but after it’s over, he feels content.

At this point of the episode, I had a bit of a meh-feeling about this show. The characters were living their normal life, though nothing special happened. What happened afterwards, changed my opinion. And I have to say, that this anime has a lot of hidden potential, and it’s just taking its time building up. Anyway, the two of them arrive at Shiurei’s home. It’s very big, though it looks horribly worn-out. Shiurei then begins telling Shiujou about the history of the land. Apparently, the people here used to be extremely poor. Nothing would grow. Thanks to Shiurei’s father and Seiren, the ground became a bit fertilizable again, but the poverty still isn’t completely gone. Shiurei speaks a couple of inspiring words, which really manage to impress Shiujou. I have no idea what she said, but it did sound impressive.

Afterwards, when Shiujou left, Shiurei and Seiren have a small talk, at which the latter ends up crying. The next day, Shiujou has been invited to study along with Shiurei, Ran and Koyu, and especially the last two plan to make this time quite difficult for him (after all, he did steal Ran’s name), including some scary faces.

And what the heck is Shiurei’s relationship with Seiren? I’ve ran down to three options: her uncle, her older brother or her servant. Though, he can’t be her uncle, as they’re way too close for a niece-and uncle-relationship. This has more something of a older-brother-younger-sister-relationship, but he can’t be her older brother, as he refers to her as Ojou-sama, and I never heard any onee-san, onii-sama, ani-ue, or anything similar. He also can’t be her servant, as they’re incredibly poor already. They’d have no money in order to pay for him.

So far, there are only two things I didn’t like about Saiunkoku Monogatari. The first is Shiujou. He’s just a bit too standard and boring. His personality just isn’t very interesting. The second is the front of each character’s hair. No offence, but it looks just fake. And it seems that they used the same reference with both Ran as Shiujou as Seiren.

I have no idea why I decided to pick up the raws for this anime. In fact, I have no friggin idea why I decided to pick up a raw in the first place. The only japanese I know is that which I unconciously picked up from two years of anime-watching. I think I’m just going to blame impatience. I’ve been waiting for this show for a while, and still no fansub group decided to pick it up.

Anyway, this is what I managed to understand: we have a girl, named Siurei (I think that’s how you spell it, please correct me if I’m wrong) who works as a grade-school teacher. She also plays a japanese violin-like instrument, I forgot its name for a bit, with which she tries to get a job. She plays horrible, so she isn’t much of a success. Afterwards, she complains to her boyfriend/friend/future boyfriend/servant/brother/whatever (whose name is apparently Seiran) about how she has to live in poverty all the time, that she hates being poor, et cetera.

When the two of them get home, they are visited by a strange old man, who has an offer for Siurei: she has to work for him, in excange for a fairly large amount of money. If I had to take a guess… it would either be five thousand, or five hundred Ryu, as the man holds up five fingers when he says the amount. Siurei is so stunned by this, that she accepts.

There are some catches to this, though. I still haven’t figured out which, but they aren’t pretty. Anyway, once appointed, it seems to me that she aquired quite an important function, as everyone seems to respect her and is in awe of her. A small girl, probably named Kourin, comes to bring her tea. She trips and falls, spilling tea all over her. Siurei comforts her. I guess that we will see this girl more often.

We then switch to two bishounen, one seriously annoying the other, to the point of yelling. Then Siurei comes across them, the three introduce themselves, and she brings them some lunch. Aparently, there’s only one thing that she can make, though she seems to be very good in this. She then takes some kind of book and leaves.

We then switch to Siurei in a small forest of sakura, awed by the beauty of them. She then meets up with another bishounen, and instantly begins to feel something for him. When she asks for his name, he gives a fake one, as it appears to be identical with one of the two bishounen featured earlier. She lets him have some of her lunch, and then she leaves. The screen zooms out, we see a couple of old men talking and the episode ends.

I think that Saiunkoku Monogatari has lots of potential. After all, its total amount of episodes consists of 39, and the first episode already features a lot of progress. I also like the art, it’s one of the cleanest I’ve yet to see, not to mention the great costumes. It doesn’t beat Tales of Phantasia, though. The music also is very fitting, it conists of ancient japanese musical instruments, which play about half of the episode. A bit too little, though, but it could have been done a lot worse.