Short Synopsis: Something goes wrong as Genji yet again switches over to a new woman.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
I’m amazed at how much this series has already done within only three episodes. Most series really need a bit of time to get fully steamed up, but with this series, every episode has delivered so far, and has been increasingly better. It would be awesome if this trend would continue throughout the rest of the series. My only gripe with this series is that at times, it’s rather hard to keep track of who is who. The extreme example is of course Genji in his younger days, but because of the series’ pacing it doesn’t have the time to properly introduce its characters.
Still, this definitely is one of the more unique harems I’ve seen, even though the story is 1000 years old by now. With Genji, you can see that the guy is a player, rather than a clueless harem lead. In the Tale of Genji, girls don’t flock to Genji, but Genji flocks to the girls, seduces them and then moves on again. This episode also showed that he really isn’t aware of the pain he brings to all of his victims. This whole love-thing is simply a game for him, and while he genuinely cares about the women he meets, he doesn’t try to take their own feelings into account at all. I think that that’s because he was raised as a prince and all. Japan’s emperors in ancient times have always had a reputation of being rather screwed in the head.
I’m not exactly sure what happened at the end of this episode. Was that ghost a vision that Genji had, causing him to cut up his newest love in confusion, or are there certain supernatural traits to this story, and was the ghost caused by the woman (I really have trouble remembering all of their names) of the last episode, who longs back to seeing Genji again?
If I remember correctly, the original story had ghost haunting in it, the ghost being Genji’s first wife. But I don’t think she’s been introduced already…
The beauty of Genji is that the tales themselves are separated into volumes and what the studio did was simply to incorporate an entire volume into a single episode. That’s why it feels like so much is happening all at once.
The older woman Genji has been seeing, Lady Rokujo, is so jealous that she unconsciously sends out an evil spirit of herself, and it kills Yugao.
So far, we have: 1. Lady Fujitsubo, the wife of Genji’s father the Emperor. She is Genji’s pal when he is young, and becomes his lover when he is a teenager. 2. Lady Aoi, Genji’s wife, the daughter of the prime minister and sister of genji’s best friend, Tou no Chuujo. 3. Lady Rokujo, the talented and educated older woman whose passion for him Genji eventually tires of. 4. Yugao, the girl he happens to find and fall crazy in love with in ep3.
@hashi, you’re quite right. But to be clearer re: 2), Fujitsubo is someone Genji keeps his utmost love and admiration (in fact, he tends to be attracted to women resembles/blood-related to her,) however, at this point (end of ep.3) he hasn’t had a chance to re-encounter her yet. He won’t have a chance to see her in person until much later when she leaves the palace and relocate in country due to her health condition declines… In any case, I still have a bit of hard time to get used to the characters design…
Wow! This last episode started differently. Genji was almost a nice guy, until the end. I’m so glad I’m reading the novel along with it, since my Japanese is abysmal.
Hi!
I started watching this serie but unfortunatelly I’ve just found so far episode 1 with subtitles. Do you know where I could find the rest either in English, Spanish or even Swedish subs? Thanks to your summaries I can have an idea what’s going on.