Saiunkoku Monogatari – 02

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.