I’ve wondered about this ever since Chaggumu “died”, but why did it take this long for people to pick up Chaggumu’s body from the canyon? Wouldn’t people need his body, because it’s holy, royal, important and inhabited by the egg of the water-spirit? Why on earth would people leave it there, when this episode showed that covering your mouth is enough to avoid getting suffocated by the fog?
Anyway, this episode finally shoed me what the previous eight episodes had been missing: the four warriors that Barsa battled in episode three. Without them, this anime just isn’t complete, and only they make the best out of the huge amount of detail that went into the scriptwriting. The slice-of-life elements were nice and all, but their only role was to flesh out the different characters and develop Chaggumu. The political elements were interesting, but they’ll never beat those of Saiunkoku Monogatari, and the fight of episode 13 was great, but it never had any relation to the main story, making it feel a bit empty. But these four warriors all change this when they show how carefully they carry out their work. I’m glad to see that Seirei no Moribito is finally moving forward again. 🙂
It’s a shame that WRex has stopped doing his summaries for this series, as I rather relied on him to fill in the blanks I didn’t understand. It’s going to be tricky now to find out the new intentions of the four warriors. They’re still after Chaggumu, but do they want to capture him and take him in alive, or does he need to get killed?]]>
Seirei no Moribito – 16
They’re after Chagum to retrieve him as the heir to the throne. Shuga explained to the Emperor what he found out from the stone tablets that Chagum as the bearer of the egg is not supposed to be killed. The Emperor is sad that he made the wrong decision then and now wants them to bring his second son back alive to be the heir.
Thanks for explaining. That’s quite a nice twist, and it’ll be interesting to see how Barsa will react, and when that “Rarunga” comes in the end.
I was wondering though is it official that the crowned prince died or what?
Yes, he died. otherwise, they wouldn’t be looking for Chaggumu to become heir to the throne.
I’ve also wondered why no one bothered to confirm Chagum’s death earlier. To rationalise, the shadow hunters simply made a wrong assumption in Ep.6. They might have felt that the danger of risking the fog outweighed the necessity of retrieving Chagum’s corpse. The circumstances changed by Ep.16, making the risk seem worthwhile. For all we know, only highly trained individuals like the shadow hunters could survive the fog’s poison. Shuga could have died while attempting to reach the bodies. I know, this sounds pretty weak, but I guess we’d have to suspend disbelief and move on. :p
The reason for not searching for body is because the fog down below is poisoneous. At the time when the bodies fell, the poisoneous fog was much denser and there was no way to get close enough to examine. This time however the fog was thin enough such that they can get down with cloth over their mouth for cover while holding their breath.
why do they need to kill balsa now cant they tell her the truth and that they will not kill Chagum
yea, i thought there wasn’t any point in killing balsa… at least none that they’ve explained, which is one of the weird points of this anime (another being guards are not treated as present as long as they cover their faces…)
The reason they think they have to kill balsa is probably along the lines of big misunderstandings. Probably Balsa’s people have no idea of the motivations of the hunters viceversa. Balsa thinks they want to kill Chagum and her and they think she would never hand over the Chagum because she has kind of kidnapped him or something like that.
Or maybe it has nothing to do with that 😉
I’ll keep quiet, since this will be pretty much explained in the next episode, but Patrick is getting quite close to the truth. There’s just one vital part missing.
can’t wait to see the next episode. This time she has the perfect blade instead of an imperfect blade.
The one thing driving me crazy about this series is that we don’t see enough of the politicking going on at the court. Every scene at court is so strained and tense that I know there’s a lot of politicking going on, but I’m not getting enough to put the pieces together.
Is Shuga really as naive as he sounds? Suddenly everyone wants to save Chagum based on one slightly talented star diviner’s word? A star diviner who is out of favor with his own people? Something very fishy is going on, and I get the feeling Shuga is the fall guy. I also get the feeling that our ninjas have orders to kill possibly all three (Balsa, Chagum and Shuga). Someone in court is the egg eater, mark my words.
The Sage is obviously giving Shuga enough rope to hang himself and that makes me wonder if the emperor still doesn’t want Chagum dead. Did Chagum’s brother die a natural death or was he assassinated? And to what end.
I’m 8 minutes into the 16th episode, and with Shuga’s explanation of the fabrication I see a clear analogy with the Christian orthodox interpretation vs the Gnosticism of the early Christians.
During the first 150 years of Christianity, Gnosticism was one of the sects vying for power as guardians of secret knowledge. They eventually were demonized as heretics, and history overwrote this episode for millennia.
The difference is the Star Diviners have been at it for only a few centuries.