Saiunkoku Monogatari, ep. 01-14

[oyceter]

This is currently being fansubbed; I found out about it via umadoshi's pimping and started watching on rilina's rec (as with so many things...).

Kou Shuurei has been longing to take examinations that qualify people to become court officials all her life, but the country of Saiunkoku (technically it's "Saiun," since "koku" means "country," but whatever) doesn't allow women to take examinations.

The emperor is an apparent playboy who cares nothing about governing; to deal with this, advisor Shou Taishi offers Shuurei 500 gold pieces to become the emperor's consort and somehow get him to care about politics and his country. Since Shuurei's family is noble but poor, this seems to be a godsend.

I'm not quite sure how to describe this series. There's some court intrigue, but most of it is light-hearted and not dangerous. There are tons of bishounen, but really not that much shounen ai hints. There's the potential to be a crazy romantic comedy in which everyone falls in love with Shuurei, but that doesn't happen either. Instead, it's a rather light series about the day-to-day of running a country and dealing with things like taxes and finances.

The first episode is very uncharacteristic of the rest; Shuurei isn't the giggling, chibi-prone girl that she's portrayed as in the beginning. She's actually fairly level-headed and not at all prone to crushes on the assorted bishounen. Much of the intrigue isn't cloak-and-dagger; instead, it's on if a certain bill-type-legislation will pass with the emperor's advisors.

The series does turn a little dark at the end of the first arc (around ep. 6-7), but it doesn't stay there.

It's really pleasant to watch without being mindcandy; the plot has so far avoided veering toward the very obvious plot points (although some revelations are horribly unrevelatory). I'd generally recommed that anyone interested watch up to the resolution of the first arc, since it's only 6-7 episodes, because the plot really changes in a way that I hadn't expected.

The setting is very much based on Tang Dynasty China, from the clothing to the layout of the capital city. And while there are bishounen galore and comic relief, none of it takes over the series.

I'm not head-over-heels fannish about it, but it's really fun and unexpectedly smart, and I'm very much enjoying the lack of romantic angst.

Links:
rilina's Memories and tags

Comments

[rilina.livejournal.com]

You know, you can probably blame umadoshi for my pimping of Ouran and Hachikuro to you; I think reading about them on her journal is what most put them on my radar, though I did hear about them elsewhere too.

Your assessment is pretty much like mine. I like how the show avoids some of the obvious directions; I wonder if that's partly because the source was novels rather than manga (though it's now being made into a manga).

I really like the third arc; am looking forward to hearing what you think about the rest of it.

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

Yay, I'm a good influence! ^_-

Oyce, I hope you keep liking it. ^_^

[oyceter]

I am very interested to see where it ends up going!

[oyceter]

Hee! Go figure ;). And hopefully I will be successful in pimping Ouran to Rachel as well, to continue the chain.

Is the third arc the one with the green-haired kid?

[rilina.livejournal.com]

I've been using Shadow's divisions (http://shadow.randomfandom.com/saiunkoku/anime/index.htm); that is, I think of 11 as side story 1, 12-13 as side story 2, and 14-18(19?) as the third arc.