Saiunkoku Monogatari

What a fun and charming fairy-tale this is. Shuurei is an absolute sweetheart, and the story is interesting with a good mix of humor, adventure and softhearted romance. Having seen episode 20 (about ½ of this series,) I have no hesitation to flag this series with a BUY.

Set in a mythical Chinese 12th century(?) kingdom, a nice (and naive) seventeen-year-old girl finds herself bribed into being the Emperor’s ‘consort’ for six months, in hopes that she will inspire the lazy nineteen-year-old boy-emperor into taking a more active part of the country’s administration. During her stay, her practical and level-headed attitude succeeds in charming not only the emperor, but also his circle of close friends. She quickly finds herself on a first-name basis with everyone (including the emperor) treating everyone as a close friend, while completely ignoring such minor issues such as court etiquette and differences in rank.

This series is playing itself out as a reverse harem story, in which a cute girl finds herself surrounded by a number of cute boys – some of whom have a romantic interest in her. Shuurei’s quiet charm and fierce independence have made her fun & easy to support, but also difficult to approach with a romantic heart. And even the emperor learns that while it might be easy to steal a kiss from Shuurei, dealing with the aftermath of her temper is an all-together different story.

Tale of Saiunkoku is very much of a character driven drama story, with some adventure and comedy elements. Set in the capital and royal courts of a Chinese kingdom, there is a lot of sword and assassin action, mixed with the dark motivations of court politics. I might want to compare it to the series Juuni Kokuki, minus the sorcery, magic and magic beast elements.

I have posted some images of the first episode if you would like to see a bit more.

There are two fansub titles for this series (and about 3 groups who are dedicated to issuing releases.) The two common fansub titles are Tale of Saiunkoku or Saiunkoku Monogatari

Tale of Saiunkoku is very adept in grouping together a few episodes into a main storyline arc, mixed with a number of important and unrelated minor sub stories.

A short summary of the various major story arcs are …

Episodes 1-5 – The emperor has a new consort! Shuurei moves to the imperial court. This series is a collection of sub-stories that tells of courtly life, introducing the various advisors and sages that support the emperor.

Episodes 6-7 – Trouble in the court! The forces that have been behind the attempts at poisoning Shuurei make an appearance and an attempt to take control of the throne, but the complexity of court politics can also result in many different levels of betrayal.

Episode 8-10 – A summer crisis! A long hot spell is affecting many of the workers at the court and Shuurei is recruited to help in the Department of Taxation, but she will be required to dress as a boy. Meanwhile, a stranger appears at Shuurei’s door at a time when bandits from the Brown Province are troubling the capital.

Episode 11- Shuurei falls ill. A sweet and insightful side story.

Episode 12 -14 – The month before the Imperial Exams. The emperor has proposed that the Imperial Exam (an all important test required for any aspiring court officials) be opened to female applicants. Having passed the preliminary test, Shuurei begins preparing for the Imperial Exam, but she quickly be comes entangled in a series of strange events that surround another Exam applicant and his missing Exam Admissions Tile.

Episode 15-18 - Success means having to survive the internship! The twenty top candidates of Imperial Exam are required to spend two months at court doing various duties as an internship. But corrupt officials at the court are committed to derailing any attempt to admit women into their world of power and influence.

(update Aug 22 '07)

I am happy that this series has been R1 Licensed. We can expect a grand epic anime series on par with Twelve Kingdoms, or better than Fushigi Yuugi TV.