Tale of Saiunkoku, also known as Saiunkoku Monogatari, also known as Story of the Land of Many-Colored Clouds.

I said previously that I would stop watching if the anime remained bad. Thankfully it didn’t. I must say that the anime started off really slow. But seeing that there’s a total of 36 episodes, I guess that’s the reason why.

Touching on the story telling. The story is in a setting similar to that of ancient china. It brings to mind anime like juuni kokki and fushigi yuugi. However, I’ve got to say that the story telling is pretty weak in certain areas. Most of the time, items of suspense are just told and revealed just like that. Either that, or it’s presented in a very obvious manner. They did redeem themselves with a surprise (to me anyway) in ep 6.

Animation is good, although I can’t say that it stands out. However, it is very colourful. plus point!

A lot of time, the story is “carried” by shuurei, and most jokes revolve around her. While it isn’t too bad, it can get tiring at times. One can also get tired of excessive close up of her various facial expressions.

Overall… I’ll say that while it’s not exceedingly exciting, it has been improving in ep 5 & 6. (My opinion is that ep 4 was a disaster). So catch it if you’ve got the time. If you believe in numbers… I’ll give approx 7.2 out of 10 points.

Ep 4 was about the revealing of the whereabouts of Prince Seien. This was badly presented if you ask me. Many minus points.

Ep 5 was about  the introduction of shuuhei. Although he only appeared for one episode (I have no idea whether he is coming back), he did provide more roundedness to the episode, and it was quite funny.

Ep 6. Action! Shuurei is kidnapped. Ryukki apprehends the suspects that have been trying to poison shuurei, and goes off to rescue shuurei all on his own. I was pleasantly surprised with the twist at the end. Finally. I’m actually looking forward to ep 7.