This episode basically closes the first story arc, and reveals all the background that has been going on. I must say that even after the previous episode, I’m still pretty plesantly surprised.

At the end of the day, everything was just a scheme by Grand Preceptor Shou, to basically make Ryuuki a better emperor. Everything including instigating Grand Preceptor Sa to do all that plotting that he did.

In a way, it’s quite impossibe for anybody to have planned everything, but I guess that just simply shows how good Shou is. He basically got Sa to come up with a plot, in order to surpass Shou. At the same time, he gave Shuurei poison that only he himself had the antidote to. Doing all this, he got Ryuuki to promise to be a good emperor, in exchange for the antidote.

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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.

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Boring and slow. Sustained so far simply Shuurei’s character. Shuurei is quite funny, with the sharp wit of someone who had to survive a poor background, yet has the elegance to fit into the palace. The conflict in her is indeed quite funny.

But so far… it’s boring and slow. But the storyline does has potential.

Ryuuki is jealous of the relationship that seiran and shuurei has. Yet shuurei thinks that the emperor likes guys, especially since he keeps looking at seiran in a weird way when they are all together.

The episode is named wise eagle hide its talons. Obviously, it’s introducing how the emperor has always simply been acting like a fool. But actually has plenty of potential. Yet, shuurei only discovered that at the end of the episode.

In between, ryuuki uses all sorts of excuses to sleep with shuurei each night, in order to get closer to her.

Though we still don’t know why the emperor has hidden his talents so far, we discover that he was ill treated as a kid by his mom and his older brothers. Yet his second elder brother seien was always nice to him, but he was exiled. (reason not given).

Like I said, all that gives much potential. We shall see. If the anime doesn’t improve, I’ll stop watching.

Seiran belongs to Shuurei’s family, after Shuurei’s parents rescued him after he was abandoned as a child. Eight years ago, there were internal conflict within the imperial palace, after the empress died. Management of the country was neglected, and the people around the palace became very poor, shuurei’s family included, even though her father worked in the palace archives.

One day, the imperial grand adviser visits the family, and requests that Shuurei and seiran enter the palace as high consort and body guard respectively in exchange for 500 gold. Their purpose is to teach the new young emperor, who has been doing nothing ever since he ascended the throne.

In addition to shuurei and seiran, two other guys are also asked to do the same thing. Ran shuuei who was supposed to be the emperor’s general, and Ri kouyuu, child genius, and now government official. However, the emperor does not bother to meet any of them. One day however, the emperor meets shuurei by accident, yet pretends and introduces himself as Ran shuuei. Shuurei knows the truth, yet plays along.

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