13th August 2011, 12:34 AM
Saiunkoku Monogatari 7-8 - Huh, seems decent. It's a fantasy ancient China series about a girl who wants to become a government official or something like that, and the various attractive guys around her. 78 episodes though... that's a lot. Still, I might watch it.
Saiunkoku Monogatari 9-11 - This is a really, really slow paced show. The episodes seem to take forever to finish... I don't mean that as an entirely bad thing though, the writing and stories are quite decent. I like the setting too, fantasy ancient China is a great setting that isn't used quite often enough in anime. :) It's also good because ancient China/Japan settings in anime are generally much, much less crazily inaccurate than fantasy ancient European stuff is... yes, the insanity of fantasy Medieval stuff is pretty annoying at times. Maybe they should do more things set in the East. You know, do more things you know... :p (But yeah, I know fantasy is popular. I like it too.)
Anyway, as for the show, apart from being really slow, it is of course a reverse harem series. There's the main girl, who's from a noble family, wants to break gender barriers by being the first woman official, and is really good at a lot of things, and then a bunch of guys around her, including the king, various high officials, etc. They are, of course, all bishounen. The series is quite slow and has lots of politics and talking, and only rare action. For a slow show the pacing is okay, and there are lots of episodes so it's not like it's going to run out of episodes anytime soon (something that would make a pace this slow more annoying; like, think of The Twelve Kingdoms, where the thing ended in the middle because they had a really slow pace and then ran out of episodes long before they ran out of story; sure it was 45 episodes, but that wasn't nearly enough.). The main character girl often is almost a side character, as there's lots of stuff with just the rest of the characters (all male) talking. The show's decent though, and I probably do want to watch more, even if with its pace it is a bit boring.
Saiunkoku Monogatari 9-11 - This is a really, really slow paced show. The episodes seem to take forever to finish... I don't mean that as an entirely bad thing though, the writing and stories are quite decent. I like the setting too, fantasy ancient China is a great setting that isn't used quite often enough in anime. :) It's also good because ancient China/Japan settings in anime are generally much, much less crazily inaccurate than fantasy ancient European stuff is... yes, the insanity of fantasy Medieval stuff is pretty annoying at times. Maybe they should do more things set in the East. You know, do more things you know... :p (But yeah, I know fantasy is popular. I like it too.)
Anyway, as for the show, apart from being really slow, it is of course a reverse harem series. There's the main girl, who's from a noble family, wants to break gender barriers by being the first woman official, and is really good at a lot of things, and then a bunch of guys around her, including the king, various high officials, etc. They are, of course, all bishounen. The series is quite slow and has lots of politics and talking, and only rare action. For a slow show the pacing is okay, and there are lots of episodes so it's not like it's going to run out of episodes anytime soon (something that would make a pace this slow more annoying; like, think of The Twelve Kingdoms, where the thing ended in the middle because they had a really slow pace and then ran out of episodes long before they ran out of story; sure it was 45 episodes, but that wasn't nearly enough.). The main character girl often is almost a side character, as there's lots of stuff with just the rest of the characters (all male) talking. The show's decent though, and I probably do want to watch more, even if with its pace it is a bit boring.