Saiunkoku Monogatari

I'm SOOOOOOO HAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!



*warning: totally-obsessive-crazy-insane-inner-fangirlism arisen!!!



I'm a big fan of the Japanese series Saiunkoku Monogatari. I get to know this series first through the anime, which was aired in Animax. I still remember the exact date I watched the first episode, 26th September 2006. Anyway, I LOVED the series a LOT!!! It was great. From the commercials about the series, I thought that, "Oh, for sure the main characters will ended up together..." HOWEVER, the series was WAYYYYYYYYYYY different from what I had thought initially. I was sooo obsessed with the series and watched any reruns of the episodes. Then I went to Internet and find information about this series. Turns out it's based from the novel Saiunkoku Monogatari (the anime was called Colorcloud Palace, btw) and was adapted into anime and manga. Currently, the anime has two seasons, which ends at the novel vol. 12 and the manga was way behind the novel, currently till 3/4 of vol 2 of the novels and the novel currently has 14 volumes and 3 gaidens (side stories compiled into a book). I watched some episodes of season 2 from the Internet and read some summary posted in blogs.



I really like the main character of the series, Kou Shuurei. Unlike most anime or manga, this heroine is totally different from the rest. She didn't straight away fall in love with any of the hot bishies in the series and is actually smart. She came from a noble family but her family was poor and she had to do various odd jobs to support her family. Her dream is to be an official in the palace, but female are not allowed to be officials (just like ancient China). The story is set in a fictional country called Saiunkoku (which was styled after ancient China). There's lot of bishies in this story, but rest assured, not all of them fall in love with Shuurei (only one). This story is really different as the heroine is not interested in love. This story has (little) romance, humour, mystery, magical (here and there), historical and politics element. The anime exclude some important aspects of the novels, but it's still good. I recommend people to watch this series. The anime, though slow, follows the novel more closely than the anime (which was not surprising as the artist of the manga is also the artist of the novel).

Sadly, I can't read Japanese, so I have to rely on translation to read the novels. BUT, there'sno English translation for the novels T.T , only Chinese translation for the novels. Thankfully I'm Chinese though I suck, it did improved my Chinese, so it's good. The novel was much more better and funnier too. We could see properly character's development and how the characters mature over the books. Other than Chinese translation of the novels, I've been relying on summaries posted over here. Most of the Chinese translation that I got are from baidu.

Will be posting more about this series soon...