Saiunkoku Monogatari/The Story of Saiunkoku Options

[Shiidou Hikaru]

This the latest anime series that I have been watching and from the first dozen episodes it looks like The Story of Saiunkoku is destined to become another one of my favorites.

Shurei is an only child and the youngest generation of her family. Even though her family is of the highest noble rank, political strife and economic upheaval eight years ago have left Shurei and her father penniless. They must work jobs like ordinary common folk and make money just to keep up the repairs on their rather large but crumbling estate. The only other person that lives there is fellow they have on retainer called Seiran, there are no servants or extended family.

Our story begins with one of the royal advisers. The current king of Saiunkoku is a young and reclusive man that spends most of his time in hiding. The reason for this is explained later, but the three royal advisers have become rather worried that the king's absence from public view will lead to a power vacuum that someone else will seek to fill. The strife of eight years ago will not easily be forgotten, so they are correct to be concerned about another civil war. Adviser Sho crafts a clever scheme to bring the king out of hiding by obtaining a "wife" for him. Because of her impeccable bloodline and need for cash, Shurei is the obvious choice among those outside of the palace. Later on at Shurei's home, Sho meets with her and her father Shoka and offers a large sum of gold which Shurei immediately accepts. Only afterwards does Shurei discover that her job is to become the king's "consort" for the next six months and figure out how to make him a good king. Shurei is mortified by this discovery at first, but realizing that it is too late to back out she reluctantly accepts her new position.

"Consort" is a term that has a great many connotations, but Shurei and the king Ryuki are never formally betrothed or married and of course do not consummate their relationship. They sometimes refer to each other as husband and wife but their behavior together is more like a brother and sister. She starts out by trying to educate Ryuki (Shurei was a schoolteacher before this) but it soon become apparent that he is not stupid at all and requires no education. The business with his lazy slacker attitude was all merely an act, so really all Shurei needs to do is get him to accept his position as king act accordingly, which she is able to accomplish with great success. Even though Shurei is sharp as a tack when it comes to practical matters, she is regretfully naive about the matters of the heart. All during her six month tenure in the royal palace, Ryuki had slowly fallen madly in love with her. Due to his own inability to express this very well, the two of them never hit it off as they say and Shurei eventually leaves the palace when her job is done and goes home.

Other stories follow after the initial arc, with new and interesting guest characters introduced along the way. The first thing that I noticed when I first saw Saiunkoku is ... "It's Fushigi Yuugi!" ... and those were my exact thoughts. The mythical kingdom of Saiunkoku at least in appearance looks almost exactly like mythical kingdom of Konan that Miaka finds herself in after being drawn into the book - a kingdom of ancient China. Quite suddenly the similarity ends there. Saiunkoku's people and culture are amazingly modern in nature. Many common current themes of today's society are brought up including economic and career equality between men and women, street gang and underworld power struggles, yaoi, and even autism Batou-san. I haven't seen current events/culture brought into a fantasy world done this well since the original Star Trek series. And if that isn't enough, the character development in Saiunkoku is exquisite and brilliant. Each of the main characters are very multi-dimensional and behave differently in different situations, just like we do in the real world. They are a pleasure for me to get to know and to enjoy their lives with them. So much of Saiunkoku is done so well, there is no way that I could not like this series.

Unfortunately my little review must end on a sad note. The Story of Saiunkoku is one of the many series that was canceled by the Geneon collapse and only the first 10 episodes were ever released. I was able to find fansubs up to episode 28, but I don't know if I will ever be able to find the rest. The whole series has 39 episodes.