Saiunkoku Monogatari episode 7
Jan. 5th, 2008 11:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timepiececlockI'm sorely tempted to drop this. There's only so much yaoi I can take in anime, and it's not a high quotient. I can enjoy it as much a het couple on regular tv, if it's a decently written romantic subplot, but in anime it's always so.... fanservicey. Men drawn to look like beautiful women (by the anime definition of "beautiful" too)... it just does not appeal to me. And here it's making me roll my eyes. I'm not part of the fanbase these scenes are aiming to titillate.
I'll continue on with the series because it's gotten mildly better in the last few episodes, although it's still got a lot of annoying factors. My inability to tell the supporting characters apart is a big one; it really makes you nostalgic for series like Fullmetal Alchemist and Trigun, where all the major and minor characters were given fundamentally different character designs, and could never be visually confused with one another. Another sore point for me is the fact that the setting of this show, the palace, is not run in any logical fashion. No one appears to be doing the job they're supposed to be doing, most particularly the bodyguards. The two highest-ranking and most trusted warriors are supposedly the personal bodyguards of the Emperor, yet they never seem to be anywhere near him! They're always being shown having conversations in entirely different buildings than the Emperor. There's also the fact that they let him go into an ambush alone. He didn't even have to sneak away-- they just let him! It's so unrealistic and idiotic that it pains me. Inconsistancies and stupidities like this frustrate me. It's bad writing.
The two things this show begs a comparison to are Fushigi Yuugi and Twelve Kingdoms. 12K is, so far, waaaaaaay better. Although it was incredibly confusing, at least the worldbuilding and political events of that show made sense and had logical explanations. The people behaved in accordance with what their roles and characters were described as behaving. And when an assassination and coup attempt went down in that show, it wasn't brushed off or neglected... if I remember correctly, half the courtiers were executed for conspiracy and the rest were made to swear ultimate fealty. That's how feudal kings should behave, and how the people around them should behave. I also felt that the characters in 12K were more believable, and thus more sympathetic. I don't really sympathize with ANYONE in this Saiunkoku except the main character. Most of the rest are flat and boring, even the Emperor.
In some ways Saiunkoku also reminds me of FY. The art is similar, some of the character designs are similar. But I'm not feeling any of the addiction/attraction I felt when I watched FY all the way back in high school. One thing that series did, despite all its many (MANY) flaws... it genuinely made me love the heroes and positively hate the villains. I hated a LOT of the villains in FY, really hated them. There's very few anime villains I disliked as much as Nakago, he was so unapologetically monstrous and wretched. I had much more interest in FY by episode 7 than I have in this series so far. For one thing, it bothers me that there's no hint of explanation given as to why the story is set in this fantasy feudal world. In FY, the explanation was that the world was a novel brought to life. In 12K, the world was an alternate dimension, almost like what Faerie is to European folklore.
Except the protagonist, who is wonderful, I don't care about the characters. I find them dull, and the little "quirks" just make me think of character types I've seen before. For example: the one who is always lost? OLD JOKE. And not that funny in delivery, here. I mean, take this guy, and compare him to Ryouga Hibiki of Ranma 1/2, the Eternal Lost Boy and anthropomorphic pet pig who got so lost he frequently ended up on the wrong continent. That was funny, and it was funny because it was in the context of a show about ridiculous people, never meant to be taken seriously about anything. It was a better written version of the joke, and it was fresh because it was written 15 years ago. New jokes, please?
I know I'm being pretty harsh on this series. I'm hoping it will improve, and I trust the judgement of the fan who told me it will. I'm just not finding it to be at all interesting right now. It reads like someone had an idea, wrote a story outline, and then went to produce the anime without actually researching the world the story belonged in, or how people in such a world would behave.
I'll continue on with the series because it's gotten mildly better in the last few episodes, although it's still got a lot of annoying factors. My inability to tell the supporting characters apart is a big one; it really makes you nostalgic for series like Fullmetal Alchemist and Trigun, where all the major and minor characters were given fundamentally different character designs, and could never be visually confused with one another. Another sore point for me is the fact that the setting of this show, the palace, is not run in any logical fashion. No one appears to be doing the job they're supposed to be doing, most particularly the bodyguards. The two highest-ranking and most trusted warriors are supposedly the personal bodyguards of the Emperor, yet they never seem to be anywhere near him! They're always being shown having conversations in entirely different buildings than the Emperor. There's also the fact that they let him go into an ambush alone. He didn't even have to sneak away-- they just let him! It's so unrealistic and idiotic that it pains me. Inconsistancies and stupidities like this frustrate me. It's bad writing.
The two things this show begs a comparison to are Fushigi Yuugi and Twelve Kingdoms. 12K is, so far, waaaaaaay better. Although it was incredibly confusing, at least the worldbuilding and political events of that show made sense and had logical explanations. The people behaved in accordance with what their roles and characters were described as behaving. And when an assassination and coup attempt went down in that show, it wasn't brushed off or neglected... if I remember correctly, half the courtiers were executed for conspiracy and the rest were made to swear ultimate fealty. That's how feudal kings should behave, and how the people around them should behave. I also felt that the characters in 12K were more believable, and thus more sympathetic. I don't really sympathize with ANYONE in this Saiunkoku except the main character. Most of the rest are flat and boring, even the Emperor.
In some ways Saiunkoku also reminds me of FY. The art is similar, some of the character designs are similar. But I'm not feeling any of the addiction/attraction I felt when I watched FY all the way back in high school. One thing that series did, despite all its many (MANY) flaws... it genuinely made me love the heroes and positively hate the villains. I hated a LOT of the villains in FY, really hated them. There's very few anime villains I disliked as much as Nakago, he was so unapologetically monstrous and wretched. I had much more interest in FY by episode 7 than I have in this series so far. For one thing, it bothers me that there's no hint of explanation given as to why the story is set in this fantasy feudal world. In FY, the explanation was that the world was a novel brought to life. In 12K, the world was an alternate dimension, almost like what Faerie is to European folklore.
Except the protagonist, who is wonderful, I don't care about the characters. I find them dull, and the little "quirks" just make me think of character types I've seen before. For example: the one who is always lost? OLD JOKE. And not that funny in delivery, here. I mean, take this guy, and compare him to Ryouga Hibiki of Ranma 1/2, the Eternal Lost Boy and anthropomorphic pet pig who got so lost he frequently ended up on the wrong continent. That was funny, and it was funny because it was in the context of a show about ridiculous people, never meant to be taken seriously about anything. It was a better written version of the joke, and it was fresh because it was written 15 years ago. New jokes, please?
I know I'm being pretty harsh on this series. I'm hoping it will improve, and I trust the judgement of the fan who told me it will. I'm just not finding it to be at all interesting right now. It reads like someone had an idea, wrote a story outline, and then went to produce the anime without actually researching the world the story belonged in, or how people in such a world would behave.
