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| Not pictured: magic??? death battles?? |
Saiunkoku Monogatari is a
Chinese inspired series of light novels turned manga and anime series. It’s
about a girl in a mythical Chinese country who becomes the emperor’s concubine,
and later her quest to become a government official. I’ve finished all the
scanlated manga so far, which probably covers two or three of the first few
volumes. The anime covers more, and I’ll consider watching it. But any desire
to read the light novel has been totally quashed by reading the summaries for
the last few volumes, the series having recently ended. I know, spoilers.
I got into it because it had
the formula of badass girl in a male dominated world surrounded by hot
bishounen, and everyone is badass and crowning moments of awesome and rabu
ensue. It’s like my favorite Shinohara Chie stories, where you have this badass
girl and you get to deck her out in gorgeous period wear and have her prove that
femininity is no obstacle to being as badass as possible. And neither is love!
The main girl, Shuurei, first becomes a temporary concubine in order to
convince the seemingly lazy emperor to get involved in politics. She succeeds,
and leaves my shattered dreams of my OTP behind in the Inner Palace. This girl
is not messing around, because instead of focusing on romance, she decides to
become the first female government official, which leads to more beautiful men
and more girl power. The manga stops with her achieving the third highest score
in the imperial exams.
And then by the 18th
volume somehow there’s magic and vessels and Shuurei is dying or something and
I’m like well that escalated quickly. What happened to the lighthearted
fluffiness of an OTP/reverse harem I was falsely promised by the first volume?!
It was all cute comedy moments of fluff! But the magic and evil and whatever
doesn’t matter because in the epilogue, after rejecting the emperor, Ryuuki’s
proposals countless times, Shuurei finally gives up her fame as a government
official to get married to Ryuuki. Well isn’t that lovely? She makes history as
a legendary official, gets married to the love of her life, and becomes the
imperial consort on the side. Then, at age 30, a year after her marriage, SHE
FUCKING DIES. IN CHILDBIRTH. I’M SORRY NOT EVEN IMMORTAL RAIN DID THIS TO ME.
LIKE WHAT IS THIS 5CM PER SECOND?! I thought this was Chinese Red River, not
Magical Chinese Shoujo Bokurano. At least with stuff like Honey and Clover or
Bitter Virgin or even 5cm/s they were alive. And as for the magical part, with
TRC/xxxHolic, they had a chance of it being okay. Oh god, it’s like Puella Magi
or Anohana or FRIGGING HANA TO AKUMA except even though they died, their loved
ones were left behind with their friends and family and were hopeful. But
Ryuuki is so heartbroken he never remarries and government work distances him
from his other friends MY GOD WHY HAVE I READ SO MANY TEARJEAKERS AND
BITTERSWEET ENDINGS?! And I haven’t even invested so much in these characters,
but THEY WERE SO HAPPY ONCE. Then like magical sages and witches and immortals
and what the fuck ever, I hate everything.
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