Well! This is shaping up to be a Suwabe Junichi year for me. Winter - Donar, Spring - Jun-nii, Summer - Narihira... come on, fall and winter! :D After this episode I'm really looking forward to hear more of him in this role. Was surprised to recognize Kaji Yuuki, not that I'm complaining... though while I'm no expert at all on reading Japanese poetry, I felt his reading in the preview wasn't as nice as the other seiyuu's. (But it seems like finally he's doing something about his habit of impersonating Ishida Akira... XD;; )

Anyway, I really like this show so far. I love the artwork (LKK - if this bothers you don't even try to watch Gankutsuou, that does the same thing with pretty much everything XD I thought it was awesome, though). It's different in a stylish way, but nothing too over the top, nothing distracting. It's obviously on a budget but seem to make the best of it, with the simple design, cutting corners in eye-pleasing ways, etc. As for the characters - they're not particularly outstanding yet, but they do their job, and I think as character-centric as I am, I'm fine with them so far.

Most people seem to want drama, and I think we'll get some eventually, but I'm pretty satisfied with the mood so far. It seems to be setting the stage for something, but I have the impression that it's going to proceed in a sort of laidback/tongue-in-cheek way? At any rate, it doesn't seem to take itself particularly seriously.

Ah, yes, Gankutsuou. One of the few shows I've always wanted to watch until I see a clip from it and am instantly turned off by the clothing patterns. I fear watching it would give me vertigo. :eyespin:

From several of the comments before this, I see that some are expecting the future episodes to have return appearances from some or all of the four characters in this week's episode. I didn't get that feeling. I thought they were one-shot appearances. The only person I expect to see again is the narrator from the beginning and the ending segments, the one who picked the poems that adorn the walls. Did no one else get that impression?

Still, it's amusing that a show about five hundred year old poems takes a more modern view of sex than most anime that's actually set in the modern world. What's the last show you can think of where a character took such a nonchalant view of casual sex without being portrayed as a sex-crazed maniac?

Well the poems were written over several centuries and only a handful were by the same person, so it's unlikely that there'll be continuing characters. On the other hand, I seem to recall that a great many poems were written by the Fujiwaras, so there might be room for some crossover.

To me it's a matter of demographic,for some reason in a lot of shoujo and Josei manga I read casual sex can exist without it being scandalous,of course a whole lot of those mangas never get an anime adaptation (a lot get the live action treatment instead) so to me considering it's Josei I'm not really surprised.

Actually, I expect mini arcs. Shoboi says the show will be 12 eps long, and there are a number of characters in the opening.... unfortunately due to the artwork I can't tell exactly how many couples/threesomes there are in the OP, but it doesn't seem 12 to me... Then again, this particular episode would also work as a one-off story (if we take the implications at face value).

A small part of me wonders if the young emperor is Narihira's son. But I guess not.

Like Kanon, I couldn't stop grinning when I heard the Chihayafuru poem:D

Really liked the first episode, the art didn't bother me. Pleased to hear Suwabe Junichi

I loved this anime... its well balance of romance and comedy.... the ladies are so funny and pretty!!!

Chihayafuru :D

Like others I enjoyed the light hearted & positive tone of the love stories.
Animation is limited of course but I actually kind of like the art design.

My only issue is the opening & especially the ending were kind of uninspired to me.

I thought the ending was inspired. ... Just not inspired by its preceding show. :twitch:

I didn't feel the ED was out of place... and the historical theme/hip-hop contrast reminded me of the Yotsuya kaidan OP of Ayakashi. I found the OP less "inspired" (and the singer's voice grating).

Umm ... well ... this series reminded me a lot of the animated version of Tale of Genji, which I did not like. The feeling of the latter for me was of a visual and emotional richness to the extent of it being difficult to breathe. And ... well ... dunno. Guess I just didn't like it for whatever reason. I will give ep 2 a watch though, maybe it just had a bad start or I was in a foul mood or whatever. :heh:

I thought about that one too but I actually liked that opening.

I don't know why but this ending didn't fit for me. I also don't really like the song so that doesn't help either.

But oh well endings can easily be skipped!

You get used to the art style. As far as I know, Ganktsuou hasn't sent anybody to the hospital lol. You shouldn't miss out on one of the best anime of the last decade for such a reason.

^Agreed about Gankutsuou... ^^;;

Well yes, the song itself is nothing to write home about. I'm probably going to skip it, too, along with the OP, as neither is particularly catchy and the visuals are not very interesting.

(As for the Ayakashi OP, one of these days I'm going to storyboard a Sengoku Basara AMV to that song. And then leave it at that because I can't do AMVs whatsoever.)

Just a random thought.
The ending conversation makes me wonder...is he going to NTR his brother's wife? Isn't the story painted him as a debauchery guy in the positive light? Is he going to surpass Don Juan, Casanova and Makoto Ito?

I couldn't stand the bratty emperor one bit and their attempt to make me sympathize with him totally failed. I just wanted someone to smack him upside the head, especially after the cruel stunt he pulled on that girl with the snake. The miserable little shit better be lucky she has the temperance of an angel.

Same here. His prank with the snakes was just too much. He called it a punishment too... what a horrible kid. He wasn't that much better as an adult/teenager either. His only good action in the whole episode was the writing of that poem.

The girl was his polar opposite. She's way too good for him.

I can't say I'm overly sympathetic to him either; but, at the very least, he was unwilling to force himself on her after they got married. He basically admitted to her that she didn't deserve to be tied down to him the way things were, and was willing to let her find her own happiness with someone else. (From what I gather, holding back from an unwilling "partner" would have been an unfortunaltely rare thing to do at the time.)

Also, was divorce not a done thing for them? Or was it more that a house like the Fujiwara would have considered such a parting to have been an unacceptable loss of face?

So sad about Narihira, I didn't expect that at all. There's something very sweet with how he plays the role of guardian to the former emperor.

Bratty emperor is bratty, but I could understand his behaviour. He knows that he is just a pawn in the game of politics, and no one takes him seriously. Perhaps disillusioned by this, and partly because he doesn't have many friends and lack of adult support (apart from Narihira and Takaiko), he does what he wants as a way to express his loneliness.

I find it touching that he offers her the opportunity to seek lovers. Poor kid tries to play it cool, but it must be hard on him.

Oh btw, I think Takaiko passed down her tsuntsun genes to her son.