[Yaoi_Pocky]

Originally Posted by miaka

Spoiler:

so you notice it too... you'll know more in epi 4.

Spoiler:

Not to mention the uncanny similarity of their surnames...hyuk, hyuk.

Originally Posted by miaka

I put my answer inside the spoiler tag

Spoiler:

1. He is just an archivist of fuku ( equivalent to library). His nature of work is totally unrelated with politics. he is in charge of organizing books records, documents and etc.
2. She mentioned "mugi" which can be either barley (komugi) or wheat (omugi). But i think she is refering to barley because of her imaginary scene.
3. In chinese history, there is a distinction among emperor's women. Empress is usually title given to mother of "heir" to the throne. Ki is a title given to concubine/consort like for instance Kouki. Shuurei can't be labeled as empress because empress is a status announced officially by the emperor himself. She went to the palace to teach the king and expected to go home after she fulfilled her job.
4. I am not so clear about the rank but what is important is he is appointed by Shuu taishi to be Ryuki's personal guard.
5. The emperor is the youngest son among the six brothers. In short he is the sixth child.

Some further clarifications...
/me dons We Suck hat

Spoiler:

1. Re: "palace treasury" vs "librarian": Let's see what the NHK Website has to say about it:

Originally Posted by Chara Profile of Kou Shouka on NHK Website for Tale of Saiunkoku (bolding mine)

紅家主人。秀麗の父親。宮廷府庫の管理が仕事。

宮廷 (kyuutei) can mean any of the following: Imperial, Palace or Court.
As for 府庫 (fuko), it means "treasury" according to Jim Breen's WWWJDIC page. Therefore, Kou Shouka manages the Palace Treasury.

2. That was most definitely barley--which, incidentally, goes extremely well in Chinese slow-cooked soup. 　Of course, since I hadn't tried it in place of white rice, I have no idea what it tastes like if such a replacement occurs

3. Agreed - 妃 (kisaki)=Consort.
As for her main title, 紅貴妃 (Kou Kihi)...紅 (Kou) is her birth surname, 貴 (Ki) implies high status among concubines--nevermind she's the only consort that His Majesty has. Hence our translation of 紅貴妃 as High Consort Kou. (In pretty much every Chinese dynasty prior to China's becoming a republic, emperors have one empress and multiple concubines; within the multiple concubines, they are ranked high to low.)

4. Logically, Seiran shouldn't be instantly promoted to Captain of the Guard right off the bat. Assuming that the Imperial Guard is actually the Plume Forest Army (羽林軍, Uringun), one captain of said Army is Ran Shuuei. To be more specific, Ran Shuuei's the Sinistral General of the Plume Forest Army (左羽林軍将軍 - 左 (sa) meaning left, 将軍 (shogun) meaning General).

5. You're correct. 「末の第六公子だったが」, said Kou Shuurei when she's reading up on His Majesty. 末 (suë - separate su and e as their own syllables, don't pronounce it the same as the word for initiating civil litigation) means youngest, 第六公子 (dairoku koushi) means the sixth Prince. The emperor is the youngest son among the six brothers.

6. 助ける (tasukeru) can be interpreted to mean both "save" and "help", so both interpretations are good - "save" has more drastic implications than "help", however.

If there's anything you're still not sure about, you may ask either myself or teh_suck (aka Torgen, co-founder and lead translator of We Suck; don't be fooled by the "Misc." credit on our release, he did lots of translation checking on my behalf. LOTS! Also, he's a way better editor than I can ever hope to be...bah, I really should've taken that extra English writing class offered in high school in my final year...)