(L) Saiunkoku Monogatari (1st Series) The Story of Saiunkoku

[NoSanninWa]

While I haven't seen their sub of Saiunkoku yet, they have subbed several other projects (Karin, BPS and Uninhabited Planet Survive) and their methods are very consistent. They put a lot of work into translation and editing, but very little into typesetting and karaoke. It isn't pretty, but it is fast and high-quality. Contrary to their name, they don't suck.

[nixie]

Yup, I like [suck] as well. They did a good job on UPS and Karin was okay as well. Meh, stop setting such high standards for fansubbers! They are feeling the pressure!

On topic, I'm not sure if I would enjoy this too much if it's just about romance complications. They are tiring to sit through.

[cheesie]

Suck is doing this? That's awesome! After doing such a good job on Loveless (especially at such a swift pace) I'm... one of their big fans.

[miaka]

Originally Posted by nixie

On topic, I'm not sure if I would enjoy this too much if it's just about romance complications. They are tiring to sit through.

The entire show is not dedicated to romance. its a mixed genre. It seems like it has more politics and historical than romance.

[Rarity]

Recognizing that this anime may have some difficult terminology and some of the dialogue is rather delicate, I have some basic questions...

(1) Is Shuurei's father the head of the palace treasury or is he the librarian?
(2) Does Shuurei complain about having to buy barley or wheat, or, alternatively, is there no difference between the two in the vernacular?
(3) Is Shuurei the imperial consort or the empress, or, alternatively, is there no real distinction, given the historical context? Empress makes the relationship sound more permanent and higher status than what seems to be shown. Is the highest-ranked consort the empress, and therefore Shuurei is the empress by default? That seems to be implied by Shuurei being surprised at being addressed as ki.
(4) Does Seiran become a captain of the guard, or merely an officer of the guard?
(5) Is the emporer one of six brothers or one of five brothers?
(6) Does Shuurei say that she is there to save the emporer or to help him?

Thanks!

[Futaba-chan]

Spoiler:

Is it just me, or do Seiran and the emperor look remarkably similar?

[miaka]

Originally Posted by Futaba-chan

Spoiler:

Is it just me, or do Seiran and the emperor look remarkably similar?

Spoiler:

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

Originally Posted by Rarity

Recognizing that this anime may have some difficult terminology and some of the dialogue is rather delicate, I have some basic questions...

(1) Is Shuurei's father the head of the palace treasury or is he the librarian?
(2) Does Shuurei complain about having to buy barley or wheat, or, alternatively, is there no difference between the two in the vernacular?
(3) Is Shuurei the imperial consort or the empress, or, alternatively, is there no real distinction, given the historical context? Empress makes the relationship sound more permanent and higher status than what seems to be shown. Is the highest-ranked consort the empress, and therefore Shuurei is the empress by default? That seems to be implied by Shuurei being surprised at being addressed as ki.
(4) Does Seiran become a captain of the guard, or merely an officer of the guard?
(5) Is the emporer one of six brothers or one of five brothers?
(6) Does Shuurei say that she is there to save the emporer or to help him?

Thanks!

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.

[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...)

[Rarity]

Excellent. Very helpful detail. Here are some follow-ups...

Spoiler:

1. Kouyuu and the emporer seem to accord Shuurei's father with a measure of respect greater than the status that his position confers. I'm sure that's part of the story... But head of the treasury seems like a fairly visible prestigious position that could stand on its own. And it seems like the pay for that position would be handsome.

Shuurei's father as the head archivist seems to fit into the story better. The pay's bad. The status conferred isn't very high. Nobody's supposed to know the head archivist, etc.

3. So Shuurei is surprised that she is accorded the status of high consort right off the bat, as if she's the emporer's favorite concubine? And then she remembers that she is the only consort and hence the high consort by default?

4. So Ran Shuuei is the left general of the guard -- i.e., the lowest ranked of three generals of the guard?

[WTTrinity]

Originally Posted by Rarity

Spoiler:

3. So Shuurei is surprised that she is accorded the status of high consort right off the bat, as if she's the emporer's favorite concubine? And then she remembers that she is the only consort and hence the high consort by default?

Spoiler for the Kihi rank:

I believe Kihi is not the highest concubine rank, there's one more rank before Empress. But I'm not quite clear on how period dependent that ranking scheme is, there could be something a bit different used in Saiunkoku. http://pingshan.parfait.ne.jp/honglou/china2.html has a table of what I have in mind.

[Yaoi_Pocky]

Originally Posted by WTTrinity

Spoiler for the Kihi rank:

I believe Kihi is not the highest concubine rank, there's one more rank before Empress. But I'm not quite clear on how period dependent that ranking scheme is, there could be something a bit different used in Saiunkoku. http://pingshan.parfait.ne.jp/honglou/china2.html has a table of what I have in mind.

Spoiler for Imperial Concubine Ranking System:

Originally Posted by Page enumerating rankings for imperial concubines in China

後宮の女性の数は時代と共に変化します.
(Trans: The number of women in the Chinese imperial harem change according to the Dynasty that they are in.)

Apparently the specific ranking systems are also dynasty-dependent. When you said you saw a rank higher than 貴妃, would you be looking at the topmost table - which enumerates the ranks of concubines in the Qing Dynasty? Because the page that you listed also has another table at the bottom, which enumerates the ranks of concubines in the Tang Dynasty. And in that table, 貴妃's status is second only to the Empress herself.

[WTTrinity]

Originally Posted by Yaoi_Pocky

Spoiler for Imperial Concubine Ranking System:

Apparently the specific ranking systems are also dynasty-dependent. When you said you saw a rank higher than 貴妃, would you be looking at the topmost table - which enumerates the ranks of concubines in the Qing Dynasty? Because the page that you listed also has another table at the bottom, which enumerates the ranks of concubines in the Tang Dynasty. And in that table, 貴妃's status is second only to the Empress herself.

Spoiler:

Yeah, I meant the top one. I should have made myself sound less definitive and said "I believe Kihi may not be the highest concubine rank, there could be one more rank before Empress." I have a very vague idea of Chinese historical details, and which dynasty Saiunkoku is supposed to be modeled after. What I'm trying to say is that even if I could remember which dynasty it's supposed to be, I'd still confuse it with others The idea wasn't to challenge your translation. Even with 皇貴妃 there, I think "High Consort" would still work perfectly well for 貴妃.

[Yaoi_Pocky]

Originally Posted by WTTrinity

Spoiler:

Yeah, I meant the top one. I should have made myself sound less definitive and said "I believe Kihi may not be the highest concubine rank, there could be one more rank before Empress." I have a very vague idea of Chinese historical details, and which dynasty Saiunkoku is supposed to be modeled after. What I'm trying to say is that even if I could remember which dynasty it's supposed to be, I'd still confuse it with others

Spoiler:

No problem. Despite being born in Hong Kong, I left when I was 8 years old and therefore don't have as strong a background in Chinese history as I'd like to have - Chinese history classes are mandatory in H.K. high school. Basically I'd probably say that 75% of the Chinese history that I know, I learned from TVB dramas...an example of such a drama which deals with imperial drama and concubines is War and Beauty (金枝慾孽 in Chinese)

As for the Chinese dynasty that Tale of Saiunkoku is based on? I'm not really sure (domino mentioned Tang Dynasty in this thread)...but the fact that the characters do not wear qipao or similar outfits suggest that it is obviously not as based on the Qing Dynasty as it is as other dynasties.

[Yaoi_Pocky]

Originally Posted by Rarity

Excellent. Very helpful detail. Here are some follow-ups...

Spoiler:

1. Kouyuu and the emporer seem to accord Shuurei's father with a measure of respect greater than the status that his position confers. I'm sure that's part of the story... But head of the treasury seems like a fairly visible prestigious position that could stand on its own. And it seems like the pay for that position would be handsome.

Shuurei's father as the head archivist seems to fit into the story better. The pay's bad. The status conferred isn't very high. Nobody's supposed to know the head archivist, etc.

Spoiler for Potential translation errata for We Suck encode:

I have discussed the archivist vs. treasury issue with Torgen, and after discussions involving one panel of the Beans Ace manga for Saiunkoku, we have concluded that imperial/palace archives is the best translation in this case.

Our group blog has posted the errata.

Thanks, Rarity!

[Rarity]

Thanks, arc. And good luck on these often subtle political translations.

[Julius Firefocht]

I just watched the 1st episode of this show. It's good! I wonder how such a solid show managed to slip under the radar.

Then again, maybe my personal enjoyment of ancient Chinese history and Chinese traditions and culture caused me to like the show more than I usually would.

Did anyone check out the seiyuu cast for this show? It's really impressive!

[cheesie]

Great series. Shuurei, oh, Shuurei, Episode 2 just sealed it; you have no idea how much you totally owned Fushigi Yuugi's Miaka. Thank you for having a brain, let alone, become one of the most delightful heroines out there.

I've shut off my BL radar with this show, but

Spoiler:

Am I the only one who's picking up vibes between Ran Shuuei and Li Kouyuu? :x Their dynamic reminds me of, oh, those 208294820984 BL mangas out there?

[Akirasuto.]

Actually such act is considered as an etiquette, considering the time this anime is set in. BL talks during those periods are known to be much more subtle than what's been displayed so far.

[crystar]

I'm totally in love with this show. Normally I'm not the type to like shows that are more.. uhh... how to say... mellow and calm. But this is just great. The character designs are beautiful (I want Shuurei's clothing!! Not that you can wear stuff like that in this time but still...), and I like the characters (Shuurei in particular... I may get a Shuurei icon soon...).

[Kaoru Chujo]

I've updated the Saiunkoku characters' faces and names page to cover characters introduced up to episode 6. The descriptions of the characters contain no spoilers.

Episode 6 was wonderful again, giving us a new turn. The summaries of the novels (link on above page) are a great resource for understanding what's going on.