Saiunkoku Monogatari Ep 10

>.< I really, really wish the fansubs weren't so far behind. I've still only seen three eps. ;_;
Yeah, I'll admit I'm a bit surprised that the episodes aren't coming out more regularly and/or keeping pace, but I've never really followed fansubs before, so I don't know if that's more the norm or not. I had toyed briefly with the idea of fansubbing, but couldn't figure out how to even get started (ie break apart the files) not to mention the idea of all the window dressing... >_<;

*looks at yarn* Wow, those colors are really lovely!
I'm really impressed with the sock yarn colours. They're very rich. ^___^ The female sibling unit described the shade garden colourway as yarn that got in a fight with a bunch of paint. ^^;; There's some interesting colour dabs in it.

(Thanks for the edit! ^___^ I'm not sure about schedule at the moment, but I don't think I'll be able to aim for once a week for the novels. It's proving to be too much to handle with the anime on top; especially when it coincides with FB. What's worse is that while translating, I often start reading the book instead... (Have to stop doing that.) ^^;; Probably closer to once every two weeks. I'm hoping to get a better idea over the next while, but I'm not sure what with the Knitting World Cup happening as well. While I have other stuffs partially worked on (like parts of part 3) was really hoping to keep the editing more in chronological order.) :?

Apparently I have to split this one... ^^;

^^; Ensei's 26, but he's a wonderful counterbalance to Seiran. We'll be seeing a lot more of him again after the next actual novel story. (The next ep is going into a side story).

Also, I'm guessing this might've been something covered in the novels, but it seemed to me that Kijin knows Ensei to some degree. Kijin didn't seem particularly surprised about the bandits crashing into his office, and offering his home for the night was out of the blue. Is it one of those novel stories that didn't make it in?

Kijin somehow managed to realise how exactly Ensei was, but beyond that they didn't know one another otherwise. In the novel, the two characters who didn't make it into the anime series - Youshun and Shourin - barged into the office when Kei and Kijin are alone and Ensei and Shuurei have the day off. On the day before, Kijin gave Ensei a "gift" which ended up being a mountain of work for him to do on his day off, and Ensei spent the entire night finishing it off. When the two boys (Shourin, the elder of the two is ~13?) encounter Kijin and Kei and Shourin throws salt on Kijin in an attempt to "fight him off". ^^; As a result, Kijin ends up taking off his mask and the two boys, completely taken by his looks, almost end up getting caught by him, but at the last minute, regain there senses and run off. In the process, Shourin bumps into Kei who had the key to the treasury on his belt, and Shourin automatically steals the key.

The scene at the grave is much like in the anime, although there's a lot of character thoughts and narrative missing, but as they're about to leave, Shuurei notices to boys dressed completely in black staggering along the mountain path, when one of the boys collapses. She quickly goes over and realises that Youshun was suffering from heat exhaustion and just as she and Ensei are about to take the boys to her home, a maskless Kijin shows up and suggests that they use his home since it's much closer. Shuurei and Ensei are both taken by the man's looks, and as he turns to lead them back to where he has a carriage waiting, he whispers to Ensei that he trusts Ensei'd finished the "gift" he'd given him.

At Kijin's residence, when Shuurei mentions that they should go home, Ensei comments that most likely she's worried about Youshun and that she should stay with him for the night. When Shuurei still wants to go home to at least prepare dinner for her father and Seiran, Ensei then tells her that he'd already sent a letter to the intent, and that it was too late. Shuurei is rather taken aback by Ensei's actions, but since it's already been done, she apologises to the "kind passerby" and thanks him for his hospitality for putting them up for the night. After Shuurei goes back to take care of Youshun, Kijin asks Ensei when all that (ie their staying the night) happened.

Ensei then admits that because of the ruckus with Youshun, the bandits that had entered the capital pretty much were all aware of his whereabouts and would be coming to pay a visit. However, unless he wanted to get himself killed by a certain someone, he couldn't afford to have trouble happen where he was staying. Also, Ensei figured that since he'd worked so hard for Kijin causing a little bit of trouble in return was fair. ^^; Kijin tells him to do as he pleases and that he won't help.

Dr. You, who'd been taking care of Youshun tells Shourin that his brother was going to be fine, but Shourin doesn't believe him. In an attempt to get him to work off some of his energy, You tells Shourin that a certain herb was needed to make sure that Youshun got better and Shourin, leaving the gold key he'd stolen as thanks to Shuurei, immediately runs off to gather that herb. When he comes back, most of the bandits follow him and enter the grounds over the wall.

(The scene between Kouyuu and Kijin happens shortly before the bandits enter and after Kouyuu leaves to see Shuurei, Reishin comes in. Most of the scene between the two are as in the anime although that bit with the mask doesn't happen. Kijin asks Reishin if he'd sent Ensei but Reishin denies any knowledge about him and asks him who Ensei was. Kijin then tells him that he's a man with a cross shaped scar on his left cheek, and after a few moments Reishin finally realises who Ensei was.)

Surprisingly, while there are plenty of bandits coming in, Ensei had expected more, let alone for fire arrows and other such attacks but that didn't happen. Shouka and Shusui had been busy outside taking care of some of the bandits since Shouka couldn't leave his daughter's protection to others. If anything happened, he would never be able to live it down, especially since it was the anniversary of his wife's death the next day. ^^;

After the fight was finished (very late at night or early in the morning...) since they'd all come expecting to eat dinner at Shouka's everyone was really hungry. The original plan had been for Seiran, Ran Shogun and Ryuuki to quietly slip away again, but... they were hungry and no longer cared if they got yelled at by Shuurei anymore if it meant being fed. ^^; Shuurei was naturally very surprised to find those three there but after giving them hell, she promptly made them something to eat.

The scene in the anime with Ensei, in the novels it happens between Ryuuki and himself only. Seiran is waiting outside when he leaves Ryuuki in the room he'd borrowed to spend the rest of the night.

Otherwise, Youshun and Shourin had come to the capital to visit Shouka and Shusui. Their adoptive father had died a few months earlier and had often talked about the capital and had always promised to take them there. What they didn't know was that their father was one of the Wolves under Shouka and while he hadn't taught them how to kill, he did teach them to be aware of danger and how to run away.

*****

Otherwise, Shuurei's mother... I think we're going to learn a lot more about her in the next novels. From what I've managed to gather so far, Shouka fell in love with her at first sight and ended up kidnapping her. (He was supposed to kill her?) She seems to be from the Hyou family as is Shusui, and she was the "rose princess" to the head of the family. After a long time of rejecting him, she slowly came to accept Shouka, eventually falling in love with him, and finally agreeing to marry him. Apparently, she'd long been told that she couldn't have any children, so when Shuurei was born she was extremely happy, but perhaps as a result, Shuurei was quite sickly. (At the end of volume 6 after the story of Shuurei catching a cold, we learn the story of the Rose Princess).

Since Shuurei was so sickly, her mom constantly attended to her needs and would make her medicated drinks which (hopefully we'll see the results of those makings...) were quite effective. During the time while Shuurei was better, she then got to learn lots of things (like playing the ehru, etiquette, etc.) and she learned things much faster than her mother did. Her mother was somewhat awkward much like Shouka is awkward with things. When the family took Seiran in, she's the one who chose the name "Seiran" while Shouka chose the last name "Shi".

There's some other stuff, but it's pretty haze at the moment since I haven't read parts of the later books especially dealing with Sa Enjun's wife Eiki. While I don't know if Shuurei's mom and Eiki were actually related, I suspect they're from the same clan.

^_^ So far the socks are going all right, although I'm going top down so I get the mind-numbing part first and headaches later. ^^;; So far so good, and they're turning out mostly purply at the moment. ^___^

Wow! Two baby sweaters?? That's great! I'm still easing myself into things that require gauge. ^^;

I'm still hoping we'll get to see Kijin's face. He's supposed to show it in the next novel story as well, but... >_<; We can always hope. ^^;