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| Left to Right: Seiran Shi, Ryuuki Shi (the Emperor), and Shuurei Hong |
Perhaps one of the greatest things that can happen to an avid reader such as myself, is being recommended a good book. About one month ago, I decided to pick up the manga series, Trinity Blood. I am still in the process of reading it (I'm on volume 10) but while I added the volumes I had read to my account, I noticed that Goodreads had a list of manga it was suggesting based on my choice. One of those manga was Saiunkoku Monogatari, or, if we go by its English name, The Story of Saiunkoku.
The story is set in the fictional kingdom of Saiunkoku, where according to legend, a great hero saved this land from chaos with the help of the Eight Sages. Each sage represented a different color. Saiunkoku's eight provinces were then named after these Eight Sages and each noble clan from each province took on the name of the color as a surname as well. Shuurei Hong is a descendant from a noble clan whose father works as an Imperial Archivist. However, Shuurei must work odd jobs in order to make ends meet. One day, she is approached by an royal advisor who asks her to become a Royal Consort for 6 months for a hefty sum. Shuurei hesitates, but the noble quickly makes it clear that her only duty would be to get the young Emperor in line. At 19 years old, the Emperor refuses to complete his duties and does not study seriously. This has caused a huge burden on his advisors. Furthermore, the Emperor is gay, so Shuurei would not have to worry about nighttime visits.
How is that not an interesting premise? I was insanely curious to see what would happen with Shuurei and with the Emperor. Shuurei is a strong and smart girl who takes on the challenge head on. Her interactions with the Emperor were interesting and while it started out as a love story (because Shuurei's family has a very loyal servant named Seiran who is very protective of her. He doesn't stop her from becoming a consort but he doesn't exactly seem pleased about it either), it quickly becomes something more. I think I became even more interested once we moved away from the Emperor and started to look into the politics at play behind the scenes. There are many individuals vying for power and the very first instance in which you see this is actually during the 6 months Shuurei is a consort.
