Thanks to a couple of helpful commenters, the story of Saiunkoku Monogatari became a bit clear. Shiujou actually is an emperor, and Siurei was hired as a tutor for him. As women can’t be officers, she currently works as a concubine. Seiran was taken in by Shiurei-s family thirteen years ago, when he had nowhere to go, and ever since he’s been wanting to pay them back for their kindness. A couple of things indeed begin to make sense now…

Anyway, this episode, the emperor has a strange dream about his older brother, who bears suspiciously close resemblances to Seiran. Then he wakes up, with Seiran in front of him. The two have a strange discussion, I didn’t understand it, but it gave some ‘interesting’ impressions. Anyway, after that, the emperor admits that he’s a bit jealous of Shiurei and Seiran while they’re together, and he sees them being so close.

We then switch to that night, at which Shiurei has a small conversation with the little girl and an woman, probably both of them are concubines as well. The girl leaves, and returns with the message that the emperor really wants to speak with her. She looked pretty serious, though when Shiurei arrives at the emperor, it only appears that he went out and picked up a couple of wild roses. His hands, of course, weren’t used to the needles, so they’re full of scratches. Shiurei tends these, the two talk a bit, and somehow, Shiurei mentions Seiran’s name. Suddenly, the emperor demands her not to talk about Seiran, or something similar. Shiurei agrees, but she finds this kindof weird. The emperor then makes her tell a little story, at which he immediately falls asleep.

Apparently, he fell asleep in Shiurei’s bed, so she has no choice but to divide the bed into two with what looks like a role of carpet, and both of them sleep at one side. This makes for an interesting scene on the next morning, as the girl from before comes to wake them, and sees the role of carpet gone, and the emperor embracing Shiurei in his sleep. Needless to say that Shiurei doesn’t wake up in a pleasant manner. That was a nice moment. It also shows what an idiot the emperor actually is, he needs someone for everything, and just thinks he can do as he pleases.

The next evening, he again stands in front of her door in his bedgown, apparently planning to sleep next to her again. The two talk a bit, and she gives him a self-made hankerchief. I don’t know whether I picked up the next thing right, but if I understood it correctly, Shiurei didn’t give Seiran a hankerchief, which makes the emperor happy.

The next evening, there seems to be some kind of party at the palace. The emperor and Shiurei get offered some sake, but before Shiurei gets to even touch hers, the emperor snatches it away and drinks it himself. Later, it appeared that the sake wasn’t good anymore, giving the emperor a nice stomache-ache, so Shiurei carries him to his bed. When she finds out about the emperor knowing the sake was poisoned, she begins yelling at him, though he tells her to be quiet, or something in that direction.

Shiurei sits next to him for the next couple of hours, and suddenly, he begins a speach about how he’s afraid of the dark, mostly at his mother’s fault. It also appears that he was crying for some reason when he was young, and he was being comforted by none other than Shiurei’s father. The next morning, the emperor seems to be fine again, and he’s playing a bit with Shiurei’s hair as she wakes up. She’s a bit embarrased, though the two of them make up.

Then we switch to a scene at which Ran and Koyu meet up with a delivery-boy, which comes to deliver two flowers which the emperor sent them. I have no idea about the meaning of this scene… I mean… why would he even do such a thing?

The episode ends with Shiurei realizing something, and then getting angry at the emperor, to the point of yelling at and hitting him. I think that he wasn’t really sick in the first place, and that he’d just been acting all the time. After all, you don’t recover from food-poisoning in one simple night. And I can understand why Shiurei’s ticked off when discovering this. This really shows what an easy-going idiot the emperor is, he just does as he pleases.

This anime definately could have been executed better. The first two episodes showed potential, though the third and fourth episode clearly show that this is an anime for little kids. Still, I have to say that this episode featured parts that I really enjoyed.

One thing that this anime does exceptionally well, are the running jokes, or however you call the jokes that keep returning. I’m referring to Etna’s struggles to keep Laharl away from his wanted-poster. Occasionally, our group runs into one of these things, and each time she has to make up some kind of excuse in order to keep him away from these posters, with some very funny and enjoyable results.

In this episode, it became clear that Laharl’s father’s butler took over while he was asleep, though Laharl’s father’s butler’s son has reached a rebellious age, and wants more attention from his father. Thus, he sells the book which is sortof like the symbol of being king, to an old junk-seller, who sells it again to our space-adventures. I don’t think they’ll be keeping it for long, but still. This storytelling kindof reminds me of the troubadours in the medieval period. They were travelling storytellers, who lived by telling stories to important people. Each day, he’d tell one part of the story, and meanwhile, he got to stay in the castle. So, in order to be smart, the troubadours kept extending their stories. The first day, the brave knight had to rescue a princess. The second day, it became clear that in order to save the princess, he had to rescue a dragon, but the third night told of a sword which was needed to defeat the dragon, and so on, and so on. When the tensions began to rise, or the story just began to take too long so that people began to get tired of him, the troubadour would quickly end all of these sub-stories, and leave the castle.

Somehow, I was reminded of this concept while watching Disgaea. Laharl wants to become king, but in order to become king, he has to defeat the current king, now this current king is defeated, it suddenly appears that he needs a book. I see that it’s not exactly the same as described above, but it certainly bears resemblances. I think this cat-and-mouse-game will continue untill the end of the series. Still, with a bit of luck, I’m going to be finishing it. I know that once this anime tries, it can do good, and I still love the art.

Say hello to the anime with the most creative battles ever. We finally have a series which understands that strategy-based battles are so much better than power-based battles. At least, most of the time.

The premisse is simple: we have this God, who organizes a tournament in order to decide his successor. 100 middle schoolers are picked, and given a power. Then they have to fight each other, and the last one standing wins. The good part: most of these powers make no sense at all. They’re certainly not the thing you’d expect. I’m referring to the power to change trash into trees, tomatoes into magma, bamboo into scissors and a ring into a rocket. And these are just the least original of the bunch. There also is a limit to each of these powers, as in a condition that has to be fulfilled before you can use it. Think of the ability of changing water into fire if you put it in your mouth, the ability to change towels into steel if you hold your breath and many more. When these are used in battle, the results become incredible.

It was really clear that the creators put all of their creativity in these battles. Some of them truly turned into something memorable, as you will have no idea what’s going to happen, or how the antagonists will be defeated. It’s also great that a great deal of humor was put into these battles, and somehow the creators managed to find the perfect combination between comedy and action.

The first thirteen episodes of the series contain either amazingly funny battles, or just a couple of scenes you just need to sit through a bit. Though that may be tedious, the awesome episodes are definately worth it. The six episodes afterwards, are horribly creative, and touching as well. In these episodes, Ueki shows his best side, and the bad guys just keep getting better and better.

The next six episodes, especially the first bunch, are amazing. We get to see some great duels, which contain the best strategies of the series, as the side-characters of the show show off their best. The six episodes afterwards (27-32, if you lost count) follow with a short intermezzo. Nothing special or worthwile happens here, though. There are some funny moments, but these were certainly not as good as the previous ones.

The series suffers a huge blow around episode 32 and 33. These were horrible examples of directions at which you should never go, and the se/ries went there. At this point, it almost made me give up the show. Luckily, in the episodes following, the show manages to steadily pick up, until episode 38. From this point on, The Law of Ueki really begins to shine. We get to see the best fights ever, perfectly combining comedy and action into one gigantic heap of awesomeness. Especially when the side-characters come into the spotlight, the show just switches from one amazing scene to another.

The awesomeness continues until episode 43. After this, the show loses its shine, and eventually manages to produce a decent ending. These last episodes were better than you expect, though they just weren’t on the same level as the previous episodes.

The art of the characters looks a bit different than usual. The unevennes of the faces is heavily accentuated, and every scratch becomes visible. I like this, it’s also what originally turned me on to keep watching the series, although as the series progresses, you become used to this. The backgrounds are a very good piece of art. Although the same ones are used for a couple of episodes after each other, this doesn’t really destroy that effect, it only makes it better. The music, although nothing extraordinary, it used to its full extend. It makes the dramatic scenes so worthwile, and adds even more to the great battles.

Overall, any action fan will surely just love this anime, or if you’re just in for a couple of good laughs, then I really recommend this anime.

Final Rating: 90/100

After last episode, it was only natural that this would be more like an intermezzo. Still, plenty of things happen. Sakisaka gets amazed at the lack of reasons why Haseo and Tabby joined the guild, though he’s being a huge hyporcrite by doing so. He later gets to train with Tabby, while Shino shows Haseo a familiar place: the church from .Hack//Sign.

Sakisaka gets a bit bored with Tabby, and begins to ask himself questions about Haseo, who’s meanwhile levelling up along with Shino and Ovan. Later, in the guild-building, he meets up with Haseo. Haseo’s being overly nonchalant, and Sakisaka begins to lose his temper. Right before they end up fighting, Shino arrives with the message that Tabby was PK’d.

The members of TaN also have their busy times. The large merchant is involved in some kind of shady business, while the female thief visits the girl from episode two, who left the Twillight Brigade. Most of it still doesn’t make any sense, though.

As this was an intermezzo, it wasn’t as good as the previous episode. Still, the next episode looks promising.