Disclaimer: I don’t claim to have full fluency in Japanese. This translation may contain errors or misinterpretations. Read at your own risk.
I forgot to write a summary for this gaiden. This is the first gaiden; however, most of the stories were covered in the anime, so I’ll only summarize the part that wasn’t animated.
Second part of the Gaiden. (covering the third story). Thanks to everyone for your comments. I’m glad that we’re getting some discussion in.
Hey, it’s the Return (dramatic music) of the hideous charts! Er, looking at these charts will SPOIL you for all of the novels. So if you don’t like spoilers, don’t look at them.
There has been some confusion here, so I’ll try to clear it up a bit. There are twelve Saiunkoku light novels and now, three Saiunkoku gaidens, so now fifteen books in all. “Gaiden” literally means “outside story,” and in the gaidens are side stories/short stories. Most have been serialized in The Beans magazine. The Saiunkoku manga, on the other hand, is up to two volumes right now, but I’m not summarizing it here since people are translating it anyway.
Anyway, in this gaiden, two of the stories have appeared in The Beans magazine before, and the other is new material. BTW, can someone tell me where the stuff in the anime about Shouka and his great-aunt appeared? Also, I think this is pretty much the moment where the anime and the novels are going to “diverge.” (Well, not so much diverge as the novel story is continuing, whereas the anime will, I am speculating, stop at volume twelve. As it is, the new material is too relevant to what is probably going to happen in the next volume, IMHO, for a reader of the novels to skip this gaiden).
Also, thanks to everyone for your comments! I will try to respond to the questions later.
Hurrah, I’ve gotten my hands on Saiunkoku gaiden 3. As a way of saying thanks to the people who comment in this blog, I’ve taken very LQ camera pics. Sorry for the extremely poor quality, but I just do not know how to take pictures of books very well at all, nor do I know how to do much more than crop and resize images. Obviously, these pics will contain spoilers!
I wish they would include a map of Saiunkoku in the novels. In the anime they did, but they change some things in the novels, so I don’t know how ‘accurate’ it is.
Anyway, I thought I would make some notes on Saiunkoku’s geography. There are SPOILERS here up till book 12.
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Org chart contains incidental spoilers, so click at your own risk.
Well, looks like I managed to finish this summary before the new Gaiden comes out on November 1st. Yay? I uh… will probably get that one done in a more timely fashion, as I plan to split it into two parts, first the new material and then the old stuff.
And now for the latest volume… BTW, this book is long; the author herself says so in the afterword. XD
More of Saiunkoku 11. Sorry about the length. I write a long letter because I have not the time to write a short one, etc.
And now, the long-awaited vol 11 post.
Spoilers for vol 10, of course.
This summary is becoming somewhat nonsensical, but I persevere.