Jan 17 2009
Genji Monogatari Sennenki 1 - Forbidden Love
Ahem. Fans of Code Geass might be interested to note that Sakurai Takahiro (Suzaku) is playing the titular lead (Hikaru Genji) in this anime. Rest assured that this is certainly not Code Geass in the Heian Era. XD
The OP (Hiyori Hime by PUFFY) is strangely upbeat and modern for the historical theme. ._. However, the rest of the anime is how I’d imagined it — if the drawing is somewhat dated, it makes up for it with the calming music (which allows for a soothing pace) and splashes of colour. The ED sounds a LOT like Natsume Yuujinchou’s ending…and no wonder, both are by Kousuke Atari. (Ai and Natsu Yuzora respectively.)
Genji Monogatari Sennenki starts off with some nekkid male/female action, accompanied by the girl’s rather-confusing monologue. Genji’s response to this is that of a typical casanova…I had to restrain myself from pointing at him and saying, “Lies!” Gallery here, or read on for the slideshow+ ep summary.
Hikaru no Kimi (as he was known when he was younger) was the second son of the emperor — his mother died when he was young (-_-)in childbirth, and while his father adored him, he was made a civilian and deputised (? is that the word? XD) so that he could stay by his father’s side.The first ep touches on his first love, which happened when he was 9 (he looked like a girl), with the 14-year-old Fujitsubo no Nyougo (she looked older) — his stepmother, a consort of the emperor’s who was chosen because she looked like Hikaru’s mother, Kiritsubo no Koi. This ended three years later (when he came of age and was prohibited from seeing his father’s concubines), but it formed the foundation for his yearning for love.Genji’s story is actually pretty interesting, and I can easily see how it would be anime-worthy. However, as with any book->motion picture transition, I’m worried about details being lost, so we’ll see. Nonetheless, I somehow liked this one…
Aww, he was a cute little girl.
Hey, you know you posted this twice, right?
I didn’t actually post it twice — the first time ’round I set it to publish for a future date, but it didn’t end up publishing, so I manually published a new post with a normal timestamp…
Submitted the other one to support to see if they could fix the programmable post thing. Didn’t want to bother the post in the meantime, so I just left it there on my ‘to be posted’. Thanks for mentioning, though, that means it’s time to delete that one. =)