Saiunkoku Monogatari II
A Saiunkoku Burnout Monogatari
Saiunkoku season 2 has come to a close, yet I’m still stuck in the time warp of yesteryears~ I haven’t even got past the halfway mark of watching and blogging it. If you hadn’t figured out by now, I suffered from a Saiunkoku burnout months ago, primarily due to my so-called Saiunkoku passion and patriotism. With the lack of subs for the series, I exerted much effort to write uber detailed lengthy narratives for each episode, and God knows how that led to my own downfall.
First off, among the series I was blogging at that time (Kaze no Stigma, Emily of New Moon, Saiunkoku), Saiunkoku proved to be the most challenging. Unlike the usual animes out there with a modern setting, Saiunkoku requires knowledge of more advanced Japanese grammar patterns. Knowledge on political stuff as well as the technicalities of the Saiunkoku World was also necessary, to understand and provide a detailed summary for much of the events in the series.
My Japanese knowledge is far from great; Hence, I relied on Chinese subs for additional help to understand Saiunkoku. Though my knowledge in Chinese and Japanese was enough for me to discern the errors of the Chinese subs, it proved to be insufficient for the detailed summaries I had to write. Unlike Impz, who has a grade-A Chinese, my Chinese knowledge is like that of a toddler (I might be exaggerating on this a little bit, but I know for sure that my Chinese suck). As such, I relied on the novels for additional help. Being able to read the actual dialogues and explanation of the events provided more ease in understanding each episode，since listening to mere Japanese audio dialogues (and looking at the Chinese text which I’m not all too familiar with) proved to be insufficient @_@
But still, that was not enough. Doing the summary or ‘narrative’, as some people have termed it, doesn’t come so easy, especially for someone who neglected reading books most of her life. Many times I would want to describe a certain situation, but I couldn’t find the words to express it. I would sometimes rewatch the episode for four times, or even more, just to be able to describe certain scenes. Thanks to that, it took me HOURSS (or days?) just to finish the ’summary’, which I deemed to be the essential part of my Saiunkoku posts.
More than pleasure, it became a pressure, made even worse by slacking off from blogging during my Japan trip. I struggled to break free from the pile of Saiunkoku backlogs I left behind, and managed to churn out my episode 14 post after months. I continued on with episode 15. I enjoyed watching it, I wrote down my thoughts, but then I couldn’t finish my ’summary’. Months passed and I redirected my attention to other stuff instead, as a means to cope with this burnout.
Blogs were never meant to be a substitute for fansubs, that I learned the HARD way. Now even my enjoyment for show(s) (Saiunkoku and Emily of New Moon, even OverDrive perhaps) were impeded because of this summary burnout. Know what I should’ve done instead of those painstaking summaries? To do what I do best, fangurling, emoing, and basically, just having fun~!
I haven’t gotten myself to watch the rest of the Saiunkoku episodes (as well as Emily of New Moon), because of this summary blogging horror I faced. This time around, perhaps I’ll be able to watch it and thoroughly enjoy it, as I do so without burdening myself with making the summary or any blog post. Allow the show itself to put words into my mouth, and compel me to write down my thoughts about it. But of course I can’t do that right now. I’m preoccupied enough with other shows I’m watching and blogging, which is gonna increase even more, with the dawn of a New Spring Season~ I’ve learned my lesson, hence I’ll be cutting myself some slack in summarizing and just enjoy writing down whatever stuff comes into my mind about the coming shows 
With less summary, I can also focus more on my ‘deep fryings’, hopefully~ :3
So now, I’m officially dropping Saiunkoku and Emily of New Moon from my blogging list (boy was that hard… it took me months-worth of ‘denial’ x__x), but I do wish more people will watch these two wonderful series, especially now that fansubs are coming out (for Emily of New Moon in particular) Hopefully, I’ll still be able to pimp these shows in the near future. Someday~ ;___;
Special thanks to saa-chan for the wonderful Saiunkoku scans~
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14 comments for “A Saiunkoku Burnout Monogatari”
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At least your combined level of Chinese and Japanese enables you to still enjoy the show. I was absolutely lost while watching the Chinese subs (Thankfully there were always the summaries here and at THAT to rely on :P) that I had to give up a while back and just submit to the LONG wait for English subs… Somewhat sad that you’re not doing the summaries anymore (on the off chance that I start watching the Ch subs again) but I definitely understand that it’s not worth the blogging burnout if it diminishes your enjoyment of a great series
The danger of burnout in writing summaries. So many of us have experienced that ^^
Ah, I know the feeling! At one point, I also used to write huge-length summaries over and over again, but indeed, you don’t want to do that for too long, otherwise blogging will just become like a chore. Just write what you feel like and have fun.
(EDIT: really, what is it with wordpress and blogsome?!
I was a pretty rabid fan until the English subs slowed to a crawl. I guess I can only take so much lag time before my attention starts to wander, which I never thought possible with this series. For a while I tried to watch while simultaneously reading the summary… but that eventually drove me nuts.
My bad luck for not knowing Japanese, nor having the capacity to learn it fast enough!
I really appreciated your detailed summaries, as it was the next best thing to watching it with subs, but it’s too much to expect someone to re-novelize a tv show in minute detail. Unless you want to. ^_^
@issa-sa: yeah, enjoyment should never be compromised!
@Impz: I salute you for being able to churn out detailed summaries till the end of Saiunkoku Impz, my skills and passion(?) just wasn’t enough… *emo*
@psgels: commenting has been going nuts, it seems? o_O on the topic of writing, I’ve learned that I shouldn’t undertake doing something which is not my forte, doing the ’summaries’ in this case.
@apex: aww, thanks for that. My powers just aren’t enough~ sadly so. If thoughts and ideas came to me really fast as I type out the summary for the episodes, I think I would’ve managed to do it. But pff… I still need training!
Usagijen: the thing is that every single wordpress blog marks me as spam if I use my blogsome address, and I got a bit tired of it.
At the moment, I can barely churn out Porfy summaries, but that’s because the language they use there is very simple. I’m surprised you survived so long while doing the infinitely more complex ones for Saiunkoku Monogatari.
The problem lies in the depth you were going to. Rather than just writing what you saw and felt, you were going into great depths. It was only a matter of time before you burnt out. I’ve noticed several other bloggers have died aswell, and i’m guessing for the same reason.
For me, i write what i see and feel, not everything. Sure they aren’t perfect summaries, but i think i get enough accross to bridge the gap until fansubs are released.
Blogs can never replace fansubs, and trying to make it so will cause you to either burn out, or end up hating what your writing about.
It’s a shame you arent picking it up again, cause i used to enjoy reading them, but you know yourself best
I relised that when i moved from anime to manga. I couldn’t keep up with the posts, and by the time i made my post there was a dozen others out there. So i kinda felt moot to me. Manga however is a bit different, and isnt as blogged as anime.
Ultimatly, just do what you happy about and forget the rest
@psgels: I was able to manage doing Saiunkoku back then because I wasn’t busy with work, and I guess my Saiunkoku-focus and passion that time was really great I didn’t mind all the efforts I was pouring. This time, I won’t force myself to make a summary, unless the show really compels me to do so
@Tiamat: yep, you’re right on the spot. If I were to write about how I viewed the episode, all my posts will be as brief as my “short summary” for Saiunkoku II episode 1. I pushed myself too hard, in doing the summaries, though the thought of it being a “noble” deed allowed me to persist till 1/3 of the series.
I find blogging manga less stressful too, not to mention the months-gap in between the tank releases, or once-a-month gap in case of the manga chapters.
For me, the ban of my existence is doing screencaps. Pain in the posterior. A BIG pain.
But, same difference, right? Do you think if I give up on screencaps, I can continue blogging?
Back on topic. What about Shion no Ou? *hint hint* Just wanted you to know that you have an avid fan here for your Shion posts (esp. deep frying).
The thing with manga, IMO, is that there’s more available and there’s always something to read. If you get tired of a particular bit, it’s easy to find something different to read, from the lighthearted to to hard core.
Plus it’s cheaper to buy
@Briar, Actually screen capping i found easy. I use Zoom Player and just hit alt+f and it’s done. Then a few seconds in Photoshop to resize and tidy and it’s done.
The problem i had was trying not to sound like a monotonous record just repeating everything that happened in the episode lol
@Briar: you can just forget about screencapping if it’s really hard for you, what matters most is the meat of the post anyways. I’m just wondering if you have a hard time editing or choosing the screencaps? Choosing screencaps is what makes the process time-consuming for me.
As for Shion no Oh, I’m ashamed to say I still haven’t gotten past episode 6 in watching that lol. I’ll put that in my priority watch list now, so hopefully I can spare some time for it despite the coming Spring shows!
@Tiamat’s Disciple: yeah, you have a wider range of choices when it comes to mangas, and it’s not as time consuming to read, compared to watching animes (though it also depends on the reading pace). There are less people covering mangas too, so you can easily get a niche on things
@ Tiamat’s Disciple: I have neither Zoom Player nor Photoshop.
And even worse, I think, is that I don’t download at all. Print screen is basic but very, very, very tedious. 
@ Usagijen: I don’t know, an anime blog post without even a pic, and me not exactly an award winning writer of any sort? Maybe when I’ve trained myself to be wittier and crazier.
I don’t have a problem choosing screencaps, except for the Top Ten Bishies posts, which I admit I wasted a lot of time over. I mean, every pic is sooooo good! How the hell am I supposed to choose?
Hope you get to Shion no Ou and the deep frying! The anime is almost finished; I think another episode or two to wrap everything up. I mean, the murderer has already been unveiled, after all.
@briar: ack, print screen D: you’re hardcore D: it’s really tedious indeed. I suggest you go download zoom player, or the stormcodec pack which already comes with Media Player classic (which also supports quick screen capturing).
and I enjoy reading your posts! with or without images I’ll still read them (so long as I can relate with the topic)
I’ve just downloaded half of the Shion no Oh eps, now to catch up!
@Briar: Get Zoom Player, it’s free and easy to use, and better IMO than MPC when it comes to capping. Also grab PhotoGimp, a free opensource image editing. It take a bit to get the hang of, but it’s been modeled to look and feel like photoshop, and it does it fairly well.
for anime caps, it’s perfect, and a lot better than that laughable thing called MSPaint.