Which is unfair, given that what I mean is I keep expecting the politics to be more complex and vicious and unencumbered by shoujo pastels, and for good people to come to bad ends. XD;

hee. I know very little about Ancient China, but the politics seemed really simple and shoujo-like to me, too. They didn't have the complexity of, say, a series like LoGH; there were just the good guys (that you knew would end up winning in the end) and the bad guys - no real shades of gray, no feeling of complex machinations going on behind the scenes. Some of the characters, such as the king, are written as clever, but they don't seem clever to me, because the plots they uncover and the schemes they carry out are either totally obvious or needlessly complicated, and they do really dumb shoujo-like stuff that they never have to face the consequences of.

There was one exception to this, but I don't want to spoil you. Aside from that exception, though, the world created felt rather simple. Which, yes. Is just about what I should expect from a shoujo series, innit? XD;;


I get the feeling the story proper hasn't kicked in, though. And I'm really, really certain that the author of this thing was into Fushigi Yuugi in high school, then at some point sat down with a beer and was like, "........You know what? I could totally do better," and did, which is the sort of endeavour I could get behind.

*diesss* So true. Watched Fushigi Yuugi on breaks while preparing for a huge test, too, most likely. XD