The Twelve Kingdoms Forum

I don't know if anyone has posted anything on the short stories available other than the links on the site sashinboku or Ranka but I found translations of the ones missing from Sashinboku. It's Hisho No Tori, about an archery target maker making special targets for Youko's coronation. Granted, the translations are choppy but still... you get to find out what happens.

http://o6asan.com/hsbird/

Also on that site are two more of Ono's short stories taking place in the twelve kingdoms too. Hyohaku, which takes place in En a few decades after the events of Sea God of East, Vast Sea of the West and it stars Shouryuu and Enki, and thier bossy conspiring ministers. It's pretty funny. And also Rakushou No Goku which takes place in Ryuu!

Good stuff, if you love the Twelve Kingdoms books, these are worth a read, just try to ignore the grammar, the meaning gets across and you really get a sense that sometimes those novels can be difficult to carry the meaning over into english.

Very good find! I was looking for these stories but never found them...thank you for sharing.

I read Rakusho no Goku...and it's very great! It's a much darker story than the other works, and Ono's view of the criminal law/criminal politics system in Juuni Kokki is really good. Worth a read if you haven't! She definitely can write stories really well without any taika and kaikyaku...it's a shame we didn't get to see this animated.

I'll read the others when I can.

I'm about a quarter of the way through that one, it's good so far but the editor in me just wants to go through it and fix the terrible grammar. Oh, by the way in case you haven't seen it yet or don't know about it, I made another good find on Youtube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDX966J5NrE

It's called "Twelve Kingdoms: Land of Beasts" and its one of the drama CDs!! Yay! It has all the voices from the anime. And its the short story about Rakushun giving Kantai and hanjuu to hanjuu pep-talk. I love it. I want to find out if any of the other CD's have been done.

Much thanks for the find: I'm not up to date with 12K things; I knew about the drama CDs but had no idea one of them was translated! Hopefully somebody will also take care of the others.

As for "Chi ni Kemono": great CD! This is a very good complement to "Jougetsu", one of my favorite episodes in any fiction; And I learned more about Kantai, which is also very good: the rooms that belong to him being messy as always make me smile, and I didn't know of his family background(both me and Shoukei suspected he as actually well grown!) and his motives/honor and how Youko wanted to help both of him, Gekkei and Shoukei at once. The good old series music in the backgroun only made the experience more pleasant.

Thank you again for posting this!

I read Hisho no Tori...great story! It gave a lot of background on Gyouten and what lies below Kinpa kyuu, and I learned more about the officials and their varying levels and roles! The metaphors Hisho used for birds(especially magpies), escapism and wanting to give a message to the queen were really interesting. Shame there's no sound/music for his ceremonies...

I didn't understand why was Soken killed...but in the end I was very happy with the ceremony and Youko liking it. I'll read Hyohaku when I can.

I finally managed to find some time to read Hyokaku...and it was excellent, however a bit confusing. I much enjoyed Ono's descriptions and background given to En, as well as Shoryu's travels(including talking about Atsuyu and him giving good officials), but I could not understand what Itan and Shukou were planning--it came to me as Itan's idea of teaching discipline to Shoryu and Enki so they can rule better, but I'm not certain. At least, that's what Itan's character seems to be like. Either way, I liked his, Seishou's and Shukou's talk about the system and "where to go", and the metaphorical ship of En, which seems to be able to float well above the sea of clouds/questionings for a long and prosperous time.

My favorite part however was seeing that Shoryu wants to hear the complaints even of the dead: it fits in how concerned he is about his kingdom in his own way. I would really like to see more En stories.