Janggeum’s Dream: Episode 16 Commentary

Ghost Disturbance

As Janggeum and Geum-young learn the basics in the royal kitchenette, Suro and Dongi get a nice amount of screen time. Unfortunately, this means little happened to further the plot of the story.

The elderly lord appears once more. The masked assassin, having overheard talk of “Blue Butterfly” and her butterfly tattoo, reports in with his boss. Is this boss a character whose been seen elsewhere before? If so, could it be that kindly old lord? The back of the assassin’s hand is shown, index finger lightly tapping. The hand shows a thinness which suggests an older gentleman.

Further, what’s with the court detective and the parsley? When Court Granny tried the parsley, there was no effect, but when King Jungjong tried it, it had a slightly delayed effect. Maybe it was prepared in advance to have an reaction with something else Jungjong would have eaten, something Court Granny would not have. As for the Court Detective, while I’m still uncertain about her being Blue Butterly (the two have very different eyebrown designs), there most certainly had to be a reason Blue Butterfly’s face remained hidden whereas the other ninja’s face was seen. Additionally, the look of saddness and remorse on the Courth Detective’s face after handing over the parsley and leaving is something I would not expect from Blue Butterfly.

With Janggeum having had an audience with Jungjong, and having recognized him from the forest, will she get her ring back? Because no scene was shown with it being returned to her, I must conclude that Jeong-ho still has the ring, and Janggeum does not know it is in his possession.

So, Dongi is officially a soldier now. The official Japanese site for Janggeum’s dream notes Janggeum’s age as 12, so I’m going to figure Dongi is somewhere around 12 to 14, and Jisung I’d place at 12. Dongi certainly isn’t the youngest soldier to serve for his king, but perhaps he’s still young enough to take his uniform shirt home for his mother to shorten the sleeves.

The look on Geum-young’s face is priceless when Changi passes on word of Janggeum and Jeong-ho having been out walking together the night prior. Perhaps Janggeum will be not only a rival in cooking, but in matters of the heart, when it comes to Jeong-ho? Or at least as Geum-young sees it. Otherwise, Geum-young seems to be a lot more open around Janggeum, more like a friend. She must have been taken by Janggeum’s decision to teach her the Pot dish, a move showing Janggeum’s kindness, Janggeum’s trust, and Janggeum’s friendship.

Changi’s dream is to be the king’s royal food taster, a position which looks to be held by Court Granny right now (unless she’s just in a high position to eat with the king). Seeing Changi, Yeonsaeng, and Janggeum all stand nearby gives a nice show of colors with their different colors of outfit. The different colored outfits also give a nice look into which characters have which position, which status in the royal kitchen (as is surely one of the intended purposes). The outfits worn by Janggeum and Geum-young are almost the same as those worn by the others in the kitchen, only with a blue dress rather than green.

When Court Lady Choi searched for her cat, Yeri, I didn’t even realize it was her. Between having her hair up and down, she looks very different. After being under water, and her hair’s soak, she actually looks like a common, ordinary animated character, rather than the traditional Korean character with their hair braided, and in her case, worn up.

It’d be nice to see other characters with their hair down to see how they look, but with such a short series and so much packed into it, I don’t figure they’d have anywhere to place something like that.

I take it Yeri and Tayo have a bit of an ungoing rivalry. Maybe it’s youth, maybe it’s cockiness, but that Tayo has no fear. It’s disappointing to see a tiger run and flee from an overly-eager baby ostrich.

When Han meets the Court Detective, there’s a reaction from Geum-young, and another after the Court Detective leaves. Why is this? What does she know?

Very little is known about Court Lady Han. Maybe the unfortunate turn of events will lead to learning more about who she is as a person.