Fushigi Yugi: Genbu Kaiden 7
Posted: November 10, 2008 Filed under: Fushigi Yugi: Genbu Kaiden 12 Comments »I hate starting series in the middle, but I thought I might try it with this one. I’ve read Fushigi Yugi, but only a big chunk of the middle as it was serialized in Animerica Extra, and not the beginning or end. I didn’t much like Fushigi Yugi, enough so that I never picked up any of Yu Watase’s other series. But I thought I might give Genbu Kaiden a try. Even from the middle like this, I know the plot and mechanics of the world the series takes place in, if not the characters.
Not knowing the characters presents a bigger challenge than one might think in a shoujo series, especially this one, where many characters have two names (their given name and their name as a celestial warrior, I guess?). But I see that the priestess of Genbu is the main character, that she’s gathering the celestial warriors, that one is a bad guy, one is a romantic interest, blah blah blah. Aside from never being quite sure who the characters are discussing when they’re not present, the only other thing I had trouble with was a subplot involving two warring kingdoms. Thankfully, this was far secondary to the major event in this volume, which involved the close relationship between two of the characters.
Unfortunately, I can’t really talk about the volume, because the only event I really understood was… well, a huge plot-related event, and I feel sort of bad because I actually really liked what I read, well enough to want to go back to the beginning of the series. But now I know… well, this happens. It’s not unlike an event in the original Fushigi Yugi that happened shortly before I stopped reading, and it’s one of the things I kind of admire about the series – it’s not often you see a shoujo series willing to do this… thing.
What did I like about it? Well, it looks as if everyone’s not asking constantly after the well-being of the priestess, which is a plus. The relationship between the priestess and the love interest doesn’t seem to be as annoying as the one in the original FY, though that could just be because… other things are going on. I like the range of characters that fill out the celestial warriors, including a little clay man. I also like what I’ve seen of the priestess, who frees herself to go try and help a burning city she saw after she was captured. I also tend to like shoujo fantasy by default, even though I disliked FY. I also really liked what I saw of the celestial warrior’s powers, as well as the huge display put on between two of the warriors towards the end of the volume.
All I can tell you about this volume for sure is that there’s a HUGE character-related event that goes down that I would have really been into had I been reading this from the beginning. From what I can see of this volume, I liked it better than FY. But not only did this make me want to go back and read Genbu Kaiden from the beginning… it… it’s making me want to try Fushigi Yugi again, too. God help me.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
I’ve been thinking about starting Genbu Kaiden, myself. Fushigi Yuugi was the first shoujo anime I ever saw, so I have a soft spot for it even though I know it is kind of dumb. I like the manga through volume 13, the big dramatic end. And then suddenly there’s more, with Watase going, “Oh, oh yeah, that was only part one.” The rest was obviously tacked on as an afterthought because the series was too profitable to end, and is really very very lame.
Addendum: I actually reviewed all of it on my site. You can consult my new handy review index if you’re interested!
Oh, cool! I like that new index. I’m getting a kick out of going through your Fushigi Yugi reviews. I was trying to figure out where exactly I had stopped reading, and your comments about Miaka are making me smile. My roommate watched all of the anime too, and is quite fond of it, he was surprised when I told him I disliked the manga.
I started on a chapter where Miaka’s brother was riding a train or something and realized Miaka was in the book (I think?), and I read from there through Nuriko’s whole thing with interest, but after that I didn’t care as much. I think I may have gotten to the volume 13 ending, but I can’t remember that clearly, and some things are ringing a bell while others aren’t. Reading your reviews are reminding me how much I hated Miaka, so now I’m less inclined to go through all the volumes unless a mood for a classic series hits me. I do still want to read Genbu Kaiden though, I do kind of like the plot.
I’ve heard that Genbu is better, and that the priestess is far less annoying.
I started the index project ‘cos I like how you have yours listed out by series, but I didn’t want to mix that with the categories I have based on genre and demographic, so I thought the index was a handy compromise. :) I’m glad you find it useful.
Yeah, I just used it again, I really like it. I always like to see series listed in order so I can find what I’m looking for easily, but it doesn’t really cross my mind often that most people aren’t going to know/be familiar with the majority of titles, so it’s probably not the best for browsing purposes.
i love miaka!!!
Genbu Kaiden is better than the original series. Period. That being said, I love the original, and can’t bring myself to like GK. I liked the first . . . . maybe two volumes, because the main romantic interest Limudo (?) had hilarious celestial powers that a character from the original FY would have killed to have. Plus, the Genbu priestess wasn’t annoying and i liked how her family situation was played out.
But GK was . . . unsatisfying. It lacked all the things i liked about the original FY. I missed all my favorite characters from the original and the ones in Gaiden seemed lacking in comparison (Tomite was good, but he was basically a cut and pasted form of Yuhi from Ceres). Also, the original FY is more a coming of age story, while GK is less about growing up and more about destiny and forbidden love and revenge. Not that FY didn’t have that and GK didn’t have lessons for its characters.
Augh. Sorry, it’s just that the two are very very very very different from each other. You just can’t compare them. GK is an FY story in name only.
Fair enough. I can see that they are different beasts, even with the little I’ve read of both of them. It’s kind of good to hear that Genbu Kaiden is a better story, because I sort of suspected that, but it’s been so long since I read the original, plus I didn’t really have fond memories of it.
I did like this, and I keep thinking I ought to give the original another shot. It’s coming out in a VizBig edition now, so there’s basically no reason in the world not to other than I’m pretty sure I’m still not going to like Miaka. It has pretty much everything else needed to be a really epic shoujo fantasy though, so I might as well go back for it.
Do any of you know if there’s gonna be any releases soon for GK? I really want to know what happens next…it’s just one of those things…
Well, volume 8 just came out, I think, so you can look forward to that, and I’m pretty sure there’s one more volume in Japanese that will be translated. The series just went on hiatus in Japan though, so it might be a long time before we see new releases after that.
Does anyone know when Chapter 32 will come out?? D:
Unfortunately, I think the series is on hold until next year.