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Fushigi Yugi - The Mysterious Play - (Volume 2, Seiryu)

Fushigi Yugi - The Mysterious Play - (Volume 2, Seiryu)

List Price: $198.98
Your Price: $179.08
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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Hmmm...
Review: Well, I'm writing this under the assumption that all readers are considering buying/have bought and watched the first half of the Fushigi Yuugi series. I'll start right now by saying that I've only ever seen it in Japanese, so I can't give you a fair opinion on the English dub.

In brief, what I thought of Fushgi Yuugi in general- well, I really quite liked it. It's not a favourite of mine, and I don't think it ever will be, but its still incredibly cute and funny.

What I thought of this set:

Well, excuse me while I go bang my head against a wall. Don't get me wrong- the second half is definately not bad, and for the most part is very, very enjoyable. There are, however, certain aspects that have inspired within me the urge to hurt something.

1) The complete shifts in characters. Miyaka started out as a likeable character. Granted, she was a ditz, but the character had spirit and passion, and was done very well. By this point in the series though, her personality has shifted completely. Gone is the girl who was willing to fight a gang in an alley because she didn't have to worry about teachers yelling at her. (This was in episode 3, I believe.) Enter Miyaka, weak priestess, who wanders around wailing and blushing, waiting for people to cater to beck and call....

Tamahome suffered the same personality shift as Miyaka. Like her, I really loved Tamahome at the start of the series. His character was portrayed as being shallow with a good heart underneath it all. Like Miyaka, he was hilarious, and incredibly likeable. I shamelessly admit that I was cheering him on the whole time, hoping he'd 'get the girl'. By the time the second series rocked up though, he had Miyaka and had become a simpering mess. He was completely whipped, no longer the strong character I liked. It was extremely disappointing.

We get to see more insight into Yui, but not much into the Seiryuu Seven, which is vaguely disappointing, but can be forgiven. We see the Byakko Seven- well, three members- and slowly find out more and more in the dark past of 'The Universe of the Four Gods', which I have to say, is excellently done. Sadly though, there is very little Hotohori- in my opinion, a real shame, as his character was wonderful and his Japanese voice actor is one of my personal favourites.

The plot is still engaging. It doesn't focus on the other members of the Seven as much as I'd like, in favour of screams of 'Tamahome!' 'Miyaka!' but each character does get their brief spot in the limelight.

The drawings are still excellent, and the animation flows as well as the first season. When it's not trying too hard to be deep and meaningful, we see that wonderful Fushigi Yuugi humour, which was originally the first thing that caught my attention. There's still plenty of fanservice, which was kind of misplaced, considering this is a series that targets girls, but is still funny.

All in all, the second series is enjoyable, and is a nice way to round out the series. The ending leaves a bit to be desired, but that's what the OVAs are for. If you've seen the first half of Fushigi Yuugi (which was, to me, superior) this half is a necessity. I don't think that, on the whole, you'll be disappointed. Still, if you're anything like me, you'll wish that certain parts had been revised.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: An Improvement over the 1st Half but.....
Review: The second half was definitely better than the first but it still had a lot of problems (what else would you expect from Fushigi Yugi?). First the good things. The animation was better for the most part (there were a some poorly and lazily done episodes), but I guess they made up for it with the "Nuriko, the Eternal Farewell" episode. That was a fantastic episode. One of the best one in the entire series. Also, the episode where Tatara and Suzuno were reunited was fantastic. The music set the feeling of the moment perfectly resulting in one of the best moments of the series or of any anime series for that matter. The summoning of Seiryu was done very well also. The ending was great too with some nicely done animation. Great voice acting on the part of Seki Tomokazu, Touma Yumi, and Nuriko's seiyuu. Now onto the bad. In the second half I still had a problem with the main character Miaka who was still (except for the very end) a bad character in my opinion. In this second half of the series she was still running after Tamahome or away from (We can't be together I can't marry you bladdy blah blah) and saying stuff like that would be the best for Tamahome then running off which was complete [nonsense]. The creators of the anime must have been TRYING to make us not like Miaka. They succeded pretty well. Miaka's voice actress, Araki Kae, should stick to the little girls like Chibi Usa instead of doing 8th grade girls because she sounds horridly annoying in Miaka's role. Tamahome is not much better, all of his 2,000 love speeches to Miaka or about Miaka make me want to mute the TV even though it IS Modorikawa Hikaru doing Tamahome's voice. Thankfully there wasn't as much Hotohori scenes in the second half. The animation in the episode where something surprising happens involving Chiriko (I think you know what I'm talking about) was awful. That episode was the most screentime Chiriko had in the entire series, more than the amount of all his previous screentime put together. All the stuff about I want to know Tamahome's true feelings was annoying too. Did anybody notice after Miaka came out of Tomo's shin shell thing and it showed that up (sort of at an angle shot) of Miaka? It was riduculous. No human is that thin and certainly no human who eats as much as Miaka does is. Even Yui isn't shown as thin as that and she isn't obssessed with food. There was way too much Miaka fan service, half of the time she has no clothes on, partly because everybody else is always taking them off (Tamahome, Nakago, Tomo, Nuriko) and everyone's always trying to take away her virginity so she can't summon Suzaku, very annoying. I wish we had been able to see more of the Byakko Seven because they were all much more interesting than Miaka and Tamahome ever were to me. I loved Tatara and Suzuno especially. Fushigi Yugi has lots of ups and downs and it's your choice whether you want to invest the money for the whole thing.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: It's as dark as it is good
Review: For those of you that have already seen the first part of Fushigi Yuugi, it ends with Tamahome visiting his family, but he sees that they've all been murdered. Like I said, the second and last part of the series is darker than the first. More characters suffer, and the Seriyu seven contribute to the dark aspect. If your'e an extremely sensetive person, you'll be moved to tears by this exciting, suspenseful conclusion.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: an excellent anime
Review: I discovered Fushigi Yugi here in amazon.com while I'm surfing the DVD stores. I got curious why so many people seems to love this anime and spending too much money in it (Here in the UK they only show Sailormoon and Dragonball Z in cable so I have no idea what's Fushigi Yugi is all about). Well, to satisfy my curiosity I bought the Suzaku and Seiryu Box Set together...I totally got hooked straight away, I watched it in 2 days, and I just can't stop. I totally love it... I already ordered the OVA Box Set and Eikoden. I can't get enough of this wonderful anime.

The gist of the story is about a girl Miaka who got sucked in the book called THE UNIVERSE OF THE FOUR GODS along with her bestfriend Yui. There they met Tamahome who save them from slave traders. Yui returned to their world while Miaka stayed in the book and there she met Emperor Hotohori, who falls inlove with her and she became the Priestess of Suzaku. She have to gather the 7 celestial warriors (Tamahome, Hotohori, Nuriko, Chichiri, Tasuki, Mitsukake, Chiriko)to summon Suzaku and save Konan from their enemy Kouto, being led by Nakago of the Seiryu 7. Miaka and Tamahome fell inlove and become enemies with Yui, who is inlove with Tamahome, when she returned in the book to become Priestess of Seiryu. And there the plot thickens.

The Seiryu Box Set is the continuation of the first one (Suzaku). It is an improvement to the Suzaku Box Set. Here you will learn the story of Nuriko (on why she dresses as a woman). The sacrifice of the other warriors really made me grab for a box of tissue. I won't say anything more because I don't want to ruin it for those people who's thinking about buying this. But hey..... I recommend that you get both of the Box Set together if you don't want to wonder on what's going to happen next.

This anime has everything, love story, comedy, drama, lessons about the value of friendship and true love. Miaka may be ditzy and whiny but I admire her for her bravery and faithfulness to Tamahome (their love for each other sticks to my heart). Her belief to Yui until the end even though Yui betray her so many times amazes me. I also admire the loyalty of her 7 celestial warriors who are willing to die just to protect their priestess.

This is a really wonderful anime and I think it is the best! So what are you waiting for, GO GET IT ALREADY!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: WOW!!
Review: My sister and I were looking for a cartoon (or manga, anyways) in Blockbuster when we came upon the first episode of Fushigi Yugi. That was about 4 years ago.

My dad hated it, but my mother loved it, and like someone else, we got all the VHS tapes that were overpriced. At the time we thought we were getting a good deal. Anyways, we were either hootin' or hollerin' at some event that Miaka screwed up or got caught up in (which was a lot), crying when the Suzaku's warriors were dying (Nuriko's death topped them all; I like Hotohori the best, but I was too shocked to even cry when he died), and at one point even getting mad because as smart as Yui was, she didn't even realize she was being deceived. And it's true that we didn't see too much of Chiriko, so the only reason why we ended up liking him was because he was one of the good guys, not because of his personality.

Overall, I still love this series. We've got all of them: the series, the OAV's, and even Eikoden...that's another story entirely. We've watched the tapes so much (and so did some of our friends) that the tracking's jacked up; doesn't matter what VCR you put them in. Have to get the DVD's now!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Tragic and Joyful End to a Beautiful Saga!
Review: I'd bought every single overpriced Fushigi Yugi VHS. Yes, I did. 16 volumes at $30... You can do the math. Still, at the mention of the new DVD volume's arrival, I shivered with excitement, and with good reason. I went out and got it ASAP. It now sits prettily on my DVD shelf, right next to the Suzaku DVD box, which sits next to the 16 VHS volumes. That's how much I love this series.

The Seiyuu DVD box is a set of four DVDs, each disc holding the equivalent of 4 of the previously released VHS (that is, if you count both English dubbed and Japanese subtitled versions). The transfer to DVD was practically flawless, and both the visuals and audio are beautiful. The menu for each disc is simple and easy to navigate. In the department of Extras, this set has the coolest special features of any DVD I've ever seen: music videos for the image songs for most of the major characters! Pioneer has outdone themselves this time around!

But moving along to content, this is the second season of the shoujo anime Fushigi Yugi. Keeping the spirit of the first season, this one is slightly darker, bringing about the sadder and more touching parts of the show. To keep from spoiling any surprises (and believe me, there are plenty)I won't say anymore. Just a suggestion for the sentimental: Keep your hankies handy.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Be brave: stick it out
Review: I have to say that for a good portion of this half of the series, I was Less Than Impressed.

First of all, the writers seemed to forget about their WONDERFUL supporting cast (except, of course, for when they were killing them off, but I'll get to that) and focused a great deal of this half to JUST Miaka and Tamahome. While I can find it in my heart to stand Miaka, I hate her and Tamahome as a couple. Probably mainly because somebody forgot to give Tamahome a personality. There's a good ten episodes (the figure could be off; I never actually counted) where I seriously considered just giving up on the series all together; it got repetitive and annoying.

However, I stuck it out, and I'm really hoping that anybody else who spends any amount of time on this series will do the same. Except for the middle section, this half is a REAL emotional roller coaster. It has the same comedy as the first half (though in this half there were quite a few awkward gags that would have been better left out, and there might have actually been more fanservice in this half than in the first, which, if true, would really be saying something), but there are several episodes that will leave you in tears, even watching them a second or third (or more) time. There are deaths, and a lot of them; they increase in frequency the later in the series it gets, and for saps like me, the last few episodes will get really hard to watch. While these episodes are very dramatic, it's a shame some of the best characters are killed off as this leaves them unavailable to provide relief during the rocky middle section.

On the plus side, we also get to learn more about the history of the Universe of the Four Gods and the Priestesses who came before Miaka and Yui; this information was intriguing enough to keep me invested.

I got to the last three or four episodes thoroughly believing that no ending could really satisfy me, and I am VERY happy to say that I was proved wrong. While an attempt at garnering sympathy for Nakago failed and I still don't like Tamahome, I was otherwise blown away by the ending. It was wonderful, and I was very glad that I did stick with it. Take my advice on this one; I'm sure you won't regret it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Best Part of the Series...
Review: ... and really, the best part of all of Fushigi Yugi, including Eikoden (shudder) and Oni (though not including the manga). As I said in my previous review of Suzaku, I believe this series is under-rated, and, to repeat myself further, I was guilty of this as well. I really didn't like the first few episodes, but kept watching and grew to like it. Then I saw Seiryu, and it was all worth it. Seiryu has all of the characters we have grown to love, with a much deeper, darker message than Suzaku. We grow to understand why Yui has grown to hate Miaka so much (you would too if you ended up with a mind-f***er like Nakago). We really begin to feel for the characters and their heart-ache. And we begin to see Yu Watase's deeper messages: messages about life, love, friendship and war. When I first started Suzaku, I wondered how anyone (Gilles Poitras) could list Fushigi Yugi in their top 41 recommended titles. Seiryu made me see why. It's a great series, and once you make it through the first half, you can enjoy the wonderful second installment.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: It Rocks
Review: I love this DVD, it's the best. I think the first part of the Fushigi Yugi- Mysterious Play is as good as this one. Until you watch it then you would understand what the movie is about. I think that this movie is good. I love it. My favorite characters it the suzaku seven!!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Stuff!
Review: If you're expecting perfection on everything don't buy anything...because nothing's ever gonna be completely perfect, but if you're a Fushigi Yugi fan just wanting something FY to put your hands on...then don't worry about it! This works just fine! I have the Seiryuu English Dubbed videos (didn't have enough money for DVD, sigh). The only thing annoying about it was Chichiri saying "You know" all the time. I don't know why they translated the "No Da!" In the mangas they don't...but anyway, I didn't have control over the translations. In any case, it follows the manga, and those of you who hate suspense and wanna know what happens...it tells you and gives you enough to hold onto until the mangas are all released. Just sit back, relax, laugh, cry whatever moves you...in any case just enjoy!!


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