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Fushigi Yuugi

From the get-go, this series is about as standard as girls' anime comes--you've got a cute but rather unimpressive high school girl who gets thrown into an alternate world and given the responsibility of saving the land from something bad. And, of course, there are at least a couple of really studly guys who fall hoplessly in love with her (despite the fact that she has no obvious charm). As things go along, her trip is fraught with peril, adolescent angst, tragedy, and triumph, and she ends up gaining self respect, confidence, some new friends, and of course a handsome boyfriend. It's also mild shoujo, so there's plenty of melodrama and somewhat sappy romance. But, while all that does apply to this series, all in all it's got enough interesting situations and occasionally involving storytelling to make it stand out in the genre, and at least for me it was worth watching.

The first thing that caught my eye with this series was the mood, which I can only describe as confusing. The series is composed of roughly equal parts very silly comedy and heavy drama, with a liberal seasoning of sappy romance and tragic situations, and a dash of action. This is hardly the only series made with that formula, but what set this one out for me (though I'm sure it's not unique) is the way completely serious scenes and completely silly ones were mashed together with absolutely no segue at all. At times it sort of enhanced the tragedy of a situation by lulling you into a good mood with some jokes before springing something really dark, but for the most part it just left me wondering whether I was watching a comedy or a drama, and wishing it would stick to one or the other. It's certainly not that the funny parts weren't--the humor was basic, but effective--nor that the drama wasn't dramatic, but by switching between the two several times during the span of almost every episode, it lessened the effect of both by forcing such an abrupt change of emotional gears. I didn't find it severe enough to ruin the series, and I'm sure that some people will enjoy this storytelling method, but if you are the type who isn't likely to, you've been warned.

As for the story itself, it tended toward the soap-operatic and obvious, but I thought it was still a pretty good yarn. True to form, the whole thing was filled with plot twists, and you definitely didn't see most of them coming at a distance, but unfortunately the set-ups and foreshadowing were so blatant that you had a clear view of almost every curve by the time it got there. That doesn't make the plot any less engaging as a whole, and in fact most of the particularly dramatic episodes were well enough executed that I found the tension level fairly high. Just don't expect to be shocked much, at least not at the revalations once they actually occur. One positive thing that I can say for the story is that it kept me wanting to see more; rather than a series of unrelated episodes, the story has a constant flow, and always has the feeling that it's heading somewhere. Also good was that it's length (two 26-episode TV seasons) allows for a lot of breadth and leisurely development, but on the down side it also meant that several times, when the story was building to an apparent conclusion, it was rather obvious that something was going to go wrong (you can hardly end the story halfway through the series). Another offshoot of this being a TV series was the rather obvious episode design--each had a clear halfway point (which would have been the commerical break) that always fell on something particularly dramatic, and every one started out with a recap of the previous episode. This might have been welcome if you had waited all week for the next episode, but in watching several back to back on video it just got repetitive and annoying.

Overall, the story accounted for a lot of the appeal of this series, but of course this is anime, so the characters had also better be good, which they were. I can't say that they were the most likeable anime characters I've seen, nor the deepest, but they were good enough to carry the series. On one hand, there were a few characters that were quite likable for their humor value and quirky personalities (Nuriko, and Miyaka to a lesser extent), and on the other some of them (particularly some of the apparent villians) were effective on a more dramatic level, and actually suceeded at having a bit of real depth. In a couple of cases (Tamahome and Chihiri), there was even a little of both. Plus, since there were a lot of them and the series was long, there was ample opportunity for a variety of character interaction, although I actually think the series could have done with more (on account of usually being focused on Miyaka, there was less than I would have expected). The real standout in the lot, though, is probably Yui, but it'd be a shame to tell you why until you've watched some of the series... so trust me and skip the next paragraph if you haven't.

Yui was a really impressive character, for her ability to be both an effective villian (which was quite a surprise, and certainly not what I was expecting) and a sympathetic character at the same time. Although her transformation from high school friend to nearly-sadistic evil priestess was unrealistically extreme even given the circumstances, it also wasn't entirely unbelievable, and her character was written with enough depth to make me simultaneously hate her as a villian and feel genuinely sorry for her. That kind of depth in a "bad guy" is hard to come by, and I definitely wasn't expecting to see it in this series. It also did a lot for enhancing the tragic overtones of the story later on.

As for Miyaka, I personally wasn't too fond of her (though she's about what you'd expect for this sort of shoujo story), mostly since she was a little too un-heroic. In particular, she was kind of a slave to the plot in that she was always falling into despair, being pulled up by one or more of her friends, and vowing to get stronger... then promptly repeating the process. She also made a rather unbelivable match as one corner of the love triangle (or whatever shape it ended up being). Speaking of which (and despite the mismatch), the romance in the series was a major part of the story, but it was actually done with a fair ammount of reserve, and I enjoyed it more than I expected to. Although plot-fitting made it pretty obvious what the end result was going to be, I did get a good sense of drama in the main triangle, partly on account of the external pressures on the relationships, and also because all three characters seemed to know where things stood, but still wrestled internally with the situation. I also found the romantic emotions fairly effective (even Miyaka's on occasion), and although the characters seemed to be rather over-dramatic about the situation, that actually doesn't seem inappropriate for their ages (they are all teenagers, after all).

Visually, there really isn't much worth noting in Fushigi Yuugi. The character animation is good enough to support the emotion, though not noteworthy otherwise. The action scenes, which are brief and sparse, are well enough animated but also not any sort of standout. The character design is pretty good, though, with a couple of classically studly shoujo guys (who thankfully aren't too effiminite, and there's even a joke or two along those lines that I really appreciated) and a few likably humorous faces. The character art is also pretty good, and a few of the fancy costumes were nicely detailed.

Unfortunately, the backgrounds were disappointingly bland, and were a symptom of an unfortunate lack of creativity in the background of the world itself. The problem is that, although the story is set in ancient China, there is almost nothing that makes the setting seem any different than the generic ancient Japan of most anime, or any other generic fantasy setting for that matter. With the exception of some architecture, a few costumes, and a mention of the government exams, the China of Fushigi Yuugi is more of a convienent label than a setting.

The last thing to cover in this series is the acting, which for any shoujo series is important. I can't say much for the English acting either way--I only listened briefly, and I didn't think it was bad, but I didn't find it particularly good, either (Yui was effectively cast and acted, though). The Japanese casting is solid, but not memorable, although I did like Nuriko's gender-bending voice a lot, and I was also fond of Yui's voice. The Japanese acting wasn't what I would call memorable, but it was solid, both comedically and dramatically, which is actually pretty impressive--Tamahome in particular pulled off studly and silly equally well. There were notable performances from the three main characters, Miyaka, Tamahome, and Hotohori--emotionally effective and fairly believable (not just in romantic situations), if occasionally a bit over-the-top. But yet again, Yui was the real standout with a very effective performance--entirely believable and with a surprising amount of emotional force. The music in this series really isn't much to write home about; the few background themes tended to be very repetitive (particularly since they use the same theme at the same time during each episode). On the bright side, there are a couple of nice flute tunes used within the story, and the opening theme is a cool rock song with a bit of an exotic twist.

All in all, I thought that Fushigi Yuugi was unevenly put together, emotionally confusing, a little too soap-operatic, and rather obviously laid out, but there was enough humor to make it enjoyable, enough dramatic twists and relatively believable emotional wrangling to make it interesting, a fair amount of reserve showed on the romantic end of the story, and strong enough charcters (and performances) to hold it all together. The visuals weren't much, but held up as a TV series. Don't expect much originality, don't expect it to be deep, and don't come looking for a setting that actually has anything to do with ancient China, but at least as a shoujo drama-comedy-romance, Fushigi Yuugi was a decent story nonetheless. This isn't usually my sort of anime, but it was good enough to keep me interested, even through this long series.

-Akemi's Anime World