REVIEW FUSHIGI YUGI

Fushigi Yugi also known as Mysterious Play and Curious Play, released in Japan in Manga, Anime, OVA and Light Novel.

This review will only cover the anime version which is the only thing I was able to watch.

The TV series aired in 1995 in Japan with 52 episodes and 9 OVA in from 1995 to 1998 and another OVA titled Fushigi Yugi Eikoken from 2001 to 2002 with 4 episodes.

Fushigi Yuugi not really in my list of favorite anime that I have seen. But the opening theme really got me and during the time this was aired I have very few options to watch since this was aired right before the evening news.

The series starts off with two high school girls Miaka and Yui, going to a library checking out some books (cannot really recall if they were going to study or do their assignments) they find a book and starts reading it. Later a flash of light suddenly burst out of the book and later only Yui is left inside the library near the book and Miaka was nowhere to be found. out of curiosity Yui started reading the book and sees that Miaka was inside the book. Panicking she later reads on following Miaka's sudden adventure inside the book.

Miaka realizing that she is no longer inside the library and noticing that the people around her are all wearing outfits of ancient China and later meeting the first person that will change her life forever. Meeting Tamahome she begins her life inside the book figuring out how to return to her own world. Later meeting the fourth emperor Hotohori, she realized she was inside the book that she was reading along with Yui and she was later said to be a destined priestess of the god Suzaku and she needs to find her guardians who bears a mark of a chosen warrior of Suzaku.

The warriors included Tamahome, Hotohori, Chichiri (wandering priest), Nuriko (crossdressing guy in the group), Tasuki (a former bandit), Mitsukake (group healer), Chiriko (the youngest member of the group)

Yui later along the story ends up inside the book as well but her fate was not as good as Miaka who was found by a gentle person, Yui was found by a bunch of hooligans who cornered her and thought of Miaka would try and help her but to no avail. She was found by Nakago the warrior of Seryu and was the one who told Yui that she is the destined priestess of the god Seryu. The same as Miaka she is to locate her own warriors but compared to Miaka, Yui's warriors were close by and seemed to be ready for her arrival

Seryu warriors, Nakago, Amiboshi and his twin Suboshi, Soi, Ashitare, Miboshi. Having her own set of warriors complete right away and all ready for combat they prepare to fight the warriors of Suzaku.

The Priestesses to be chosen gets to have one their wish granted by the god that they represent, but there was a condition the priestess is to remain a virgin until the ceremony which I got confused of. Yui was thought of to have been defiled when she was found by Nakago and Miaka was tricked to make her think that Nakago got his way with Miaka making her loose her virginity.

In the end of the series where almost all warriors of both sides were almost killed in the battle Miaka was the one who got her wish granted. So I guess she realized she is still a virgin.

The series later got some OVA telling the story of the characters after their adventure inside the book. Everyone were still alive and Tamahome was reincarnated in the real world as Taka. Both Miaka and Taka meet and remembers everything from the time they met inside the book and started going out and later marries.

So yeah spoilers for those who has not seen the series.

There are other anime series that has similar theme as Fushigi Yugi one of them is another series that I managed to finished which is Ayashi no Ceres which I will make a review on.

The fight scenes well I know there were a lot of cuts but I have no urge to re-watch the entire series anytime soon just to see what were removed from the Tagalog dubbed version here in the Philippines.

Since I have not seen the original Japanese dubbed version I am sure that were a lot of scenes that were removed from the local telecast of the series here in the Philippines along with some foul languages in order to censor it out. The series was good to watch although the target audience seems to be the female ones since it was basically a reverse harem genre but during that time i cared less about those since I was still clueless about those stuff.

Would I recommend Fushigi Yugi as a classic anime for those looking for old school anime, the answer is yes even though it is not on my favorite list. So all those who have not seen the series you can give this a shot all depends on you.

video credit to the owner