Volume five of Fushigi Yûgi: Genbu Kaiden begins with Takiko putting away her girlish crush, failing to find peace with her father, and returning to her destiny. By the end of the book she’ll have snuck into a brothel with Limdo, and started a battle with the next celestial warrior. In spite of all of that action, I’m going to spend an inordinate number of words talking about sound effects.
Written and delightfully illustrated by Yuu Watase
In the midst of a heated battle, Takiko is transported back to her own world. There, all the problems she escaped through her father’s book are waiting for her: her mother’s funeral, her father’s disapproval, and her reunion with Mr. Ohsugi, her first love. But with the wisdom and strength she’s found as the Priestess of Genbu, Takiko knows what she has to do. And when she discovers that the wishes of the Priestess really do have power in her world, she realizes that she must find a way to return to the Universe of the Four Gods!
Sound effects:
One nice aspect of these ongoing reviews is that I ran out of normal things to talk about very fast, and I keep having to dig deeper to find anything interesting. Today that dug-deep-topic is sound effects. I wrote down every single sound effect found in this comic. There were 77 unique sound effects. I don’t know exactly how that compares to superhero comics, but I’m going to take a guess that it’s “way more.”
Of course, these are all translations, and I don’t know how much input Yuu Watase had on it. But lets talk about my favorite recurring theme anyways: they take a word, remove the vowels, repeat a consonant. Clothing being ripped off becomes “rrrp.” A whirring sound is whrrr.
My favorite sound effects:
- grp – The sound of holding hands
- b-dmp – The sound of a heartbeat
- fwash – The sound of an inanimate neckless is trying to get your attention
- ch-chk – The sound of a robot arm moving
- hug – A hug
Splash panel notes:
Volume five uses a few two-page splashes: one of the capital city of Téwulán, one of Takiko and Limdo kissing, and one of a mass of clouds over a mysterious mountain.
And why I care: When I read comics I try to find structural pieces that, when taken alone, show the whole story. An easy one to look for is how the artist structures the panels. With western, indie comics the artist normally follows a regular paneling rhythm, and it’s fun to watch where they break it. Manga doesn’t have that, since nearly every page is a nearly unique composition. The major exception is the splash pages. So I’m keeping track of these because I want to test my hypothesis that they matter.
Miscellaneous notes:
The core characters are still the ones we first met, Takiko, Limdo, and Tomite. The three newer celestial warriors—Hatsui, Nameme, and Hikitsu—are strictly in supporting roles and barely present. This book is not an ensemble drama.
Yuu Watase uses inset panels nicely in this book. Once at the start, while Takiko is home in the real world, they’re used to show that the battle is still raging in the Universe of the Four Gods that she just left. Later, Watase uses inset panels to show different aspects of a costume festival while the page focuses on the main characters.
The characters distinguishing between themselves and their destiny via their celestial names and their given names. I don’t like this, at least not for Limdo. He spent the last book publicly tearing down the wall between his two identities, but now he’s back to talking of Uruki being the responsible half, and Limdo being the one who can love Takiko. It’s a step backwards in character.
The second half of this book has our characters sneaking into a brothel to find another celestial warrior. Of course this comes easy for Takiko and Limdo, but Tomite and Hatsui have to find employment in the kitchen. Hikitsu poses as a customer, and carries Nameme in like a doll. This furthers my belief that Yuu Watase is actually writing about a particularly great game Dungeons and Dragons she DMed. 🙂
