Volume seven of Fushigi Yûgi: Genbu Kaiden is the book that scales the story of Soren. It moves towards his self-sacrifice, and the then circles around its impact. This is overlaid on the evolution of the story of war as it is promoted to the forefront, on top of a background of plagues and bandits. It’s a well-structured four chapters of emotion and explosions, and one off the best that Yuu Watase has created.
Written and emotionally illustrated by Yuu Watase
Seven Celestial Warriors have been found…but Takiko has just learned that eight are needed. To win the arrogant, powerful Hagus over to her side, Takiko promises to rescue his twin brother, Teg, who embodies the lost half of his Celestial power. Deep in enemy territory, Takiko prepares to face Prince Temdan and his followers. As the war for Genbu begins, the Celestial Warriors leap into the fray…but the first battle will exact a terrible price!
This exciting prequel to VIZ Media’s best-selling fantasy series, Fushigi Yûg, tells the story of the very first priestess of the Four Gods–the Priestess of Genbu! When schoolgirl Takiko Okuda attempts to destroy her father’s translation of The Universe of the Four Gods, she is instead literally sucked into the story, becoming the Priestess of Genbu in an epic journey to find the seven Celestial Warriors!
As part of my continued pet project to document the two page spreads of Fushigi Yûgi: Genbu Kaiden, this book features two more. The first is in chapter 21, when Soren, the master of explosives, self combusts. The second is in chapter 22, where we see the cave where Teg is being chained He starts singing shortly afterwards. If there’s a pattern to these, it’s that they show off each character’s greatest skill.
We learn that Urumiya’s imprisoned brother Teg has his power: singing. It removes the power of the celestial warriors, which nicely mirrors Urumiya’s power of copying powers.
The chapter “Two Howls” builds to some awesome artwork, with pages and pages of Limdo fighting against a tornado of song, alternating panels of rage and memories. It’s a beautiful sequence. It ends with two simple pages showing Limdo falling, hurt, and Teg ceasing his singing. It’s my favorite sequence in this entire series.
Soren happily sacrificed himself for his master Limdo. I’m told this is a common trope for the Edo period, but it’s one I’ve never liked for moral reasons. An overly devoted servant, who has so little, dying for a prince, who has so much.
I’ve been impressed with many aspects of Yuu Watase’s storytelling, but, and I’ve said this before, she is not adept at handling a large cast of characters. Different celestial warriors just disappear from the story for entire volumes. There’s a Whedon-esque skill to putting a diverse group of powered individuals in the same scene that this book would do better with.
Shojo manga focuses on relationships, which means emotions, which means faces. When Watase does action scenes she doesn’t suddenly change artistic directions and start throwing in a shonen-style focus on grimaces and swords. No, Watase draws actions scenes with the same shojo style of faces and emotions, with big eyes reflecting everything each character wants. I’ve read six volumes of Fushigi Yûgi: Genbu Kaiden, and I only just noticed this fact today.
