Alright, I finished all of
Fushigi Yuugi tonight. I'm still standing by my previous first-impression statement about Miaka
possibly being a Mary Sue, except I
think the entire concept of a whole is meant to be a meta-commentary on escapism and self-fulfillment power fantasies, and Miaka and Yui still manage to be their own characters that keep them away from being
considered Mary Sues/blank slates when all's said and done. It didn't really hit me that could've been a possibility until
Miaka was under Tomo's illusion spell and everything was going great for her in "real life". I think I have a better argument about the meta-commentary with the conflict of Tamahome's existential crisis on if he's even a real person or a character from a storybook coming more into focus after it was brought up around episode 30 or so. Maybe I'm looking way too deep into a shoujo
isekai series, but as someone who likes writing and telling stories with (hopefully) some little twists on particular tropes, I'm honestly a sucker when it comes to playing with narratives like that and making things meta.
Princess Tutu did something similar for fairytales, but that magical girl series was much more impressive in how it handled it tbh.
Unfortunately, I think whatever point Yuu was trying to make just got to become
more acceptable amongst fangirls, because now escapism is even
more personalized than ever to the point of actual militant fights online over "feeling attacked" if someone doesn't like their favorite series/head-canons. And there's a lot of girls/grown-ass women who don't have a love life of their own so they live vicariously through sappy romances
like Fushigi Yuugi because "Oh, I wish that could've happened to me" or other self-fulfillment magical world stories like
Harry Potter, and I wonder if it's really all that possible to modernize
Fushigi Yuugi and still keep the outcome the same.
Anyhoo, while I don't think I'll do a rewatch anytime soon (will most likely check out the manga instead), and I still think the beginning episodes were rough, I got through it okay. The OP and ED have grown on me (haven't gone out of my way to download the ED song though), I found the relationship between Miaka and Tamahome to be weird but they're
very much devoted to one-another which pleases my hopeless romantic side, and
kudos to Yuu for keeping characters dead once they're dead. Yeah, Eikouden had them be reincarnated, but they were in new, different bodies with slightly different personalities, I'm assuming. Also
oof the OVAs are... quite out-there. Wouldn't doubt it they're from the actual manga, but even though I found the last scene from the TV series to be hokey and obviously shoehorned in for a happy ending, it was at least closure and could allow the viewer to forge their own happy endings. But I dunno.
Eikouden was the roughest of it all because Mayo is
awful, and yet we're
still expected to feel bad for her despite her being a bitch.
Once she threatened the life of Tamahome's baby to his face, there was no way I was ever going to like her. The OVA having only four episodes meant her redemption arc just felt rushed and undeserved.
Tasuki best boy btw (though I like Nuriko, too). On his very debut episode, I knew I was gonna like him. Yeah, he reminds me of Kyo Sohma, but eh, I liked him the most. Sucks he never used the illusion talismans ever again, though.
Also lol Anime-Planet, surely you jest. It was nothing compared to something like
InuYasha.