Re: Why so much Fushugi Yugi hate?

"Metlhd3138" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> I hear people complaining about Fushugi Yugi, complaining its
> "juvenile","sappy","annoying". Why? It, along with El Hazard, helped
pioneer
> the "student gets pulled into magical world" stories that anchored
escaflowne
> and inu-yasha (weirdly, FY haters dont mind those shows at all).

(nice pun on Pioneer there, even if unintentional :p)

First off, Escaflowne was being planned long before Fushigi Yuugi came into
existance.  Plus, there were series/OVAs such as Tobira wo Akete and Leda
that used the idea beforehand (although the idea unfortunately isn't so
popular any more, apart from Twelve Kingdoms and (a bit further back) Himiko
Den).  All four shows you've mentioned above are also significantly
different in what they do with the idea - FY is a shoujo romance, El Hazard
a shounen action-comedy-drama thing, Escaflowne a mish mash of shounen quest
and shoujo drama, whereas Inu Yasha is pretty much a shounen fight show.

Second of all, most people actually like a lot of Fushigi Yuugi.  However,
it has two significant flaws, and they are:

a) MIAAKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

and

b) TAMAHOMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Miaka is, unfortunately, the ultimate Mary Sue.  She's a deliberate Plain
Jane, she's clumsy and piggish, she isn't that smart and isn't that popular,
yet all the impossibly beautiful and nice men (including the gay one!) she
meets in the Universe of the Four Gods fall in love with her, she's the
"princess" (well, the Miko) of some unknown land and turns out to be the
most important person ever blah blah blah.  All of this could be tolerable
if she weren't so aggravating - she's very whiny and stupid (take
episode...5, I think it is, where the mirror Miaka appears.  She could have
dealt with that in any number of ways, but noooo, she had to take the most
melodramatic way out...) and unbelievably noble in a bad way if you get what
I mean.  This is one of Yuu Watase's greatest failings - she can't write
strong lead female characters for some reason!  Just look at Ayashi no
Ceres' Aya or Alice 19th's Alice for further confirmation of this.  Yet she
writes fantastic villains like Nakago...

Then we have Tamahome.  Who, by himself, can be vaguely cool.  Except then
we find out he has a starving family who he loves so very very much... and
then he falls in love with Miaka.

Cue endless panning shots of faces and embraces with the above cries
liberally used.  Sappy declarations of eternal love and "I'll never leave
you" etc. etc.  It ruins the pacing and detracts from the strengths of the
show - some genuinely good bits of plotting and drama and a strong
supporting cast - while playing up the limited budget.  Did I mention how
annoying Miaka is?

Compare her to Hitomi or Kagome from Escaflowne and Inu Yasha respectively.
While I'm well aware that Hitomi is often criticised for being indecisive
and "pathetic", she's a lot more capable than Miaka - she's generally
sensible, she thinks more carefully, and she actually helps out in the
adventure rather than being "protected" the whole time.  Her romantic
dilemma is much more plausible for a 16 year old than Miaka's almost puppy
love for Tamahome - we're supposed to believe she's 15!

Kagome, on the other hand, while too frequently relegated to
damsel-in-distress syndrome as is the wont of shounen, can on occasion not
only kick some serious ass, but is a confident, practical girl who shows
plenty of backbone when dealing with Inu Yasha without being completely
emotionless.

Andrew H