I wasn't very keen on the original Fushigi Yugi but found its later prequel to be much better. How will their latest installment of the story compare to the others?
FUSHIGI YUGI: BYAKKO SENKI by Yuu Watase. First published in 2017 and first published in North America in 2020.
PLOT:
Young Suzuno is a sweet, sheltered young girl growing up in 1920s Tokyo. Her father dotes upon her, but he has one rule: do not touch the book called The Universe of the Four Gods. He remembers all too well what happened to their family friend Takiko and he fears that the book is now seeking out Suzuno in turn. When her home and family are destroyed in the Great Kanto Earthquake, the only way to save Suzuno is to let the book draw her into its world. It is there that she meets a shapeshifting tiger-woman, a pair of desert-wandering orphans, and the first hints to Suzuno's true destiny as the Priestess of Byakko.
STORY:
Like wine, Yuu Watase seems to get better at manga with age. The improvements between Genbu Kaiden and Byakko Senki are not as drastic as those between Genbu Kaiden and the original Fushigi Yugi, but this latest installment continues to refine upon that universe while still delivering a unique experience.
Suzuno is in many ways the opposite of her predecessor. Where Takiko was a fiery, self-assured teen with a troubled relationship to her family, Suzuno is a sweet, sheltered, trusting child with loving and protective parents. Of course, that just makes it all the more traumatic when Suzuno is thrust into a hostile, desolate desert right after losing everything and everyone she has ever held dear. She's basically a baby grasping for any bit of kindness and familiarity she can find, and you'd have to be a monster not to feel for her a little.
I do have one concern, though. So Suzuno's foil is obviously Ling-Nan, the aforementioned shapeshifter. Ling-Nan is pretty much Suzuno's opposite in every way: neglected and abused, but also voluptuous and womanly with some implications that she has survived largely through sex work. My concern is that Ling-Nan is not just Suzuno's rival and pretender to her role as Priestess of Byakko but that Watase is adding a virgin/whore dynamic to their rivalry that is frankly unnecessary and could go really badly if not handled delicately. It doesn't help that it's well-established within this franchise that virginity is crucial to a priestess's power.
Just as things are getting good, Watase sucks Suzuno back out for a time-skip. She manages to mine some decent drama out of it, thanks to Suzuno's suppressed memories of her trip, an adopted sibling desperate to marry her, and the creeping militaristic fascism of Showa-era Japan. Still, I couldn't help but wonder when we were gonna get back to the fireworks factory the book world. I guess that's a testament to how much Watase has improved as a writer over the years, that she's managed to hook me on Suzuno's tale in just a single volume.
ART:
I continue to marvel at how much Watase's art has refined over the years: how much more dimensional her faces are, how much much detail and nuance her put into their art. It really shines in the setting, be it the wreckage and chaos of the Great Kanto Earthquake or the desolate desert ruins that evoke the history of ancient western Chinese outposts. Even their paneling has improved - it's more complex than ever before, but organized well enough that it never comes across as cluttered. It's a terrible shame that Watase's health issues keep her from picking it back up because I'm curious to see her apply that skill to the more fanciful side of the tale.
RATING:
This series is published by Viz. This series is on hiatus in Japan with 1 volume available. This volume has been released and is currently in print.
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