Fushigi Yuugi: Water Over Fire - After Completion

Ok, so it’s an obscure site title. While I was looking around for the cosmological roots of Fushigi Yuugi I wound up spending some time with the I Ching. I thought it would make a good source for a page title. I had a bunch of options, even limiting myself to the trigrams associated with East and South. In point of fact, none of those quite worked out, so I went the elemental route instead and chose from the fire/water hexagrams. If you want the whole story of why I thought this one was appropriate, take a look at the Title Story page.

Warnings and Whatnot: Spoilers. Opinions. I think that covers it. On we go.

What is Reality?

This is a fantastically referential show. It’s the only one I’ve seen so far that goes to such lengths to remind us that we’re watching a story. Take for instance the exclamation of Nakago’s soldiers, when they chase Chichiri mimicking him, to “capture that superdeformed general!” (Ep 11). The direct, technical reference to a specific anime drawing style breaks the fourth wall in a really big way. Watching this show is rather like standing between two mirrors that face each other.

(For non-theater-involved people, the fourth wall is the invisible “wall” on the audience side of the stage which may be crossed by actors when they directly address the audience as an audience.)

I think my very favorite moment in the whole story may be when Tetsuya tells Keisuke that in the moment Tamahome came through to the real world, the real world started being transcribed into the book. It’s such a fantastic use of the whole real/book metaphor. It also puts into high gear a debate that’s been running through the whole show: are the book people real or not?

We’re presented with a bunch of different opinions on that score. Miaka and Yui both seem to weigh in on the not-real side. Yui makes sure to tell Tamahome, twice, that he’s just a character in a book. Miaka, while she doesn’t say it out loud, thinks of him in almost exactly the same terms (Ep 9). Our third real-world player, Keisuke, is the one who thinks this problem through to the logical conclusion: that Tamahome’s continued presence will destabilize both worlds and cause a breach in the wall between them that will allow more and more cross-overs. The general agreement from the ‘real’ world, then, is that the book-world people are not real. Miaka doesn’t care, nor does she seem to mind the idea of remaining in the book world herself if that’s the only way to have Tamahome, but she never does make a declaration of Tamahome’s reality. The closest she comes is to say that “going into the book and becoming Suzaku no Miko, it’s all real. I can’t run away from it ” (Ep 12). This seems to be a curious mirror of Keisuke’s reaction, actually. He says of Tamahome “he’s a two dimensional character in a book…he was made up in a book” (Ep 47), and yet we see Keisuke crying over the book several times while he reads–for Nuriko’s death, for Tatara and Suzuno. Episode Fifty features a telling moment, when Tamahome is getting trashed by Nakago and Keisuke yells “the hero isn’t supposed to die!”

Nakgo actually spells it out for us. The ‘real’ people are reacting to the book characters as they would to an engaging novel. The girls, he says, came to the book to escape the real world which they didn’t care about or like (Ep 50). In the most literal sense of the word, the book is escapist literature. I find it a bit curious that Nakago and Tamahome seem to line up on the same side of the reality debate. Nakago puts it most bluntly: “We exist…what is the difference?” (Ep 49). In this he speaks a primary message of the whole show–the reality of imagination. Nakago points out that, even if some ‘real’ person did make him up, he still exists. Tamahome seems to have a similar revelation as he wanders around Tokyo after, he thinks, leaving Miaka to return to his own world. We see him watching some actors filming a love scene on location in a park; the scene features some fairly standard ‘never leave you’ dialogue. Upon seeing this, he turns around and high-tails it back to Miaka. What he says, upon appearing once again to rescue her, is that he’s realized that what he said before is just as true now–he lives only for her. “I belong to you” is the smashing summary (Ep 47). The subtext being, he doesn’t mind if he was created in a book, because the more significant point is that whatever his genesis he was created for her. This juxtaposition emphasizes that there is truth in stories–the truth Tamahome sees in the film shoot, and the truth he finds in his devotion to Miaka.

At the same time, Tamahome also expresses some sentiments from the not-real standpoint, saying “maybe there’s another me in this world, a real me not a made up me” (Ep 49). This ambiguity places him in the swing-vote catagory along with Tetsuya. Tetsuya’s contribution to this debate is brief, but significant. As he and Keisuke are arguing about what they could possibly do to affect the events unfolding at the end, Tetsuya says “I’m a character in the book too” (Ep 51). He implies at once that real people can be unreal (characters), and that unreal people are the ones with the greater affect on the real world (Nakago trashing Tokyo like Gojira’s prettier little brother).

Putting it all together, I think that we’re supposed to come away with more than one conclusion. On the one hand, the worlds do separate again, and everyone goes back to her/his own place. Even Tamahome doesn’t really stay; Taka is a reincarnation, not a direct transfer, and it’s clear that he predates all the uproar of the story. This is the perfect icon of what I think Watase’s point is. There is truth in fiction, in the characters of a book. That is, after all, why we become involved with a good story (just like Keisuke). It is a different kind of reality, and it’s not necessarily a good idea to mistake one for the other or for one kind to try to live permenantly in another’s world, but still. My favorite twist is that, by having Taka, effectively, post-date Tamahome, Watase turns the usual equation upside down. It’s not that art reflects life; in this case life has had it’s root in art. And it was good.

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Balance

This is something I’m coming to expect, but it’s particularly noticable in some shows and this is one of them. The story, and especially the interaction between Yui and Miaka emphasizes the need for balance. These two girls are just about perfect opposites. Yui is the proper, socialized, intelligent and reserved one while Miaka is the gauche, clumsy one with little focus and a bad memory. They need one another to be complete, and they both seem to know it. Yui is the outer face of their little diad. She fulfills all the proper gestures for a girl her age. Miaka is their inward face; she’s the free, joyful, simple spirit who couldn’t care less about appearances. In some ways, I think these graphics represent them quite well. Miaka just about bouncing out the side of the picture, Yui facing determinedly forward but with her hands tangled. Yui shelters Miaka; her friendship and support probably allow Miaka to remain apart from the more detrimental aspects of socialization because Yui takes up all that focus. We get a nice visual representation of this when they’re first transfered to the book world. As they lie on the ground Miaka is in Yui’s arms and Yui is drawn noticably larger then Miaka. At the same time, Miaka is the one who’s willing to act outside of propriety and reserve to protect both of them. She’s the one who headbutts thugs. As Tamahome mutters, after getting decked while trying to scare Miaka, “a normal girl would have screamed” (Ep 25). Miaka also offers emotional shelter, created out of the innocence Yui helps perserve. Miaka is the one who forgives Yui in the end and gets Yui to forgive herself. Because they balance, they form a remarkable synergy. They even manage to help each other start assimilating the opposing traits. By the end of the story Miaka has enough focus to pass her entrance exams, and Yui has relaxed enough that she doesn’t need to be a “genius” all the time. Not a bad ending, and the implicit point of how important girls’ friendships with each other are is something I find both typical of the shoujo genre and too little noted.

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Further Reading

So there’s some of my opinions. More can be found on First Star I See, which deals with the various romances of this show both explicit and implied, China, which contemplates what the author took from Chinese culture and why she might have done so, and Fascination which examines all the stuff that didn’t fit on the other pages. Links are below, should you wish to flee now. If you would like to respond to these pages, I would love to hear from you; my email link is at the bottom of the page.

You Can Check Out Any Time You Like…

The Fire of Suzaku’s Wings is one of the most useful sites I found. It has summaries, essays, a great gallery, lots more links and other goodies.

Tomo no Miko’s Fushigi Yuugi Page is another good general site. The high point is definitely the Features section, which contains essays on mythology, astrology and so forth.

Sarah Davis, who first got me interested in this show, will definitely make you think. Go look at I Wish and Sweet Lullaby, Rude Awakening on the Archive; it’ll be good for you.

If you want link lists coming out your ears, The Helix is the place to visit. There is a very nice fanfic link list in there, if you’re looking for reading material.

And, of course, Tasuki no Miko is the Grand Dame of Translations in this corner of fandom. Don’t forget to thank her.

I often fall for villains; it’s a little quirk of mine. Nakago didn’t make my cut, but he gets a very fair shake from his miko at Fushigi Yuugi’s Nakago. More than fair, actually, but I suppose mikos are supposed to be biased.

Wolves in the Stronghold focuses on our favorite bandit troupe, and is one of the few places I’ve seen that bothers with Hakurou (earstwhile leader-type).

In the interests of promoting good titles, which this fandom desperately needs more of, I would also direct you to The Legend Remains Perfectly Still. It’s great fun to wander around, but not very organized, so don’t go if you need something particular. I have to say, the bit about spellcheckers and foreign words was just howlingly funny.

For good essays, visit Stephen Congly’s site. I don’t completely agree with all his conclusions, but he’s got solid methodology and makes sense.

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Credits

Story and art by Watase Yuu, US licensing by Pioneer. Images are used only as illustrations to the analysis with no commercial infringement. My copies largely came from The Fire of Suzaku’s Wings, which maintains a superb gallery. Oh, yes, and the title of the links section is from an Eagles’ song–”Hotel California” to be precise.

Fushigi Yuugi: First Star I See - Romance

The title of this page refers to the alarming tendency these characters show to fall in love at first sight. It is also a horrible pun, of course (sei-star). Let’s take our couples one at a time.

Miaka and Tamahome

I didn’t, actually, take these two as love-at-first-sight so much as siblings-at-first-sight. Tamahome even says so, at one point; that he’ll be her big brother if she needs one (Ep 3) and that Miaka seemed like a little sister at first (Ep 31). He certainly teases her like one, during their initial go-round over whether he’ll help her find Yui. Admittedly, it doesn’t take long for them to move on to romantic love. By the end of Episode Three, we have his first proclamation that he will always protect her. That seems to be the lynchpin of their relationship. I was relieved to see that it’s mutual. As we see first in Episode Ten, these two both have (suffer) an imperative desire to spare each other pain. Tamahome berates Miaka for putting herself in danger, Miaka insists that he shouldn’t risk himself to protect her. This cycle of conflicting imperatives finally results in a flat declaration from Tamahome: “I live to protect you. I live only for you” (Ep 12). Despite how high on my squick scale the idea of equating love solely with protection rates, this scene still made me feel better about Miaka’s soppy adoration of Tamahome. At least it’s mutual. It’s a start. I was also entertained that, while Tamahome is upset that Miaka put herselt at risk fighting Soi, Nuriko and Tasuki compliment her fighting ability (Ep 30). We do have some countervailing opinions that favor spunk over safety; I liked that.

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Soi and Nakago

This one, on the other hand, is notably un-mutual and put my hackles up in a big way. Here’s Soi, a very powerful woman who can not only call storms but also control sexual magic (generally the province of foxes, I believe), and she’s hopelessly stuck on an ice cube. I mean, really, how would you like to be told “there’s only one who can fulfill my needs, and you’re not her”? Now there it is, all laid out–what Nakago desires is power and Soi can’t provide enough. I can understand gratitude to the one who freed her from a life of abuse as a low-class prostitute (devotion at first sight, perhaps), but this is ridiculous. She even dies for Nakago’s sake (shades of Yumi). Now, he does carry her body away with him and back to the capital. I presume he decided her service deserved a decent burial, but it struck me as a serious case of too little, too late.

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Yui and Tamahome

Another un-mutual love, though from the other direction. I’ve seen a number of debates over whether Yui really loved Tamahome or not. This is a sadly reductive way of interpreting a complex character (complex characters/motivations seeming to be the specialty of this show). Personally, I think she probably did feel something. But I think only some of it was her own emotion. At the very first, Yui and Miaka gaze up at their rescuer with identical expressions of relief and wow-what-a-hunk-awareness. There’s the first-sight seed. But Yui is pissed off that he asks for money, while Miaka just fishes around for some. The first point at which we have some indication that Yui likes Tamahome is in Episode Seven. Yui notes that she “feels the same pain and anguish” as Miaka, Miaka having just stabbed herself with a plate shard and Yui having felt the pain and found blood on herself. This moment is juxtaposed with Yui’s discovery of Tamahome’s name and her blush as she speaks it aloud. The implication is that Yui is also feeling Miaka’s love. And, let’s admit it here, she reacts to the hero of the story she’s reading exactly as most of us react to the hero/heroine of the stories we view…now doesn’t she? Anyone got the brass to put her down for that? Yet another moment to remind us of our own presence and reactions as the audience–they’re all over the place. Once Yui gets Tamahome into Kutou, she tells him “after she betrayed me I can’t let her have you” (Ep 18). This is the first of many indications that the competition for Tamahome, at least on Yui’s side, is really about Miaka. At the last, Yui admits she was just angry that Miaka had left her for Tamahome, though she did love him (Ep 50). It’s a complex answer for a complex character.

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Yui and Miaka

I’m not suggesting that this is a romantic love, though it would be dead easy to write fics in that direction given the material we have. I do think it’s very clear that Yui and Miaka love each other. Between the examples cited above, we have Yui’s statement “I’ve driven away the one I love with my own hands” (Ep 22); a picture of Tamahome quickly gives way to one of Miaka. Tatara insists to Yui that that she really does love Miaka; Yui says she doesnt love Miaka, the one she really loves is… and trails off (Ep 43). Nakago even asks her, “who is it you love, that girl or Tamahome?” (Ep 46). When Miaka is dying of having stabbed herself, it’s Yui who directs her back to life and tells her to listen for her friends (Ep 6). It’s Yui’s strong feelings that draw Miaka back to their world. As Miaka says, “we’re connected. Strongly. Deeply!” (Ep 7). When Miaka returns to the book world, she goes back for both her loves. “I’m coming Yui-chan, Tamahome” she says (Ep 8). And as Yui says at the very end, “I know you better than Tamahome” (Ep 50). Really, this love story is easily as beautiful as the one between Miaka and Tamahome, and I think it’s given equal weight.

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Yui and Nakago

And then there’s the really weird one. It’s in Yui’s interactions with Nakago that we see most clearly just how unblanced she is by/in the book world. Right up until the end she takes it for granted that Nakago will do whatever she says, despite scenes like the one in Episode Twenty where she smacks him one. Nakago tells her that he’s doing this (using Tamahome to torment Miaka) to make her happy; she responds, “Do you really think this makes me happy?” On some level, Yui knows that Nakago is toying with her. Yet he’s the one she runs to when in pain or doubt. It makes a certain amount of sense, if we assume that Nakago has been playing serious mind games with her–not an unreasonable assumption, given what we do know about his efforts to condition her into distrusting Miaka. For example, despite the power and ruthlesness he displays quite casually he never does anything to threaten Yui until the very end. Given that he saved her from an assault and stands as her protector, and that he shows Yui what he’s capable of without ever directing the danger at her, it is equally reasonable for Yui to think he must have some reason for protecting her from himself as well as other threats. After all, if he wanted something from her wouldn’t he just force it from her…if he didn’t love her? And since Yui has had a very clear experience of needing a protector, her will to believe in Nakago’s affection and devotion clouds her awareness that he’s manipulating her. For a good account of at least one goal of said manipulation, see Sarah Davis’ page on Yui, I Wish.

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Suboshi and Yui

Suboshi, on the other hand, offers Yui something real, albeit certainly not as polished as Nakago’s front. We see two clear examples of how Suboshi feels about Yui. The first goes rather astray, as he kisses her and she flees in shock and horror. Well, can you blame the girl? The second works out rather better, probably because Suboshi seeks to offer comfort rather than express passion. He embraces her from behind (a more protective and supportive position than coming at her from the front), and simply tells her that he’ll always be there for her. Above all, Suboshi makes the same statement about Yui that Tamahome makes about Miaka: that he loves her no matter what may have happened to her, eg rape (Ep 36). More about that on the Fascination page. I find it interesting that all this stems from Yui’s gesture to comfort Suboshi when Amiboshi has been (temporarily) drowned. She offers understanding. After a brief detour, Suboshi offers it back. It strikes me as a much better basis for an affectionate relationship than the emotional blackmail between Yui and Nakago. Though I will allow that both Yui and Suboshi share with Nakago a tendency to rage. All three are very in touch with that particular reaction to injury.

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Miaka and Nuriko

Another relationship built on mutuality. The writers/artists went to some trouble to present these two as alike. Right from the start, when they trade slaps in the fight over Tamahome and Hotohori (Ep 4), their reactions are established as similar. Their reunion in Episode Twelve features them clasping hands and bouncing up and down while remarking, “You’re just as gay as ever!” and “You’re just as stupid as ever!” Give you three guesses who’s saying what. Their trip out on the town for festival (Ep 26) and their matching desire for dessert rounds out the silly-girl similarities nicely. By Episode Thirty-two, Nuriko’s attitude has shifted a bit. This is the point at which he says outright that he loves Miaka. At first this is in the context of loving everyone in the team, but also in the context of feeling more manly. I was interested that dying for a person or cause is equated with manliness. Not that this shift alleviates anyone’s confusion. As Tamahome says, Nuriko talks like a woman, but seems like an older brother. In this episode, we also get the slightly equivocal statement from Nuriko that the woman in him loves Hotohori, but he’s always loved Miaka. I took this to mean he loves Miaka with all sides of himself, though the review in the next episode specifies loving Miaka as a man. Then again, when Tasuki says he could never figure out whether Nuriko was a man or a woman Miaka offers the classic line, “Neither; Nuriko was just Nuriko” (Ep 33). The closing sequence for this episode shows Nuriko in Miaka’s world, shopping, driving, etc. together. Half the time it looks like a date, half the time it looks like best girl-pals out on a spree. I put it to you that Nuriko can’t be nailed down all the way, and that’s what we’re supposed to take away from this character. I mean, will everyone please take a good close look at Nuriko’s earrings in this shot? And is that a symbol for balance? Dear me, I do believe it is. But he definitely loved Miaka. How? Well, like I said…

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Hotohori and Miaka

Meanwhile, we have Hotohori languishing in unrequited love. Talk about love at first sight, he decides they should be in love before she even shows up! In some ways, I see this as parallel to Nakago and Soi–the tragic, doomed, but true love that cannot be. Hotohori certainly shows the sincerity of his feeling for Miaka. Episode Twenty-one features him doing a funky power thing to save Miaka from drowning, followed by his avowing intention to “spend my whole life protecting you.” If that’s the measure of Tamahome’s feeling, it seems to hold equally true for Hotohori. He’s pretty clearheaded about it, though. You note that he doesn’t fall for the mirror-Miaka when she bats her eyelashes at him. Even though she’s saying exactly what he wants to hear, he knows the ‘real’ Miaka wouldn’t say it that way (Ep 6). Despite being unspeakably vain, he does seem to have his head screwed on right.

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Nuriko and Hotohori

Sufficiently right, at any rate, that something in him does seem to have taken note of Nuriko’s own unrequited love. Sufficient notice, at any rate, that he marries someone who’s practically Nuriko’s double. Curious though, the statement that the artwork makes about that. Take these two pictures. Houki is leaning on Hotohori, but also facing away from him, and for his part he’s just standing there looking down at her. Not a lot of action, or even interaction. The picture with Nuriko is a lot more animated. Nuriko, of course, faces out; I have trouble imagining Nuriko hanging onto anyone unless he intended to trip him and beat him to the ground. Hotohori, though, is also looking more alive; he stands more casually with arms crossed, and is inclining toward Nuriko. I especially like the touch of his hair being tied with a ribbon patterned so similarly to Nuriko’s robe while Nuriko’s robe is trimmed in a motif very similar to Hotohori’s robe. They really do make a cute pair. A fact that seems to strike Hotohori, as well, big surprise, as he notes with amaze that there’s actually another man as good looking as he is.

2/03 Righty-ho, people, now we all get to see the occasional drawbacks of cleverness. A correspondent has informed me that the first pic is, in fact, of Nuriko not of Houki. This more or less invalidates everything I have just said about the Empress. So, instead let me interpret these pictures as two different phases of the relationship between Hotohori and Nuriko. Their relationship as Emperor and concubine (left) in which they each act out parts that don’t necessarily involve much genuine communication, and their relationshp as seishi (right). The lack of regalia-type dress in the second pic offers some support for thinking that this one shows their less formal interaction.

Was that a good save, or what?

Fushigi Yuugi: China

So first off is the question, what did Watase take from Chinese history and legend for the purposes of Fushigi Yuugi? A part of this is easy. The first volume of the manga mentions that she drew heavily on The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one of the great classics of Asian literature. I can’t speak directly to this yet, since I haven’t read it myself. It’s on the to-do list, but that list is long and long at the moment. So instead I went digging around in history proper and in mythology. Here’s what I found.

History

I drew all this material from Volume One of Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilization in China (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1954), which has a very nice Historical Introduction. The early history of China went something like this. The earliest documented culture is the Shang Dynasty, dynasty being applied loosely here as a truely unified system was not yet in place. Anyway, it was your typical agriculturally based bronze-age culture centered around the valleys and basins of the Yellow and Yangtze rivers. Only got as far West as what are now the central mountains. Curiously, there are almost no indications of a neolithic culture out of which the Shang might have built themselves; Needham, in his typically understated manner, terms this lack “provoking.” At any rate, Shang lasted from circa -1500 to -1030. Then came the Chou dynasty, which was the result of one of the NorthWestern fringe cultures (the Chou) booting out the Shang aristocracy and taking their place. The same region now became organized on pretty classic feudal lines, with land parceled out into larger or smaller estates or kingdoms or whatever you want to call them. Power shuttled back and forth among the provinces/districts, depending on who had a good monopoly on salt or iron or so forth at any given time. The economic competition found further expression in military competition, and between -480 and -221 was the period known as the Warring States when everyone was fighting everyone else. By -221, though, the Chhin district, which was West of the lower Yellow River, had subjugated everyone else, partially because that district’s intense need for irrigation led to advanced engineering projects and the kind of higher organization such a project requires. It gave Chhin a substantial advantage. This was the First Unification, under Chhin Shih Huang Ti. -221 to -207 is termed the Chhin Dynasty, but while his son ascended the throne he didn’t keep it long enough to count in my opinion. See, Chhin had resorted to some pretty draconian and oppressive measures to get an empire organized, and while he succeeded in pulling it all together such harsh measures made for unrest pretty quickly. So, after a few years of infighting, one of the generals came out on top and founded the Han dynasty, which ran from -202 until +220. Han was characterized by milder government, but continued the process of taking land away from private citizens and making everyone tenants of the Emperor. Rent equalled taxes (tithes of the harvest), which were delivered to the capital. The Legalist philosophers that Chhin favored survived in this much–the emphasis was on productivity. The Han Dynasty was where the beauracracy took hold, though, and this government strongly favored Confucianism…to the extent that other philosophies were supressed among officialdom. This was the period that really set the pattern for pretty much all succeeding Chinese history up until +1912, when the Republic was formed. Power was something gained through having office, and therefore having access to both imperial favors and the tax revenues as they came into the capital (skimming seems to have evolved into a recognized way of life for the offical class). This was the beginning of the famous civil service exams–although at this early date those seem to have consisted of oral exams in how well examinees remembered classic literature (read, Confucian texts).

All good things must end, though, and after four hundred years the Han could no longer hold the empire together. For the half century or so between +221 and + 265 we have the period known as the Three Kingdoms, San Kuo. This is the period Fushigi Yuugi is more or less set in. In reality, the empire split into three roughly co-equal kingdoms, centered around the Yellow River valley in the North, the Yangtze River valley in the East-central region and the Szechuan basin (which drains into the Yangtze) in the West. Those are, in fact, the recurring geo-economic divisions all through China’s history. These kingdoms fought each other constantly, creating a great drain both on the male population and on supplies of grains. This may be the most basic reason why it was so short. Nevertheless, it was a period of particular vividness in Chinese history, and a favorite location for historical dramas.

I would note, during the San Kuo period the civil service examinations lapsed; this is one of the only real historical inaccuracies I’ve found (Chiriko studying for such exams), besides the geographical. There were three kingdoms, not four, and far from being unpopulated or depressed, the Northern kingdom of Wei was the most vigorous and the one that eventually re-subsumed the others. The economic and political power of the area around the Yellow River is something of an historical constant. It was, however, a huge area, and if there had been a fourth kingdom to the South both the Wei kingdom and the Western kingdom that centered on the Sezchuan basin would indeed likely have been much larger than any theoretical Konan-analogue so that part is pretty accurate.

My best guess is that Konan was actually intended as a loose analogue to the Yangtze region. There’s a map overlay shown when Nakago is talking about his erstwhile ambition to unite all four kingdoms. The four god seals are shown converging on a very recognizable point: the lower bend of the Yellow River, the site of the old capitals like Chang’an. If this is the point where the districts are supposed to conjoin, then Konan would seem to fall in the inland half of the Southern district.

So, on to legendry

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Myth and Legend

This material I took from E.T.C. Werner’s Myths and Legends of China (New York: Dover, 1922). By Needham’s standards of Sinology Werner is merely passable, but his mistakes all seem to be in the area of his sociological interpretations. The actual material he records is creditable. If you ever read his Sociological Introduction, just keep your salt shaker handy. The man was a Brit in China in the 1920s; he was a wanker, that almost goes without saying. Altogether, this book makes a good general reference.

So, here’s what I found about the four animals and twenty-eight constellations.

First off, there seem to be several myths that have become conflated with one another. The earliest (-Fourth and -Fifth centuries [72]) is the story (well, stories, really) of Nu Kua. She is the sister of Fu Hsi, the legendary First Emperor of China–he’s placed in the five hundred years before we have any concrete evidence for anyone. Anyway, she’s credited with the creation of humans by molding them from clay and with the repair of the world. A rebel lord tried to undermine either her rule or Fu Hsi’s, depending on the version, and upon being defeated by her tried to break down a mountain or bamboo plant (again, varying by version) that formed an axis mundi. This instability tore the heavens. Nu Kua took stones of the five colors (green, red, white, black and yellow), ground them into paste, and patched the heavens with that paste. She also cut off some tortise legs to make pillars to hold the heavens up, but that’s beside our point here (81-2).

A later myth figure (+Fourth century [79]) is P’an Ku, a different creator. He is credited with creating all the world and creatures in it, and is often portrayed surrounded by four supernatural creatures: phoenix, unicorn, tortise and dragon (76). Yes, there’s a tiger missing and a unicorn horning in; we’ll get to that.

Yet another myth that I think comes in here is that of the Taoist gate guardians, the Blue Dragon and the White Tiger. These were originally heroes in battle, who, being defeated and killed in a suitably heroic manner, were given “the kingdom of the Blue Dragon Star” and “White Tiger Star” respectively to rule (148). As their description implies, they are the guardians of Taoist temple gates.

What I think may have happened, though this is total speculation on my part, is that these three stories got mapped on to each other. We have a tiger in the West instead of a unicorn because of the Taoist gate guardians–the tiger goes across from the dragon. The unicorn now floating around gets bumped into the center. Then the two creative figures get mushed together, and the colors of the stones get mapped onto the animals: green dragon, red phoenix, white tiger, black tortise and yellow unicorn. Yellow being the imperial color, and the center being the imperial position, this all works out nicely. Similarly, since a white tiger is already associated with a blue dragon, and since I believe the same word is used for blue and green in written Chinese (which is the only stable version), those fit in neatly too.

As far as the twenty-eight constellations, Werner did have some interesting tidbits. Namely, the Horned (SuBoshi), Room (SoiBoshi), Tail (AshitareBoshi), Seive (ChirikoBoshi), Bushel (MiBoshi), House, Wall, Mound, Stomach, End, Bristling, Well (ChichiriBoshi), Drawn-bow (MitsukakeBoshi) and Revolving are propitious while Neck (AmiBoshi), Bottom (TomoBoshi), Heart (NakagoBoshi), Cow, Female, Empty, Danger, Astride, Cock, Mixed, Demon (TamahomeBoshi), Willow (NurikoBoshi), Star (HotohoriBoshi) and Wing (TasukiBoshi) are unpropitious (191). The Japanese constellation names here, some of which I’m not one hundred percent sure I got with the right translation, were drawn from Renshaw and Ihara’s Star Charts and Moon Stations. Obviously, Watase ignored this in the interests of having a good side and a bad side. Probably just as well. Also, the planets Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars and Saturn are marked out as locations occupied by divinities called the White, Green, Black, Red and Yellow Rulers (192). Interesting, ne? I think this may be why I’ve seen associations made between the beasts and these planets, though Werner doesn’t say whether these Rulers are ever associated with any animals.

Just as an aside, I’ve been trying to find anyone Taiitsukun might be associated with. One I’ve found so far is Hsi Wang Mu, the Golden Mother of the Tortise, who rules over a mystical and paradisical domain somewhere in the Western mountains only to be found by the deserving. This strikes me as a bit far fetched, though, since Hsi Wang Mu is supposed to be the perfect expression of yin, formed from the purest principle of the Western Air (136). Taiitsukun is too mean to be her. Besides, Nakago tells us that Taiitsukun is the perfect expression of yang, while the glowing eyes he has called upon are the expression of yin (Ep 25). So maybe they eyes are Hsi Wang Mu and Taiitsukun is actually Mu Kung, also known as Tung Wang Kung, I Chung Ming and Yu Huang Chun, “the purest substance of the Eastern Air, and sovereign of the active male principle yang and of all countries of teh East. His palace is in the misty heavens, violet clouds form its dome, blue clouds its walls” (136). The colors match up, at least. Why Taiitsukun should present female while the glowing eyes definitely sound male, if this is this case, I haven’t the foggiest.

Another possibility is the god of the North Star or possibly the North Pole. This god, according to one source, is found represented as both male and female. Werner says that the highest star god, who rules over the others, is seated at the North Pole (176). Both sources suggest that this god is in charge of the length of human life and/or the moment of death. All this does match up reasonably well with Taiitsukun’s moments at the end of the series proper. The Nyan-Nyan state that Taiitsukun is Lord of the Stars and controls death, when the living Suzaku types want to know how their dead companions came back. We also have that rather strange twenty seconds or so, when everyone is being drawn back to their proper worlds, when Taiitsukun’s voice transforms from a woman’s to a man’s and she/he is suddenly shown looking rather Imperial, much younger, male, and surrounded not by green-haired chibis but by tall and elegant green-haired young women.

Then, too, P’an Ku might be a good bet after all. If you look closely at Taiitsukun’s great mirror, you can see all four holy beast seals around it (Ep 12). Recall that P’an Ku is often shown surrounded by holy beasts. Though Taiitsukun is identified as the “controller of the world” rather than the creator (Ep 3).

I very much doubt that any of these associations are direct, or even intentional. According to Watase’s Secrets of Fushigi Yuugi notes (see translations at Tenkou, nee Tasuki, no Miko’s site), Taiitsukun is a Creator, which neither Hsi Wang Mu nor the North Polar god(s) are. In addition, there’s no direct translation of names. Tai, in both Chinese and Japanese, is a superlative–great more or less. It shows up in a lot of Chinese god names as well as in Taoist cosmological terms. I’ve found two characters for itsu; one means when or how soon and the other means be lost, peace, hide, mistake, beautiful, in turn. Of course, I don’t know how Taiitsukun is spelled, but that second seems like a good bet. Watase notes that kun in both Taiitsukun and Seikun is simply a very formal ‘you’ used as a suffix; somewhat the same way one might use -sama I would guess. So, really, Taiitsukun is probably a miscellaneous Great High God type whose antecedents are untraceably vague. I still had fun looking.

So, anyway, on to what Watase does with her borrowings and why she might have chosen these, in particular, in the first place.

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Romanticism

With a big R. As if the information that this world that’s “very like Ancient China” is based on The Romance of the Three Kingdoms wasn’t a tip off. But Japan has its own Romantic and picturesque eras, both imperial (Heian) and feudal (Edo). Why should Watase go abroad? One possibility I can think of is a desire for exoticism. But what if Watase wanted to make a point about the desire for exoticism itself, or Golden Age Syndrome? You see, China, and ancient China in particular, was the source from whence Japan acquired some significant cultural tools, like standardized transcription (kanji), beauracracy, and a passel of philosophical systems like Confucianism. China dominated pretty much all of South Eastern Asia, culturally and sometimes politically, for a rather long time, and Japan was not exempt from this trend. There was even a time, during late Heian if I recall correctly, when Japan was yet another suzerainity of China. There are two attitudes toward China that I’ve seen in Japanese literature and rhetoric, both of which I think stem from this. One is the sort of inferiority complex you can find in the States regarding Europe. The other, I tend to consider a backlash to the first, and this one can more or less be translated as “we are so much better and more bad-assed than you.” (Also parallel to States attitudes, now I think of it.) I suspect both are actually in play in FY. On the one hand, this other world is clearly pretty primitive with wars everywhere and…colorful sorts like bandits and slavers running rampant. On the other, it’s also full of mysticism and ritual, refinements like really wonderful baths and larger-than-life heros. Remember the first thing Miaka says about Konan’s capital, as she wanders around: “everyone is so full of life” (Ep 1).

That is, after all, one of the things Romanticism is all about–the idea that the past was better or more graceful or more vivid than the present.

The part that interests me about all this is what Watase does with this Romantic world and its denizens. Tamahome, one of our foremost Romantic figures, winds up in the real (present) world. This causes problems–an imbalance. That says to me that Watase wants us to understand that while Romance is all very well in a book it really can’t be translated into real life. Now, Tamahome does, eventually, appear in the real world to stay, but we should note that he isn’t Tamahome anymore, at least not in the original manga story. He’s Taka. And he wasn’t just given a cosmetic name change, he was retroactively reincarnated as a whole nother person with the life and experience to belong in the real world (more on the issue of experience and reality on the Fascination page). That says to me that Watase is a proponent of compromise. The figure of romance can exist in reality, provided he’s first filtered through real life. Perfect Romance, no. Some romance, yes.

If we extend this to the issue of China, we can also read Tamahome’s reinscription as Taka as a comment on the proper way to treat the cultural tools Japan inherited from China. They need to be adjusted, filtered through the existing Japanese systems. And then they won’t really be Chinese any more, but something else. What a lovely little parable of assimilation! At the same time, it’s a warning about the dangers of becoming unbalanced by too much nostalgia or desire for the exotic.

Watase emphasizes the return from the Romantic very strongly, especially for a story that’s all about how bright and vital that other world is. One of the crucial points made in that last battle is that Yui and Miaka have learned to love and value their real world enough to defend it (Episode 50).

Fushigi Yuugi: Fascination

This is the page of other stuff I found interesting that didn’t seem to fit anywhere else. For instance, did you notice that Hotohori makes a superb geisha when he decides to get into it (Ep 13)?

Main Part

This was a quirky little thing that pops up a couple times rather subtly. In Episode Eleven, when Miaka and Tamahome go in to rescue Yui the first time, Yui notes rather contemplatively that if Miaka had been drawn back to the real world instead of her then Yui would have been Suzaku no Miko and played the part Miaka has been playing. This idea of the main part feeds into something much harder to spot: Miaka is narrated in the book while Yui isn’t. Take Episode Fourteen, for example; Yui only gets narrated because of her interaction with Tamahome.

This suggests to me that Seiryuu is cheating. It’s clear by the color coding that Suzaku takes Yui back to the real world after bringing both Miaka and her in. But when Yui has succeeded in drawing Miaka back, there’s a flash of blue moving down while the flash of red that carries Miaka moves up. Lo and behold, Yui is inside the book while Miaka is out (Ep 7). The book continues to narrate the single heroine of this round, Suzaku no Miko, but Seiryuu’s Miko seems to be introduced out of time and place, almost catastrophically disrupting the story. Perhaps all along Seiryuu wants to break the boundaries of the story/real worlds, which would go some ways toward explaining why Nakago has such incredible power (he’s the instrument of Seiryuu’s will) and why the other seishi seem bound to each other, their Miko and their errands so loosely–it wasn’t time for them yet, Seiryuu called them prematurely and considers them disposable.

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Miaka’s Strength

We get a whole bunch of remarks on and examples of this. She’s certainly the most relentlessly determined character I think I’ve ever seen. It’s the first thing Tamahome admires about her; as he says after the episode wherein she bounces up to Hotohori and asks for some of his jewels, “since you have the guts to try that, I’ll help you find Yui” (Ep 2). She also seems to be a very good shot, witness her performance with a bow at the Festival (Ep 26). She surprises her friends several times with her endurance or ability. When she, Tamahome and Nuriko go overboard and the others try to find and fish them out again, Tasuki opines at some point in the search, “no girl could get this far out” (Ep 35), only to have Miaka prove him wrong. After getting decked by Miaka once again, Tamahome wonders to himself if she isn’t really the stronger of them (Ep 36).

This combines curiously with Miaka’s frequent appearance of shallowness. I mean, consider what wishes she wants granted when Hotohori first asks her to be Miko: to look good in tight dresses, to have any boyfriend she wants, to beat up bad guys, to eat anything, and, as an afterthought, to get into any school (Ep 2). Miaka is the comic relief character, whose misunderstandings and ignorance provide many a superdeformed moment. And yet, that seems somehow paired with the beating-up-badguys aspect. On the one hand, I suspect that a girl beating up grown men is put forward as comedy–not real, couldn’t happen. But on the other, I think we have an implication here that by being fairly unsocialized and simple Miaka sidesteps any limits on her strength. Precisely because she doesn’t especially care how uncivilized she looks to other people, she’s willing to be unladylike, show her strength and defend herself.

Unlike Yui, I might note.

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Experience and Illusion

The Tomo episodes, Thirty-five through Fourty, kind of have their own little sub-plot that offers illumination of some major plot points.

First of all, Tomo-Taiitsukun tricks Miaka into attempting to seduce Nakago, in actuality giving Nakago the opportunity to rape Miaka.

But it doesn’t work. Here’s Miaka, unconscious, and Nakago can’t touch her…much to his irritation. So he does the next best thing; leads both Miaka and Tamahome to believe it did work by leaving her in the classic compromising position. It’s also in these episodes that we find out Yui wasn’t raped either, that Nakago drove off her attackers at right about the same point Suzaku’s power stops him with Miaka–after the girl is terrified, battered, and unconscious but before actual penetration occurs. Interesting parallel.

So, anyway, Miaka, like Yui, still has to deal with the aftermath quite as if she had been raped. She, like Yui, experiences self-hatred and self-blame that she couldn’t stop it from happening. Like Yui, she insists that she is tarnished by this–unclean, unworthy of love. And, like Suboshi, Tamahome tells her that’s a crock, that he will always love her no matter what happens to her and that it certainly isn’t her fault.

The most interesting part of this passage, to me, is that in the midst of it we have the interlude with Amiboshi, who advises Miaka to forget all the pain and trouble she’s experienced and make a new life the way he’s done. Miaka, at this point, observes that experiences are neccessary, that one can’t just forget and be free of care. Experience is memory, memory is self, one can’t blithely leave oneself behind.

This links up with what happens when Tomo reappears. He insists that he is kind to his victims, because he leads them into their fondest dreams. The catch here, of course, is that those dreams drain the life of the dreamer. Fortunately, both Miaka and Tamahome’s dreams include love and they are both able to recognize that while the dreams are more pleasent and less trouble than the reality, they don’t have the depth and rewards that struggles with uncongenial reality might bring. Real experience and thus real self won’t come out of dreams.

There’s also an unspoken parallel here to the book-world itself. After all, we could see the book as a dream that will eventually drain the life of the dreamer–that’s what happened to the first of the previous Mikos and almost happened to the second (and happens to Yui, if only temporarily). Perhaps the implication is that Miaka and Yui experience only a somewhat (comparatively) more real level of dream while in the book than what Miaka or Tamahome experience while under Tomo’s spell. Of course, that rather opens up the question of just how real reality is. That does seem to keep coming up, doesn’t it?

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Rape

For one thing, as per the examples noted above, there’s a persistent implication that it’s not real. It never really happens in this show, not even to Soi; like Miaka and Yui she’s saved before the threat becomes a reality.

For another, even if it were real, we also have the lesson that it doesn’t matter. It isn’t the girl’s fault, and true loves or friends will keep right on loving her anyway. Quite stubbornly, in fact.

At the same time, it is real for both girls despite the fact that it didn’t happen. They believe it did, and were probably both in enough pain from injuries picked up in the course of their encounters to have some reinforcement for that belief. (Remember their age, remember they’re both virgins; I much doubt either of them has the physiological knowledge to realize what the absence of specifically vaginal pain meant.) Both girls display classic survivor reactions. Yui turns sexuality into a weapon, traipsing around Kutou’s palace in nothing but a button-down shirt. I read this as an attempt to remind everyone, including herself, that she’s safe under Nakago’s protection even when she leaves off the protective coloration of her moderately demure uniform. The trade of sex for protection is implicit in her demi-seduction of Tamahome, when she tells him that she gives herself to him–also a bid for reassurance that she’s worth something. That one rather backfires. Miaka goes straight down the I-am-mud track at full tilt. For a girl who doesn’t usually give a flying one about proprieties, she buys in thoroughly to the idea that only an ‘unspoiled’ girl is worthy to be a bride.

I have trouble believing that this clipping out of rape itself was a ratings issue, if only because the audience, as well as the girls, are led to believe for quite a while that it did happen. So why might Watase have arranged things this way?

I think at least one implication is that sometimes even being saved at the eleventh hour isn’t enough. That the girls’ vulnerability to violence is, itself, the problem, not whether that violence went as far as it might or not. A somewhat more esoteric possibility that occurs to me is that rape is, in fact, some kind of illusion–not perhaps the act, but (for lack of a better word) the culture of it: the resulting I-am-mud belief…and that if a girl can but realize this she can break free of those results the same way that Miaka and Yui do.

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Education

Curious comments on the educational system embedded in this show–especially the competitive aspect. For one thing, it’s the intelligent, well-socialized girl who gets sexually assaulted. To me, that contains a subtext of remarkable hostility toward girls like Yui. The one who gets protected is the non-competitive one, Miaka. She has a very telling flashback, while contemplating the possibility of having to fight Yui, to telling her mother that Yui is also going for Jonan High School. Her mother blows up and scolds Miaka, telling her that this kind of competition is like a war, and things like friendship must come second. Miaka doesn’t like this idea under either set of circumstances. Looked at from this angle, it’s precisely Yui’s socialization and compliance with a system of ruthless competition that make her so vulnerable to Nakago’s machinations to set her at odds with Miaka. It’s a context Yui already understands, and without Miaka there to mitigate it Yui falls back into that groove.

Not a very positive comment on the school system, or the kind of people who succeed in it.

Fushigi Yuugi: Title Story

So, why did I choose this title? Well, it’s kind of a long story.

I started out looking at the hexagrams made up by the East and South related trigrams; I had two pair of options there, either Fire and Heaven or Thunder and Fire depending on whether you’re looking at the Greater or Lesser order, respectively. In point of fact, when I cast for the profile of the story itself what I got was a totally stable Thunder over Fire (Abundance). But it didn’t quite seem to fit with these pages, so I went and looked at the Fire and Water hexagrams instead. After Completion, Water over Fire, seemed to fit charmingly.

Before I try to explain why, let me explain a little about how one gets a hexagram in the first place so things will make a bit more sense. Not a whole lot, but a bit.

You take three coins. Heads count for three, tails for two. This means that every time you throw them you get one of four numbers by adding up your results: six, seven, eight or nine. Evens are a broken line, odds are a whole line. You throw the coins six times, recording the lines from the bottom up. There’s your hexagram.

This can be done with yarrow stalks also, but that method is a stone bitch so I’m not going to bother with it here. Go pick up the Wilhelm/Baynes edition of the I Ching if you’re curious. That, by the way, is the one all of my information came out of.

Anyway, the kicker of this system is that the intense high and low values in that set of four numbers, the six and the nine, mean a line that’s changing. Six changes to a solid line, nine to a broken one. Seven and eight are stable. There’s a different implication attached to each line in a hexagram changing, and it means that reading them can get really, really complicated. For the purposes of not turning my brain to goo, let’s assume that After Completion is all sevens and eights.

Now, then, the lower trigram is considered the internal one while the upper is considered the external. This means that the lower is frequently privileged when describing how the two interact, which is a major basis of interpretation. For instance, Earth over Heaven, The Army, indicates danger within and obedience without and is so a reasonably positive situation; Heaven over Earth, however, indicates craftiness since the outward display of strength is belied by hollowness or timorousness within. At the same time, within the whole hexagram, the lines can indicate ranked positions: the sixth (top) is the sage, the fifth is the monarch, the fourth is the minister, etc. Whether a particular position is occupied by a whole or broken line can indicate whether that particular person (in a given situation) is strong (whole) or yeilding (broken). So, for instance, Wind over Heaven in which line five is broken while all the others are whole, is read as The Taming Power of the Small–a yielding ruler who governs a strong people and ministry through gentleness and persuasion. A third point to take into consideration is that broken lines have a downward movement while whole lines have an upward movement. Whether or not these movements balance each other is often a consideration in saying whether a particular hexagram indicates a good or bad situation. Back to the first two examples, Earth over Heaven balances because the downward meets the upward, while Heaven over Earth indicates divergence and conflict. I’m not even going to get into how the nuclear trigrams are derived and what they mean; I’m still working on the basics of this system myself.

None of these interpretive systems is entirely consistent. Which interpretation is used varies from one hexagram to another. I have yet to discover any particular rhyme or reason to it, but that’s about what I expect from a book written by committee over several hundred years.

So then, on to After Completion.

One of the things I liked about this is that the inner-outer arrangement lines up with my perceptions of Yui as the outer and Miaka as the inner aspects of their diad. Extending this, it is the aggressive, Seiryuu, that belongs to outward expression and the loving, Suzaku, that belongs inward, in the same manner that Water, the aspect of movement and danger, occupies the outward face and Fire, illumination, radiates from within. More than that, though, the sense of it accords with my sense of where the story ends. After Completion is the moment of equilibrium, of goals accomplished, of everything being in it’s place. The whole and broken lines pair up in proper balance of directions (remember Earth over Heaven). In Wilhelm’s words, “it gives reason for thought. For it is just when perfect equilibrium has been reached that any movement may cause order to revert to disorder” (244). This, I think, is exactly where this story ends. The story has ended, but both the world of the imagination and the ‘real’ world go on. These characters aren’t left with a flip happily-ever-after; it’s clear they have things to remember and apply as life goes on. The ending, the equilibrium, only obtains for a moment.