Fushigi Yûgi: Genbu Kaiden, Vol. 11

ふしぎ遊戯 玄武開伝 [Fushigi Yûgi: Genbu Kaiden] #11

by Yuu Watase

When schoolgirl Takiko Okuda attempts to destroy her father's translation of The Universe of the Four Gods, she is instead sucked into the story, becoming the Priestess of Genbu in an epic journey to find the seven Celestial Warriors! While Takiko learns the terrible truth behind the prophecy that set Uruki against his father, King Temdan, the country of Bêi-jîa faces both civil war and foreign invasion. Takiko’s final hope lies in reuniting the last two Celestial Warriors, the twins Urumiya and Teg. Can she mend the rifts between brother and brother, father and son?

Reads R to L (Japanese Style) for teen plus audiences.

Genres: Manga, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels, Shojo, Comics Manga, Young Adult

192 pages, Paperback

First published June 26, 2012

About the author

Yuu Watase (渡瀬悠宇) is a Japanese shoujo manga-ka. She is known for her works Fushigi Yūgi, Alice 19th, Ceres: The Celestial Legend, Fushigi Yūgi Genbu Kaiden and Absolute Boyfriend. She likes all music, except heavy metal and old traditional music.

She received the Shogakukan Manga Award for shōjo for Ceres, Celestial Legend in 1997. Since writing her debut short story "Pajama de Ojama" ("An Intrusion in Pajamas"), Watase has created more than 80 compiled volumes of short stories and continuing series. Because of her frequent use of beautiful male characters in her works, she is widely regarded in circles[which?] as a bishōnen manga artist.[citation needed] In October 2008, Watase began her first shōnen serialization, Arata: The Legend in Weekly Shōnen Sunday.
Her name is romanized as "Yû Watase" in earlier printings of Viz Media's publications of Fushigi Yūgi, Alice 19th, and Ceres, The Celestial Legend, while in Viz Media's Fushigi Yūgi Genbu Kaiden and Absolute Boyfriend her name is romanized as "Yuu Watase". In Chuang Yi's English-language versions of Fushigi Yugi (spelled without a macron or circumflex), her name is romanized as "Yu Watase".

Reviews

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have marked this entire review for spoilers, but this one's a landmark of sorts. This is my 500th manga review on Goodreads! I didn't start keeping track until the early part of 2019, so that's just three years' worth of manga reading. I'll put up a minor retrospective or something on my blog, with what I hope are some fun statistics, like how many were rereads, how many were shoujo manga, and so on.

On to the review itself. I'll mark everything with spoilers, because we're getting close to the end of the series.

- So Filka's a secret princess, huh? Well, why not. Takiko can't be a secret princess because she's from another world, so somebody has to be.

- Speaking of Filka, though. She witnesses Hagus chopping her father to pieces, and is in a love clinch with him a few moments later. I know she has been in exile for some time, and doesn't necessarily have a lot of love for her father, but still, making out over his corpse is a bit much.

- We know that Hagus--or Teg--is going to die because their background is gone into in a fair amount of detail right beforehand. This exact same sequence of events happened with Soren, too.

- There's a fair amount of death, but that isn't all that unusual for fantasy shoujo manga. The point of view character, the secret princess, the near-mandatory love stories, all strongly mark this as shoujo.

- Back to love stories for a moment, Takiko and Limdo's felt shoehorned in and rushed. I'm picky when it comes to shoujo romances and this one didn't pass muster. Some speed bumps that had to do with Takiko and Limdo's personalities rather than their situations would have made it more convincing, as would something that looked a lot less like insta-love.

- After a couple of necessary deaths in quick succession (that part felt rushed as well), Limdo becomes the emperor, and then gets married to Takiko. A late-game wedding is the pink frosting on the shoujo cake.

- I appreciate that not every celestial warrior is an attractive male. At first, when it was just Limdo and Chamka on the team, I wondered if that's where this was going. I mean, at least four of them are hot guys below the age of 20, but there's also an older woman, and also what is best described as a gender-neutral character.

- It was mildly funny that the characters felt constrained to not use their powers so Teg couldn't act against them, and then... a couple of them used their powers with no real consequence. Maybe this aspect of the story could have been handled differently so as to be more coherent.

Throughout, this has been pretty entertaining. Takiko is my absolute favorite part of the story. Even in her over-the-top moments of self-sacrifice, she seems like a good leader who has her head on straight.

Since I read this in bits and pieces over the course of a couple of years, a good number of the details went missing along the way. I have never had a clear picture of the politics, the time frame of the story, where places such as the imperial capital are located in relation to other settings, or what the large-scale region of the four kingdoms looks like. A reread at some point in the future could clarify some of that, though (and I am sorry to say this) I think that some fantasy maps would have been even better.

[L. Petunia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know if it's because the volumes come out after long breaks or because I just never got into this Genbu story like I did FY (it's not as funny for one, though it has its moments), but I'm always so confused when I read it. :P

[Ana Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25!
Qué bien volúmen wow.
Han pasado muchas cosas pero aún queda la guerra y yo tengo miedo porqué sé que van a empezar las muertes :(
Espero equivocarme ni que sea un poco y si no pues mira, es lo que hay.
Anywayss que emoción!

[Cassandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has set us up for hope and our epic battle so well. I am so glad i had both this and the 12th volume from the library at the same time cause I can’t wait to read the end.

[Leila Anani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Things are really moving to a head in this penultimate volume although I must say a couple of the scenes like Limdo's confrontation with his father are a touch anticlimactic. The art style has changed slightly too - all the characters in this volume have pointier chins for some reason. What's that all about?

There's the same level of emotional drama - sacrifice, death, romance, betrayal but I don't know I'm not finding the series as engaging or 'fresh' as the first half. It's still FY and full of fantastic characters and melodrama, but I don't know the drama seems to overshadow the fun and quirkyness somehow.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume had a lot of ground to cover and it did it quite well, for the most part, though I did find the big confrontation between Uruki and Temdan to be a touch anti-climatic.

I've written a full review for this volume for the website Kuriousity. It can be read here: http://www.kuriousity.ca/2013/04/revi...

[Bibliothecat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review for complete series



Despite Fushigi Yuugi being a classic fantasy shoujo manga, I only got around to it long after its original publication. Sadly, I was rather disappointed by it, especially given that it is a popular work. Genbu Kaiden is a newer work of Watase's and serves as a prequel to the original series and this series is everything I hoped the original would have been.

All the things wrong with the original were made right here: our main character Takiko largely makes sensible decisions - sure, they are sometimes also emotionally loaded and not always strategic, but she never left me shaking my head in frustration over stupid decisions. Takiko and her love interest don't fall in love from the start allowing for a much more natural flow which in turn led me to genuinely care about them. The pacing was just right for this kind of plot with only a few chapters seeming a little rushed. The characters we meet along the way are more fleshed out and contribute to the story beyond being yet another follower of the main character - they've got agendas and dreams of their own. The fact that they still chose to follow Takiko just makes their bonds seem a lot stronger than in the original series. While I love a bit of comedy here and there, it was far more subtle than in the original which at times came across as silly.

Having fixed all that, this is a wholesome fantasy series with lovely friendships, interesting family dynamics and bittersweet turn of events. Takiko is a strong main character both in her determination but also in her willingness to lift a weapon despite being physically weaker than her companions. The world is interesting and the art is simply beautiful. Although I doubt it will ever happen, if Watase were ever to redraw the original series at this standard, I have no doubt I would love it. Instead, I will hope that her other prequel series, Byakko Senki, will soon no longer be on hiatus and be drawn to the end.

Only one little beef I had with this series: it's common for many manga, especially in the shoujo area, to have a style in which the characters look very much alike. It's usually hair and clothing more than anything else that makes characters look different from each other. This has never been an issue for me but I don't mind when artists add some more diversity. What I don't like is when authors add diversity purely for diversities sake. I am not sure if this is what Watase's intention was but the Genbu Kaiden cast was a lot more diverse than the original series' was (e.g. I was very pleased to have some more important female characters besides the main character). But, as I have already found with some of Watase's other works, she tends to add some goofy or stereo typical cartoonish characters. Hatsui is an overweight character and everything from design to behaviour and personality feels like a joke rather than a proper member of the group. Why not add a competent overweight character rather than, apologies, a bumbling idiot who is treated more like an overgrown child?

[Mika · Rating 5 out of 5]

12/30/2020
Oh Hagus, I'll never forgive you rape-kissing Takiko for NO reason, but you died for your brother, which sucks for him. Poor Teg. I tentatively like him, but I don't think he'll have a big chance to develop since we're on the penultimate volume.

Loved the conclusion of the father arc, however sad it is.

AND for the big one: I usually HATE child marriages. Like, romanticizing marrying someone young squicks me out. BUT maybe it's the historical setting, the fact that none of these characters acts like 16 year olds or are drawn as such, but I didn't mind it. I'm glad for them even.

I'm SO curious about the end. It determines so much for me about how I will rank this series in my heart.

[Kendall • thegeekyyogi · Rating 5 out of 5]

*sobs* THE FEELS. I’ve officially entered my full fangirl state and can no longer be reasoned with. I love this series, but I’m terrified to read the last volume. So much happened in this one, so many surprises, but it was all so well done.

[-moonprismpower- · Rating 5 out of 5]

PLEASE STOP MAKING ME CRY!!!!!
Sad tears... happy tears... Oh I’m too emotional to write a longer review!

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[ⓘⓣⓐ · Rating 5 out of 5]

2024 goal 143/150

[Andrea Peterson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd been enjoying this series thus far, but I feel like Watase has been kinda phoning it in the past volume or two. It feels too rushed, both in the pacing/storytelling and in the actual quality of the art — so many panels with just dialogue balloons and sound effects over random bits of background, instead of actually showing what the characters are doing, where they're standing, etc. And while I know that it's Fushigi Yuugi and a certain amount of idiot plot is to be expected, there were a few developments in this volume that just seemed kind of insultingly dumb.

The fact that Uruki's father is conveniently murdered by some random extra right at the moment when Uruki decides not to kill him; thus freeing the author from having to deal with either A) the messy moral ramifications of Uruki murdering his father, or B) the messy process of actually reconciling Uruki with his father. And everyone else just sort of shrugs and crowns Uruki as king. "Oh, the king has been murdered, and the only witnesses were two known enemies of the king? Why, the culprit MUST be this conveniently dead random dude in the corner. Totally cut and dried, nothing shady about this whatsoever. Let's crown the king's long-estranged son, who just happens to be one of the two witnesses to his convenient murder. Yay!"

[Holly Letson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was very unimpressed with this one. As usual, Watase's artwork is amazing. I enjoyed her artwork alot more than the story. The story confused me, and kept me guessing at most times, although I must say that I did enjoy the wedding part at the end.
I suppose that I would have liked this better, if I had read the other 10 volumes of FYGK or maybe even some of FY, but I haven't read either, so it ended up confusing me. I nearly DNF'd this one several times, but I kept telling myself that it would get better, since it really couldn't get much worse. The romance and the wedding gained it a second star in my rating. Other than that, I didn't much care for it at all.
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This volume was provided to me as an eManga by VIZ Media, via Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed here are my own.

[Sarah-Jayne Briggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

(This review may contain spoilers).

It took me a little while, but I finally got this volume and read it.

For some reason, I got a bit more confused in this book. I don't think it was always clear from the drawings what was going on - I had to operate on several different assumptions.

I liked how things went with Uruki and his father, though it would have been nice to see more of a reconciliation. I liked that Uruki and Takiko got married, too.

I'm almost dreading the last volume. I don't want to see it end, for many different reasons.

[Lucia · Rating 5 out of 5]

5+ stars

Almost as good as Vol.9--my favorite! I love the way all of the "daddy issues" have been resolved. I love how the storyline turned out with Hagus, and the new Emperor--whaaat?! I could go on forever--I didn't think I could be a bigger fan! The last volume was just released in Japan, which may mean a year or so for the English version :( . It will be a long wait...and for such a bittersweet ending!

[Miss Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

the whole tricked into a wedding! thing at the the end was a little silly but i'll take it. takiko deserves some happiness after all her self-sacrifice. :) i was going to say i enjoy how the narrative of this is more subdued then fushigi yugi? except upon reflection i don't think it is, it's more that takiko's a quieter character than miaka and since she's the heroine it gives the story a different tone. anyways the point is i like it. 3.5 stars

[Jenny Derochemont · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this series. Yuu Watase never fails to amaze me each time I read one of her books. I am so sad that this series is ending in the next book. I pretty much know what happens with Takiko, because I read her other series which came before this but I want to know how she actually ends it and what happens with the warriors.

So I'm excited, yet sad to find out what happens.

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cant wait for volume 12, the final book in the Genbu set!

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Waiting for the chapter 40.
The final chapter of Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden
3

[Desa · Rating 5 out of 5]

All the feelings in this chapters :______)

[Solace Winter · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's good, but not as great as it started off. I think the stop and go made her lose focus, or sight, of what she really wanted this story to be.

[Jescy Vee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this story so much!!!! x10000 You should read it too.
It makes you wanna go kyaaaaa!!!~~<3