A to Z Challenge Day 25: Yuki Miaka (the Girl from Other World)

Oh hell, we’re back to the anime again. Did I forget to mention that I’m a huge nerd, bordering on being a huge loser?

Yes, the fact of the matter is that although I’ve gravitated away from anime as I’ve gotten older, there are still a few shows in particular that I hold high on my list of best things ever, and a show from the mid 90’s called Fushigi Yuugi is one such show.

I’ll admit something right off the bat. Of all the classic anime shows that are out there that are genuinely amazing and could easily be enjoyed by anyone who is willing to put their doubts aside and force themselves to sit down to watch a subtitled cartoon…Fushigi Yuugi is not one of those. It’s not a classic. A lot of people would not be able to enjoy this show, and a lot of people probably wouldn’t even be able to make it past one or two episodes. The fact is that this show requires a certain kind of taste. It’s about a young school girl named Miaka, who is accidentally drawn into another world through an old, magic book. In that world she is claimed to be the Priestess of Suzaku, who must gather her seven Celestial Warriors in order to summon the God, Suzaku, and be granted three wishes. In her travels she falls in love with one of her seven warriors, and eventually finds herself at war with her best friend, who has also been drawn into the book as the Priestess of Seiryuu.

It’s a strange, convoluted kind of story, but personally I loved it, both in anime form and manga form. It’s a romantic tale that takes place in a feudal version of the world, full of great warriors and damsels in distress. Yuki Miaka herself is a bit of a clumsy, sometimes very whiny little twit, but for some reason that’s what makes me like her. She’s silly and headstrong, but she also goes through a lot over the course of the story, and while I’m not a big fan of intricate love stories with such young characters (she’s supposed to be a middle school student), it is truly quite a lovely love story if you can convince yourself to pretend that she’s a little less jail-bait than you might be comfortable with.

The short story is that I know damn well a lot of people reading this would not be able to enjoy this show, but I personally have a deep love for it, so I think that it’s worth giving it a try just to find out, don’t you?