Yeah, the AIC strikes again . . .
Jan. 16th, 2006 09:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaSo, finally sat down and watched the first thirteen episodes of Fushigi Yugi. So far, my impression is . . . mixed. More to the point, I probably should have watched this before watching Vision of Escaflowne; I'd probably be enjoying it more if I weren't constantly making the comparison. Escaflowne is superior in plot, characterization, and while I can't claim that the animation is actually better in quality, I'd prefer than an anime not drop into pastel-crayon still-frames every time they end a scene. This veers a little too close to Gainaxy Visual Shit.
I can't stand the main character, either. She's too obviously supposed to be the female equivalent to an Audience Identification Character. Clumsy? Check. Clueless? Not as much as some - it seems to run in that universe - but definitely shows serious signs of it. Stupid? OMFG, check with a bullet and a cherry on top! Plus, obvious glaring flaw that's played up far too much in the first five episodes - gluttony instead of lechery, this time, but that's likely to be a guilt trigger for an awful lot of women. I am having an extremely difficult time caring for the female lead. In fact, at the moment I appear to be rooting for the enigmatic monk and the crossdressing super-strong court consort, who are something like sixth and fourth lead (or maybe seventh and fourth, depending on how you count). (Yeah, yeah. The secondary characters being more interesting than the main leads is one of the known weaknesses of this series, and apparently it's even worse in the manga.)
Having said that, the series actually has a cosmology that has some impact on the plot, and that's always a plus. I'm not so turned off that I'm not going to finish, especially since the annoying female lead is showing signs of growing up over the episodes watched so far. There doesn't seem to be enough internal ambiguity for the poly-plot to seem plausible even to me, which is unfortunate, as this would be a lovely show for that to work with, but I'm going to have to stick with Escaflowne for that particular AU finish.
And, yeah, this is another thing that I'd really rather have Memeslayer's commentary on, but I'm not going to hold that many topics for him . . .
I can't stand the main character, either. She's too obviously supposed to be the female equivalent to an Audience Identification Character. Clumsy? Check. Clueless? Not as much as some - it seems to run in that universe - but definitely shows serious signs of it. Stupid? OMFG, check with a bullet and a cherry on top! Plus, obvious glaring flaw that's played up far too much in the first five episodes - gluttony instead of lechery, this time, but that's likely to be a guilt trigger for an awful lot of women. I am having an extremely difficult time caring for the female lead. In fact, at the moment I appear to be rooting for the enigmatic monk and the crossdressing super-strong court consort, who are something like sixth and fourth lead (or maybe seventh and fourth, depending on how you count). (Yeah, yeah. The secondary characters being more interesting than the main leads is one of the known weaknesses of this series, and apparently it's even worse in the manga.)
Having said that, the series actually has a cosmology that has some impact on the plot, and that's always a plus. I'm not so turned off that I'm not going to finish, especially since the annoying female lead is showing signs of growing up over the episodes watched so far. There doesn't seem to be enough internal ambiguity for the poly-plot to seem plausible even to me, which is unfortunate, as this would be a lovely show for that to work with, but I'm going to have to stick with Escaflowne for that particular AU finish.
And, yeah, this is another thing that I'd really rather have Memeslayer's commentary on, but I'm not going to hold that many topics for him . . .
