#Byakko Ibun

[engshoujosei]

Fushigi Yûgi: Byakko Senki

1 volume (hiatus, supposed to come back Fall 2023)

Licensed by Viz Media

The final Fushigi Yûgi story in the Universe of the Four Gods begins!

The year is 1923. Suzuno Ohsugi’s father, Takao, warns her to stay away from The Universe of the Four Gods, telling her it’s a book that only men can touch. He knows that in order to enact its story, the book needs one last heroine: the Priestess of Byakko! After the Great Kanto Earthquake strikes, Suzuno and Takao are trapped in their burning home. Takao has only one chance to save his young daughter, and that is to send her into The Universe of the Four Gods!

Related Series 

Fushigi Yuugi - Genbu Kaiden (Prequel, licensed by Viz) Fushigi Yuugi (Sequel, licensed by Viz) Fushigi Yuugi - Byakko Ibun (Prequel oneshot, not licensed)

Status in Country of Origin 

1 Volume (Hiatus)

Tags:

Based on a Classic

Chosen One

Fantasy World

Female Fighter/s

Impostor

Love Triangle/s

Multiple Worlds

Mythology

Parallel Universe

Priestess/es

[unwiltingblossom]

scream

does this mean it’ll finally be updated regularly??

do you know how many years I’ve waited for specifically Byakko‘s story???

[suirenshinju]

WIP of Fushigi Yuugi Chibis features the 4 Gods, 28 Seishi, and 4 Miko. I used my own headcanons for the 4 yet-to-be-revealed Byakko: Toroki: a really buff gentle giant, communicates with animals. Mark on left buttcheek. Amefuri: a blind holy man, power of invisibility. Mark on right shin. Kokie: a young circus acrobat, rubber powers. Mark on tongue. Karasuki: a static man with a hard body, mostly magnetic powers with some metal. Mark on navel.

[evenfall-on-tarth]

My inner 15 year old fangirl humos and cries with Joy thatbthis Story ist finally told

[cutepiku]

[narakunonish]

Not sure if anyone has posted this yet, but  a new visual for Fushigi Yuugi’s Byakko Hen manga has been released! On the picture, we can see Suzuno, Tatara and a third character who looks a lot like Neiran, from the Byakko Ibun prologue.

Friendly reminder that Byakko Hen is scheduled for release on August 28th in shoujo magazine’s Flower’s October issue. 

[byakkonomiko]

ONE MONTH TIL BYAKKO IBUN

SCREAM WITH ME OKAY?

[byakkoibun]

Byakko Ibun is continued in Byakko-hen starting August 28.

[natsunoomoi]

Holy crap. So like with the previous post I was thinking about Fushigi Yuugi again and kind of checking up on what was up with Byakko Senki cuz I haven’t checked on it in awhile and it looks like it’s on hiatus right now and she’s working more on Arata Kangatari, which is cool cuz I thought she finished that, but I guess not and she just took a break to like finish Genbu and do Byakko or something.

But also I was scrolling through her Twitter to find that she is really into this Chinese movie “Legend of Luo Xiaohei” and so I was checking that out cuz so ironic that Japanese mangaka that got her big break writing manga about an ancient China setting is interested in a Chinese movie. So just looking through her Twitter thread and apparently she found out about Luo Xiaohei from watching a CM while watching Modao Zushi. LMAO It’s amazing, but this situation just feels like an ouroboros eating itself because I have a high suspicion that her work on Fushigi Yuugi imported into China back in the 90s was probably a huge influence on Chinese creators and artists to write their own stories about their culture and helped to popularize the xianxia and wuxia novel movements in more modern times. On top of that MXTX said she was inspired by a D. Gray-man fanfic and while she mentioned that title specifically, I think in the periphery Fushigi Yuugi itself and more recently Arata were probably an influence too. Growing up a number of my Chinese friends also said they got into anime overall because of Fushigi Yuugi because it was an anime and work from Japan about their culture and arguably done pretty damn well. 

In terms of the danmei movement as well, I’m pretty sure Fushigi Yuugi was included in what started the movement as the movement was influenced by Japanese BL that came in via Taiwan, and the beginning of Fushigi Yuugi had the whole thing between Nuriko and Hotohori even though that kind of went nowhere, Nuriko dies to everyone’s depression (I have several friends who refuse to watch the rest of the series after Nuriko dies because it’s not the same), and that whole ship goes off a weird deep end with Hotohori marrying a woman that looks like Nuriko. Also, the exact reasons for Nuriko being in the harem and all that. There was a whole lot of shipping in the 90s from Fushigi Yuugi and it was one of the first series that had a male cast that was almost entirely ikemen and I think the actual first reverse harem. A number of shows probably simultaneously popularized the female gaze in mainstream anime, but Fushigi Yuugi was definitely one of them. Like literally one or two years before there was a lot of manly men and guy’s guys kind of anime characters, but beautiful ikemen, no, not really. In 2021, there are some things about the series that are a bit problematic, but it’s influence on the world is pretty significant. It was one of the first shows I’d seen that had any kind of reference to homosexuality or transgender in it and although it’s not necessarily portrayed well, the fact that it was there and that Nuriko was such a beloved character it started a conversation and helped us to get to a time where the topics she represents can be more discussed. I’m actually not even sure what pronouns would be appropriate for Nuriko because of her reasons for what she did and in Japanese the pronoun problem is actually really easy to get around because you just don’t have a subject or speaking in 3rd person is totally normal. But still, without her the minds of thousands or even millions of fans around the world would not have been opened as early to LGBT topics. Her existence, even problematic as it might be, allowed people to consider and love a character of a different sexual orientation or gender identity than their own and just open their minds to just not being a homophobic, biphobic (cuz relationship with Miaka?), or transphobic piece of shit.

Then also Genbu Kaiden and Uruki’s powers. Yeah.... I mean, also kind of with the earlier discussion, the idea of dual cultivation I don’t recall even being brought up much before in most media, but such ideas were also banned and repressed in China at a certain point. Documentation shows it was more of an ancient practice that suddenly became known about again. The book I was talking about that has it more explicitly written is banned in China has its only original surviving copy in the Japanese National Library as it was one of the books brought to Japan by scholars escaping persecution in China and bringing with them books to escape one of the many episodes of mass book burning. According to my Chinese lit professor who had us read an English translation of that book as a part of our curriculum anyway. Supposedly the translator of said book had to go to Japan to read the original in order to write the translation. There’s apparently a number of ancient Chinese texts like that because book burnings were a thing at different points in Chinese history, so if you are a scholar of Chinese lit if you want a complete picture of your field for some texts you do actually have to come to Japan to do your research. But yeah, that power mentioned in that very book Watase-sensei gave to Soi, and also the story of Fushigi Yuugi takes place in that very library that contains that ancient copy of a banned and would have been lost to the world book. If you’re asking why a “dirty” book would be something a scholar would grab to save, ancient lit scholars do regard it as a rather well-written piece of literature even though the content of it is basically taboo.

But also the Fushigi Yuugi Suzaku Ibun game is a hot mess when it comes to this same issue because if you romance Nuriko you can save her from death and my friend Hikari said she wasn’t sure if she was happy about fucking with the universe like that. (I’m not either.) Nuriko’s death was such a huge impact on the story and everything. Also, notably, most of the Suzaku Shichiseishi died, but Nuriko had the LONGEST tribute. Like Chiriko and Mitsukake’s was like a tag on of a few minutes. Hotohori’s was too even, but it was addressed more in the later manga chapters the publisher pressured her to write and in the OVA series afterward.

Also, like Fushigi Yuugi other than the Neverending Story was one of the original sucked into a book holy shit how do I survive stories. Idk if SVSSS is influenced by it in that way, but it’s fair to draw the parallels because of the similar theme. It’s just canonically Taiitsu Shinjin is not behind the the system in the book and in a number of ways Shen Yuan is more competent than Miaka. Miaka gets a lot of shit though and when I re-watched FY a second time I actually found the gripes people generally have about it make up only a small part of the series. People just talk it up so much that it seems like a huge thing when it’s not. Plus the technical canon is only the original TV series because that’s where Watase wanted to end the story and that is an emotional rollercoaster that makes you cry so good. But like there’s some other kinds of parallels as well like how toward the end and like the last two episodes you hate Nakago up until the exact moment you find out why he’s an absolute asshole, and characters straight up criticizing him about how he’s an asshole the whole damn series just gives the same kind of feels that SY gave criticizing the original throughout SVSSS. Can’t say for sure, but Fushigi Yuugi has a lot of clout in a general sense.

But yeah, Watase-sensei said that she was really surprised by the animation quality of Chinese animation these days and she thought Japanese anime was going down in comparison. Same, yo. Same. But still, her work was probably a huge contributor to the movement that allowed MDZS to exist because her art is damn beautiful, Chinese influenced, and she had one of the first works in Asia to like bring the subject of LGBT issues into the mainstream after years of oppression from mostly Western influence because in pre-modern Asia no one gave a shit before and there’s a significant amount of classical novels that address some form of LGBT issues at least in Japanese lit and like even academic documentation that notes Confucius saying that doing it with a guy was better than with a woman. And the author of the work that probably was very influential to BL back in the 90s watches MDZS. She noted that there wasn’t any in the actual anime, which is true, but I think she helped that series to exist and she watches the anime so it’s kind of exciting.

I hope it influences her to go finish Byakko, but OMG I want her to finish Arata too because I like Arata. I should try to find time to read more of it because the anime is too short and the wiki descriptions of what’s happening are so damn confusing and incomplete.

[fyeahyuuwatase]

Sorry for the lack of activity guys! I have some scans I'm going to post soon of Watase’s latest one shot Kiri Samurai! Plus I know I'm pumped for Byakko Ibun are you?

[cutepiku]

Official Fushigi Yuugi: Byakko Hen promotional art.

Launch August 28, 2017.

[narakunonish]

Shougakukan's Monthly Flowers magazine’s twitter has posted this new illustration of Byakko Hen on July 27th.

This beautiful monochrome image done by Watase shows us Suzuno Osugi, along with her father, Takao Osugi, the Celestial warrior Tatara and a girl who is presumably Neiran, who was first introduced in the Byakko Ibun oneshot.

Byakko Hen is scheduled for August 28th! Who’s ready for another adventure in the world of the Universe of the Four Gods?

[sunrises6]

Some Seiryuu Thought

Re-reading Fushigi Yuugi and Fushigi Yuugi: Genbu Kaiden makes me all nostalgic and bitter about the Seiryuu side. I always think Yui’s journey in the book as well as the development of her seishi were really unfulfilling, which I already explained why in this post . They were reduced to villains since that was Miaka aka Suzaku Arc, and the more I think about it the more I truly feel like Seiryuu story wasn’t supposed to happen at that time at all.

In OVA 1, Taiitsukun said that Yui’s appearance in the book disrupted the 100-year cycle (one priestess for every 100 year) and that led to the conflict between Suzaku and Seiryuu. Of course the OVA is not canon material but the canon does support this somewhat. In Fushigi Yuugi, we know that Genbu Arc happened 200 years ago in the book time. Tokaki and Subaru, seishi of Byakko, said that they were active seishi 90 years ago. In Byakko Ibun, Neiran told Miboshi about the summon of Genbu which occurred 100 years ago. So it’s safe to say Osugi Suzuno did come into the book 100 years later than Takiko. And 100 years after Suzuno, we had Miaka as Suzaku’s priestess. Following this pattern, Yui was supposed to go into the book after Miaka had summoned Suzaku for 100 years. 

Another evidence that Yui wasn’t meant to go at that time lies in how the girls entered the book. Put aside Suzuno since we know nothing about her circumstance, Miaka and Takiko entry into the book were exactly the same in which:

They both saw something related to their role. Miaka saw Suzaku and Takiko saw a snowy landscape.

They were both in distress and strongly wanted to escape from their current world.

Yui lacked those two things. She neither saw anything Seiryuu-related nor she had the desire to escape from reality. In fact, she seemed quite content with her life at that time. I personally think the priestess wanting to leave their world is a requirement for them to officially enter another world. Actually, this rule seemed to apply to every character. Those who had crossed worlds - Takiko, Nakago, Suboshi, Miaka, and Suzaku seishi - all desired to go at that moment. When Yui wanted to save Miaka in the beginning, she wanted Miaka to get out of the book and not for her to get into it. Yui was the only character who didn’t wish for it but was forcefully sucked into another world anyway.

I have this theory. Yui was accidentally pulled into the book the same time as Miaka because she happened to be there when Miaka got her call. The priestess’s appearance signified the start of their respective Beast God Arc and Seiryuu story was forced to happen sooner. Since this is unnatural and disobeying the rule of the book, Seiryuu people were doomed from the start and had to be eliminated from the story. Amiboshi survived simply because he forgot his role as a Seiryuu seishi thus cancelling his relation to this side of the story and saved his life. 

Yeah, I know this is just a theory and I doubt Watase Yuu thought about it when she first created Fushigi Yuugi. But I do hope it could be true since it might work as the foundation for a Seiryuu arc revise. I’m aware it’s unlikely for Seiryuu to have their own arc but one can dream :P. Besides, Watase Yuu really fuels my dream with her interview that was posted in the scanlation of Genbu Kaiden’s final chapter (you can read it on mangapark). She said, “Because this series has become my life work I want to complete the Universe of the Four Gods and make the series whole. Therefore, I will return to the world of the Suzaku and Seiryuu Arcs.” To be honest, ‘the world of the Suzaku and Seiryuu Arcs’ could just mean that the book world in general and not necessarily a revise for those arcs. But like I said, one can dream :P; though at this rate, I might as well write a fanfic based on my theory lol.

On a side note, I think it’d be nice and fitting if the story ends with Seiryuu. Well, according to wikipedia, Genbu symbolizes winter, autumn for Byakko, Suzaku is summer, and Seiryuu embodies spring. Ending the whole journey at spring seems like everything comes in full circle to me. 

[filliteapot]

I wanted to inform you that Fushigi Yuugi Byakko Ibun is the name of the one-shot and the real title of the now started story of Byakko's priestress and Byakko seven is Fushigi Yuugi Byakko Senki. Also the first chapter of Byakko Senki has now been translated and you can find it from MangaFox.

Wow! Thank you for informing! I'll check it later. I knew that the story was named differently, jusy didn't want to rename all the tag :'>

[daekim2689]

Byakko ibun miboshi with neiran. Also someone also made a translation of the chapter 1 of byakko ibun. You can check it out here http://imgur.com/a/qiNZn