Fushigi Yugi, Volume 1: Priestess

Love this series beautiful art and great story

bought this book for my sister and she loved it !

Yu Watase is an excellent author of mangas, outdoing herself in this book. Miaka, our heroine, is an ordinary junior-highschool student who's trying to get into a good school to make her mother happy. She comes upon a book titled "The Universe of the Four Gods" while with her friend, Yui. They somehow enter the story, or universe, where Yui narrowly escapes being sold by slavers, being rescued by a handsome mercenary-warrior with the demon mark on his forehead. After that, they return home abruptly, apparently without any reason. Miaka gets in a fight with her mother and storms out of the house, feeling lost and guilty, and finds herself in the library where she found that mysterious book. Opening it again, she returns to that strange world where she met that warrior. After getting put in the emperor's dungeon for attempting to steal a few jewels off his crown to repay her debt to Tamahome, the mercenary-warrior, the book is found by the librarian and closed, sealing her exit from the strange medieval China world she is in. To escape, she must become the Priestess of Suzaku and gain the power of Suzaku. Meanwhile, Miaka developes a budding love for Tamahome, but the emperor's love (or obsession?) for her makes things awkward. Things get worse when she finds her third Celestial Warrior is Nuriko, who's in love with the emperor. Nuriko nearly gets Miaka drowned, and is determined to make her pay for attracting the notice of the emperor. Being amazingly strong and unfortunately charged with protecting Miaka as the Priestess of Suzaku, as Nuriko, the emperor, and Tamahome are her Celestial warriors, Nuriko is a formidable enemy, if not the smartest one. Can Miaka reconcile their friendship, or will Nuriko kill her inch by inch, and will she ever return home?

It's Fushigi Yuugi! I first began this series a little over a year ago, when I recieved the first two volumes for my birthday. I killed them both off in one night, grateful that I possessed the second volume as well as the first. I yearned for more Tamahome and Miaka romance, more of Nuriko's hilarious antics, and more devoted Hotohori! While this series may be compared to Sailormoon by the more ignorant anime otaku, I find it to be simply the best shoujo manga out there. The story begins with Miaka Yuuki, a dim-but-serious exam student and glutton extrordinaire, frivolously dreaming of food in the middle of class! Miaka and her intelligent best friend, Yui Hongo, later visit the local library and find a mysterious book called the Universe of Four Gods. When an earthquake causes the pages to turn, they are sucked into the world of the book, where they are attacked by slave traders. Luckily, the dashing miser Tamahome comes to their aide. Upon their return, Miaka has a conflict of interest with her mother and returns to the library to "kill some time reading". She returns to the book's version of ancient China, looking for Tamahome. After a dangerous brush with the emperor Hotohori, Miaka is asked to remain in China's southern kingdom, Hong-nan as the priestess of Suzaku. Thus begins the tale of the fierce rivalry between the Suzaku and Seiryu chosen. The series may seem very light-hearted, but it eventually evolves into a grim epic filled to the brim with sorrow, death, sabotage, and other unfortunate events. You'll fall in love with characters like Tamahome, Hotohori, Tasuki, Amiboshi, Suboshi, and Tatara at first sight, but others, such as Miaka, Nuriko, Yui, and Nakago grow on you over time. Still others, namely Tomo, Miboshi, and Tai yi-Jun will never appeal to you. Fushigi Yuugi is the most involving, absorbing, and exciting manga you will ever read!

When I first got this book and opened it up, I really did not think I would like it at all since I'm not a big fan of shojo/romance stories and the characters are much prettier than I'm used to but oddly enough, I actually love this series now. O.o It's so weird, but I couldn't put the book down until I'd finished it and the artwork in particular is fantastic and very detailed, the best I've ever seen in manga.The plot's pretty good and Yu Watase definitely deserves credit for her creativity and talent.Not everyone will like this but just like everything else, it deserves a chance.The only bad thing I can find about this book is that it's unfortunately been flopped... anyways, I highly recommend it and if I can change my initial views of it, I know others can too.

Now as I have seen from what all of the other reveiws said that Fushigi Yugi was, well a brilliant peace of artwork and so much more. I have the whole series of F.Y. (it's very addicting). It's a wonderful story about two high school girls, Miaka and Yui, who come across a book entitled: The Universe of the Four Gods. As the story continues Yui and Miaka get seperated and, well you'll have to find out for yourself. I reassure you that this story is very unique. It has almost anything you could want in it(romance, tragedy, comedy, ect.) I loved this story and I'm sure you will.

This book was fabulous! I loved it!The style that Yu Watase uses in this is one of the best I've seen.The plot is great.It's unique, but still retains the basic fantasy elements.I can't wait to read the next one!For those who love manga, this offers a different but effective art style along with an interesting plot.This is a MUST-BUY!