Story Menu series history manga magazines novel drama cds video game anime summaries translations articles opinions	Watase Yuu and the Original Fushigi Yuugi Watase is a shojo manga artist, and boasts an impressive resumé of stories. Some of her most well known series are Fushigi Yuugi, Ayashi no Ceres (Ceres: Celestial Legend), Alice 19th, Imadoki and Zettai Kareshi (Absolute Boyfriend). Many anime and manga fans know her name, but who exactly is this woman? Watase Yuu was born on May 5th, 1970 in Osaka, Japan. Born with a passion for drawing, she had her first work published by Sho-Comi at the age of 20. She puts a huge amount of work into her historical research, personalities and relationships between characters and, of course, her artwork. Fushigi Yuugi was Watase's first big break as a manga artist, and even became quite popular in North America. Watase first began creating Fushigi Yuugi in 1992, and it was a massive hit. After the first 14 volumes it was continued to be 18 volumes by popular demand. A 52 episode anime series, novels, soundtracks, artbooks, plushies, keychains and other paraphenalia followed. The manga has been translated into several languages, including english. Fushigi Yuugi is the story of Miaka and Yui, two best friends, who find themselves literally trapped inside of a cursed book. Inside the Universe of the Four Gods, Miaka becomes the Priestess of Suzaku and begins a search for her seven celestial warriors. Meanwhile her friend Yui is manipulated into becoming the Priestess of Seiryuu and therefore Miaka's enemy. And so begins an unforgetable story of love, war, friendship, death, and perseverance. There is an extensive amount of information for this series available on the net, and it is not the primary focus of this site. So if you would like more information, look elsewhere! Genbu Kaiden - the Prequel The Genbu Seishi had a very minor role in the original Fushigi Yuugi series, appearing for only two or three chapters in volume 9 and a few minutes in episode 34 of the anime. Despite this they made a tremendous impact on some fans of the series being these mysterious, increadibly loyal super powerful seishi that not even Nakago wanted to fight. But there was so little known about them! What else was there to do other than sit back and write epic length fanfiction? Now a decade after Fushigi Yuugi's completion, Watase has begun publishing a prequel to the Fushigi Yuugi story: the Genbu Kaiden. It focuses on none other than the Genbu Seishi and the priestess Takiko. Although it follows a similar story line to Fushigi Yuugi, Watase has decided to change certain aspects of it (as can be expected from 10 years of creative development!) so not only has her artwork improved, but the entire telling of the story is much more dramatic and full of twists that you would not have expected after reading Fushigi Yuugi. Some people expected the Genbu Kaiden to be a cheap spin off of Fushigi Yuugi, but it goes way beyond that in both artwork and story. The Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden manga by Watase Yuu was first published in a japanese manga compilation magazine called Sho-Comi in 2003. From 2004 to 2008 chapters were published every three months in the Fushigi Yuugi Perfect World magazine. As of 2009, chapters will be appearing in the Flowers serialization, and new volumes of the manga come out every six months. Between November 2005 and October 2006, Watase was ill and unable to write anything for the Genbu Kaiden, so for an entire year there were no new chapters released. Fortunately Watase made a full recovery, and kicked off her return with the release of volume 7 of Perfect World. The series is still being produced in Japanese, but the North American edition has already been liscened by Shogakukans American partner Viz, and both publications are generally near the same point in the story.
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