Neko.Net Feature:

To Buy or Not to Buy? One Fan's view on the proposed Pioneer Boycott.

Updated: 2/11/00, see bold text at bottom.

1/23/00: This page reflects the opinions of Ming-Ling only and does not reflect the opinions of anyone else, including Limitless.org.

As everybody knows, Pioneer has the rights to Fushigi Yuugi in the United States and has already released the first half of the series, with the second of the half already starting to be released. On the back of the boxes are little blurbs called "Miaka's lesson" (for the first half) and "Yui's lesson" (for the second half.) Although they really don't have much to do with the series, they are quick one-liners that are partially funny, partially serious.

At least Miaka's lessons were. Yui's lessons, however, have sparked a lot of outrage in the FY Fan community.

The offending 'lessons':

Volume 9: Never let Suboshi play with kids.

Volume 10: Tangling with Ashitare can lead to serious heartburn.

Volume 11: Miaka is so cold. You might even say impenetrable...

I'll go through them one by one. First off: 'Never let Suboshi play with kids.' This, we all assume, refers to when Suboshi kills Tamahome's family in order to get revenge for his twin brother, Amiboshi. Chuei, the second-oldest Sou brother (after Tamahome) valiantly tries to protect his family with a butcher knife - but Suboshi's anger and rage and his Shichi Seishi powers (the ryuuseisui) are superior. There are several heartbreaking scenes when Tamahome returns to find all of them dead, and his baby sister Yuiren, dying, and another when Miaka sees Tamahome at the graves he has dug for them. Volume 9's lesson is playing too lightly with these scenes. Not only do these scenes show truely how much Tamahome loved his family, it shows how much Suboshi loved Amiboshi - enough to seek and wreck total revenge on the one he felt responsible.

10: 'Tangling with Ashitare can lead to serious heartburn.' Um, first off, why is this Yui's lesson? First off, she never had any emotion attachment to Ashitare. Nakago kept him chained elsewhere away from the others. She, Soi, and Suboshi are rather repulsed by Ashitare's appearance. And even when Nakago kills off the wolf-Ashitare, Yui's not there to see it. Soi is, and is disturbed, but Yui and Suboshi had already started off towards Sailo. Second off, Yui never had any emotional attachment to Nuriko. After all, they're on opposing sides. I don't recall if they ever truely met, meaning that Nuriko is only a name for Yui and not a person. Also, this plays much too lightly on Nuriko's death scene. He is like the tragic hero who, having finally come to terms with himself and the world around him, sacrifices everything to protect the ones he loves.

11: 'Miaka is so cold. You might even say impenetrable...' Er... where does Miaka come off as being cold? She cares very deeply for her friends, even when they turn their backs on her, and in the end this makes a world of difference. As for impenetrable... This is taking way to lightly Nakago's plan to rape Miaka in order to render her unable to summon a god. It is unsucessful because a red light surrounds Miaka and prevents him from harming her. 'Impenetrable?' I think it's a bad choice of words and not quite the right lesson to put.

But is this enough to boycott Pioneer?

My verdict is 'no.' First of all, we should all be thankful that Pioneer is releasing Fushigi Yuugi in the United States in the first place. We should applaud their efforts in making the Fushigi Yuugi DVD box sets - a boost not just for FY but for all anime on DVD. Yes, Pioneer exercised bad judgement in these lessons. No, it's not enough to warrant a boycott. It is only one series out of many they are releasing, and only 3 tapes out of 11.

If Pioneer listens to its fans (and any company who wants good PR does), they will know that the FY fan community is outraged and will do something to correct this. This could be anything from a public apology to changing the blurbs on the boxes. As long as the fans notify Pioneer of their opinions regarding the 'Yui's lessons', Pioneer will respond. After all, we're their customers. This is the United States. If we feel angry about something, it's 100% in our rights to inform the offending parties of this. It is NOT within our rights to send them nasty flames and spam! Things like that only make the situation worse.

Sometimes the boycott is used too spuriously and without enough reason. Despite what Pioneer has done with the latest Fushigi Yuugi VHS volumes, they have done many other good things for the the anime community.

This is my opinion, and I'm sticking with it. (Why am I always the one playing devil's (or in this cause, would it be Tenkou's?) advocate?)

Other pages of interest:
Pioneer's homepage
Boycott Pioneer
Nuriko.Org's Pioneer page

Extra info as of 2/11/00: Well, I should add that Pioneer publicly apologized to the FYML in an email which also explained their reasons for choosing the lessons as they did. I'm not posting that letter or recapping any of it, but it should be noted that Pioneer made their response. I didn't totally agree with their philosophy, but everyone's entitled to their own opinions, ne? However, I agree with Pioneer's final line. You can boycott them if you wish but do not under any circumstances buy fansubs of the Fushigi Yuugi TV series. I don't know of any reputable trader offering them since the news came out last... when the news first came out that Pioneer had the rights (November 1998?).