Synopsis:
Taka and Miaka have finally gotten married, and Miaka is actually three months on the family way! But a young girl named Mayo who's obssessed with Taka is determined to get in the way of their happiness. Mayo is going to do whatever it takes to make Taka hers... even if she has to go into the "Universe of the Four Gods"!

Review:
I'll be honest. I bought Fushigi Yuugi Eikoden not because I was excited to see more obstacles get in Taka and Miaka's way, but because I'm a sucker for limited edition DVD releases.

Like the FY OAV series before it, I find that Fushigi Yuugi Eikoden does not measure up to the original series. We're back to the usual "something's threatening to break up Miaka and Taka" storyline, an ongoing theme which has been overused and abused since the TV series ended. This time though, we actually don't see much of Miaka. In fact, she's stuck comatose in a hospital bed for the most part of Eikoden. Mayo somehow takes Miaka and Taka's unborn child with her inside the "Universe of the Four Gods" and upsets the balance of the world inside it. Taka has to gather the Suzaku seven so that Suzaku can once again be summoned by the new priestess Mayo. Hopefully, things would be rightfully resolved with the advent of Suzaku. But the Suzaku warriors who've died had already been reborn into their newly chosen forms, and Mayo has plans of her own that don't necessarily benefit the greater good.

Despite my overall disdain for the main theme and my burning hatred for Mayo, I enjoyed watching Eikoden all the same. I felt excited at the prospect of seeing the Suzaku seven again, especially now that the dead ones have already been reincarnated. And as is the usual case with any FY installment, this series has a way of becoming engrossing to the point that you just HAVE to watch the next episode. There are also markedly more humorous moments compared to the previous OAV series, especially where the reborn Suzaku warriors are concerned.

The art and animation are superb, as is the case with the TV and OAV series. The only parts of the visual aspect I disliked were the computer-generated fake gods that Taka, Chichiri, and Tasuki had to fight. Don't get me wrong, the CGs were done really well -- it's just that they looked really out-of-place in the series... but perhaps that was the intended effect. I was quite taken by the opening theme song as well. With regards to the English dubbing, I can say that it's better than average but still not as great as I'd like. Chichiri's voice is really irritating, and Mayo doesn't sound like a teenage girl at all. I recommend watching with the original Japanese voices, as not to miss stellar performances from some of the most renowned seiyuus in anime.

Summing it up, Eikoden is another unneccessary but entertaining follow-up to the Fushigi Yuugi series. You probably shouldn't pass it up if you've faithfully kept track of every FY anime series that's been released. But if you do decide to skip it, you won't really be missing out on anything significant. It was definitely a fun ride though.

Miscellanies:
The FY Eikoden Limited Edition DVD version comes with 10 mini-pencilboards that aren't real pencilboards, but glossy pieces of cardboard that could never effectively resist a pencil mark should you choose to use them as pencilboards. Four half-hour episodes make up Eikoden.

Screenshots:

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