Welcome back to another Fushigi Yugi recap! in this volume we meet Tomo, Soi is mysteriously helpful, Amiboshi reappears and we get like the smallest crumb of info on Nakago. Oh and the Seiryu warriors favorite threat of sexual violence makes an appearance against TWO of our Suzaku folk.

They really know how to up that anty folks.

We see nothing of Hong-nan so let's all assume Hotohori is perfectly fine.

Tasuki, Chiriko, Chichiri and Mitsukake spend the entire book in an illusion.

Tama-baby...this guy. Tomo creates an illusion using Soi as a basis in which Tama-baby finds Miaka (Soi in disguise) and she wants to jump into bed with him. Tama-baby resists...but well.

Meanwhile Amiboshi, now called Huiake, is living in a small town outside Xi-lang. He's happy! and terribly forward. He tries to convince Miaka to basically live with him so they can avoid the war brewing.

Things happen Tomo traps Miaka in an illusion with a version of himself, things happen, AU version of Tomo tries to sleep with Miaka, things happen and wooo Miaka saves herself (kind of) with Amiboshi's help...but faints.

What was interesting was Soi exhibited an interesting facet of herself - she envies the (horribly terminally tragic) love Tamahome & Miaka feel for each other. Amiboshi too is dead set certain they belong together else the world doesn't make sense.

Tomo is also interesting, though under developed (don't get attached) and a lot of what I knew of him apparently came from author notes.

I found it interesting that Watase refers to Nakago as sexually attracted to individuals, not to gender. He views gender as just something else to deal with, not a contributing factor in how he feels.

Again Watase tosses out these concepts (Nuriko's gender dysphoria, Tomo's homosexuality, Nakago's genderless sexuality, and later Miboshi's asexuality) with either the wrong kind of follow through (Nuriko deciding she'd go back to being a man suddenly) or none (Nakago & Tomo are both author note characterizations with only partial validation in the series and Miboshi is largely spec). I feel if this was written now we'd have better representation.

Meanwhile the threat of sexual violence as a motivator goes on. ( )