#seimasa

“And what exactly do you think you are doing?”

‘Admiring you’

@mizu-no-iro why would u plant the seed in my brain

tl;dr background: Yumemakura Baku is a Japanese writer who's written a billion historical fantasy stories about an enigmatic wizard-priest named Abe no Seimei who may or may not be half fox-spirit and a cornfed terribly earnest young nobleman named Minamoto no Hiromasa, who are both real people but were never particularly connected (let alone shipped lmao) until Yumemakura's books. Among the MANY adaptations of his work are the Japanese films Onmyouji 1 (2001) and 2 (2003), and the Chinese film The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity/Qingyaji (2020).

tl;dr point of the rambling: Watch both the Chinese movie and the Japanese media, and also read the stories, but proceed as though the Chinese movie and the Japanese source material are unrelated.

I have now watched YYM:DOE/Qingyaji like 3 times and I absolutely imprinted on Boya and Qingming. I <3 them. They are S-tier blorbos for me. And I love the aesthetic, and let's face it, I understand archaic Chinese language much better than I understand formal or archaic Japanese. (Which isn't to say well, but whatever.)

But also I finally watched Onmyoji 1 and 2, and the Netflix Onmyoji anime, and read all the existing English translations of the original stories that I could find, and I cannot imagine going from the OG stories to YYM: DOE/Qingyaji and not being disappointed by it. They're just two entirely different things and if you're only familiar with one you're better off thinking of the other as only a distant cousin (or I guess you could call the Japanese stories an ancestor rather than a cousin).

OG Onmyoji is so embedded in the Heian era, or vice versa, that just taking it out of the setting would have resulted in an entirely different story. That's even if they hadn't essentially replaced the character originally known as Hiromasa with an entirely different person, Boya, who just happens to share the characters of his name with OG Hiromasa. (Qingming is different from Seimei as well, just not to the same extent.)

Anyway, I feel bad for all the OG Onmyoji fans who wound up (reasonably!) disliking a movie that they might have enjoyed on its own merits if not for (reasonable!) expectations.

Although tbf it's also pretty jarring if you've imprinted on hypercompetent if emotionally unbalanced warrior-mage Boya and then you meet earnest and naive himbo nobleman Hiromasa 😅 As it turns out, I was also pretty attached to the more equal-feeling relationship between Qingming and Boya, so that jarred me too. Though it's not like I don't see the appeal of the larger chasm between Seimei and Hiromasa! (Admittedly, I kind of got a preview of himbo-Hiromasa by watching the other Chinese YYM movie, the one directed by Li Weiran. That one is pretty skippable and is really neither fish nor fowl.)

Anyway, YYM:DOE/Qingyaji fans should also be forewarned, and also know in advance that the anime is pretty shounen and IMO not one of the more beautiful 2020s anime I've seen (it really feels like something from the 90s-2000s to me). But it did pick up partway through and I enjoyed it overall. For that matter, you should also know that the special effects in the Onmyoji movies have aged very poorly, though the casting of Seimei is incredible and you can't go wrong with Umebayashi Shigeru music (yes yes the guy Wong Kar-Wai is so fond of).

My personal recommended order for the least disorientation would be:

Watch YYM: DOE

Read the fan translations of the Yumemakura Baku stories (they've never been licensed)

Watch Onmyoji 1 and 2

Then, if you're committed at this point, watch the anime and various other adaptations. Don't even ask me about the games or the drama, I practically just got here.

And of course read some fanfic! There are some excellent fics out there! I'll post some recs for both the Chinese movie and the Japanese media in a separate post because whew this has gotten WILDLY out of hand.

"And I am always your favourite"

Ship: Abe no Seimei/Minamoto no Hiromasa (seimasa)

Fandom: Onmyouji (movies)

Rating: Explicit

Summary:

“I like you more than I realised,” Hiromasa interrupts, because if he doesn’t get this out now he never will. “It was—the miko outfit.”

Ending theme song of the anime adaptation Onmyouji by Netflix, based on the novel of the same name by Yumemakura Baku!