The CD itself has a picture of Tamahome and Miaka. The booklet has several great pictures from the series and a group picture of Miaka and her seishi.

If you can only get one CD for the series, this is the one to get. It has a all of the major vocals and BGM for the series.

Apollon APCM-5064, Jun-21-1995, 49:49 (16 tracks: 6 vocal), 3000 yen

For the curious, this CD is SM-361. True, the SM can be gotten anywhere from half to a third cheaper than the real CD, but aside from the legality issues, the real CD looks a LOT nicer in my opinion. The SM duplicates the picture of Tamahome and Miaka on the CD itself, but the colors aren't aligned quite right so they come out slightly bluish. Also, the booklet is missing the group picture mentioned above.

The second Fushigi Yuugi CD is a characters vocal collection. It has 13 tracks. 4 of these tracks are instrumentals two of them being instrumental versions of the opening and closing themes (karaoke anyone?). The vocals are image songs by the voice actors for Nakago, Soi, and Amiboshi/Suboshi. Yui, Miaka, and Hotohori (?) get tracks also.

Like the first, the CD and case are way cool looking. The CD has a picture of Nakago carrying Soi. The booklet is loaded with great pictures from the series.

With the exception of Nakago, I find the vocals rather nice. I find Soi and Yui's tracks to be particularly good. Kae Araki (Miaka) has sung better, but her track isn't too bad. Nakago's, on the other hand, I'd be tempted to take a needle to and draw concentric circles on except it isn't my CD.

In terms of a soundtrack, it isn't one so you shouldn't get this if you're looking for background music that wasn't included on the first CD. But if you like the voices of the seiyuu, I wouldn't consider it a bad buy.

Apollon APCM-5086, Feb-2-1996, 55:11 (13 tracks: 9 vocal), 3000 yen

The third Fushigi Yuugi CD is presumably the last for the TV series. Its subtitle is "for Epilogue of TV Series". Its 16 tracks are divided among 4 drama tracks, 4 instrumentals, 2 vocals, and 6 BGM Anthologies. The vocals are by Hikitsu and Tomite of the Northern Mysterious Warrior (Genbu) and Tatara of the Western White Tiger (Byakko).

Like the first two, the CD, case, and booklet are damn cool to look at. The CD itself has two stylized figures of Seiryuu and Suzaku. The booklet cover has Miaka, Yui, and Tamahome in future garb. The back has a group picture of Yui and the Seiryuu Seishi which is offset by the inside back cover which has Miaka and the Suzaku Seishi. Maybe it's just me but the Seiryuu guys just look evil to begin with.

The instrumentals consist of a real karaoke of the opening (with background vocals included), instrumentals of Winner and Wakatte itahazu, and a mixed instrumental called for Epilogue... that combines the opening and closing themes (this one is really nice).

It's been a while since I've seen the series so I don't recognize all the BGM. Each track is titled with a theme (in English nonetheless) which describes the music inside. Of these I like Comical Heroine which is different arrangements of Miaka's themes. Bridges contains the music for both eyecatches plus some other stuff.

The drama tracks seem to be from the last couple of episodes. I'm not positive if they're actually the dialogues from those episodes or reacted tracks due to the fact that I haven't actually seen those and my mastery of the Japanese language is rather wanting.

The vocals are okay. One is a duet by Hikitsu and Tomite of the Northern Mysterious Warrior (Genbu). The other by Tatara also of Genbu. I don't consider either of them particularly special.

Overall, I think this CD is probably worth buying. The drama tracks are listenable and there is a plethora of BGM. I'd get this one before I picked up the Vocal Collection.

Apollon APCM-5090, Mar-28-1996, 74:48 (16 tracks: 2 vocal, 4 drama), 3000 yen