Artfully yours I didn't care for Amiboshi until I decided he was misunderstood.

Think about the sheer lameness of that admission.

I confess: I'm weak for the underdog, especially when he's less an underdog than 
an overtheirheaddog. You know what I mean. The instant I think a fandom has 
dismissed a character's worth for paltry offenses, or primarily opted to water 
him down for mass consumption, I side with him. An exemplary instance is the 
fact that I've shouted, from atop my high and mighty steed of Self-Righteousness, 
that I am intrigued by Miboshi in ways I am not intrigued by characters whose 
development was infinitely superior. Which is to say, I need a life. Be that as 
it may, my hopes and prayers (and pride) ride on my esteemed readers' 
understanding that I'm not saying any of this because I think Amiboshi is hawt.

First off, I like Amiboshi. I don't love him the way I love Suboshi, but my 
hackles don't raise when he's complimented for being "the good twin" or being "a 
sweetie" (though, quite frankly, I have a hundred derisive remarks I'll 
mercifully spare the sweetiepie crowd). Whatever, though. My point isn't that 
people don't get Amiboshi - they do, in their own ways, and I don't begrudge the 
individual her (mis)perceptions, however whacked - but I think people overlook 
the rather glaring errors of Amiboshi's ways. He's a killer. His reasons can be 
the best in the world, his intentions invocations of the purest charity, but he 
is a killer. Don't forget that. Don't ever forget that. Amiboshi is a soldier, 
one of the elite. He is lethally dangerous.

The real problem is that though most fans of Fushigi Yuugi are bright enough to 
see that Suboshi is not the glaring face of evil, a godawful lot of them have 
yet to conclude that Amiboshi is not an angelic monument, in and of himself, to 
moral rectitude and flawless mental health. Amiboshi is possessed by a dual 
nature that would boggle his own brother's mind. When he's good, he's very good. 
When he's bad, he's... creepy. What makes this interesting is that Amiboshi isn't 
pitiably unclear on whether he's a good guy or a bad guy. He doesn't care. He 
does what he does because he has an agenda, and that agenda is to be reached. He's 
about results. It's a twisted quasi-pragmaticism that I have to admire.

Where I said previously I was appalled at Amiboshi's 180-degree turn from 
ambitious soldier to sappy hippie, I'll now say that I've come to a time and 
place in my life where I'm no longer threatened or annoyed by teenagers' mood 
swings. Or, let me rephrase that: I think Amiboshi depicts the indecisive 
morality of youthful inexperience. He thinks twice about his actions. He's wiser 
than Suboshi, in the respect that Amiboshi considers the implications of his 
actions from an impersonal distance... usually. At the point where he was 
reintroduced to Miaka and confessed a desire to be a Suzaku Shichiseishi, he had 
leapt from efficient killer to Woe Is Me victim. The savaging of his character 
can induce cringes, but with the target audience in mind, it makes sense that 
Amiboshi should rethink his actions. Like the girls reading the manga, he's at a 
stage where he's begun to take himself seriously enough to wonder if he could be 
wrong. He was too immature to be steadfast, but mature enough to see that 
steadfastness is not correctness. He isn't a slave to convictions.

Probably the most intoxicatingly beautiful moment in Amiboshi's onscreen time, 
was when he offered Suboshi the drug that would wipe clear his memory of their 
tumultuous lives. Together, they could live lives devoid of the pain they'd come 
to anticipate as a daily trial. The contrast between Amiboshi's present weakness 
and Suboshi's present strength is striking. In the beginning, Amiboshi was the 
one to whom Suboshi looked for comfort. In the end, Suboshi was the one to grant 
his brother the freedom he'd never had with him remaining beside him - 
internally or externally. Amiboshi needed that release, he had to have it, he'd 
be destroyed without it. Suboshi gave it to him. I tend to stress what the scene 
says about Suboshi, but thinking on what it says about Amiboshi, it is apparent 
that he had reached a breaking point of desperation. He tried first to coax 
Miaka into remaining with him, then Suboshi. He needed someone. He attained his 
normalcy by relinquishing all else. Of all the series' characters, Amiboshi is 
the only one who attained the prize he sought. At what expense remains to be 
discussed, but I feel confident in saying he was better off without Suboshi than 
with him.

Amiboshi had grotesque infatuation with an idea of how things ought to be. He 
latched onto the idea of marrying bewildered Miaka not because he loved her, I 
posit, but because he loved the idea of bringing a close to his version of a 
perfect life. Ironically, Miaka's presence shattered Amiboshi's vision. 
Thankfully, Miaka knew it and strove to prevent Amiboshi from making a mistake 
she was tempted to make along with him. To the series' advantage, Miaka 
generally knew better than she let on. She, like Amiboshi, was of indecisive 
morality. Unlike Amiboshi, she caught on to that and didn't let it get the 
better of her. She might be unrealistic, but she supremely encompasses the 
series' ideal. Whereas Amiboshi was prone toward willful manipulation of others, 
it was against Miaka's very nature to manipulate. As a result, the two clashed, 
and Miaka righted Amiboshi where he'd gone wrong.

It's interesting that in the manga's original version of Amiboshi's "death" 
after interrupting the summoning ceremony, he slipped into the river and does 
not come into contact with Miaka. He looked forlorn, resigned. In the anime, 
Miaka gripped his flute, but he let go, evidently choosing death before defeat. 
I prefer the manga's version; it illustrates, quite literally, Amiboshi's 
ominous hopelessness. The anime approached the scene from a different viewpoint, 
foreshadowing things to come. It was a solid attempt to repaint Amiboshi as 
something other than what the author had made him. Alternately, I had to confess 
that I sort of like the idea of Amiboshi allowing himself to die, as in, death 
before defeat, as noted. For Amiboshi, I think nearly anything would have been 
preferable to a decisive defeat. He couldn't take that drug to elude memory. He 
had to rely on his brother to give it to him. This way, he was bested, things 
were beyond his control, and he was not at fault. It's a discouraging way to 
look at things, but, then again, these are discouraging things we're looking at.

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