Gensoumaden Saiyuuki

::QUICK REVIEW::
Story: 5 (another "Journey to the West" spinoff)
Art: 6 (Pretty above standard fare for its time)
Sound: 7 (English voice acting was impressive don't miss it)
Character: 8 (first male team that didn't make me feel gay)
Enjoyment: 9 (Main characters made this show great)
Overall: 35/50 = 7.0 (Didn't mean to make the score look like that)


::FULL REVIEW::
Ever since Dragon Ball, there have been a large influx of anime basing themselves on the "Journey to the West" epic piece. It's storyline is perfect for an anime iteration, but then again, any idea can become an anime. Well what I'm getting at is that this is another ... iteration based on that epic. And in my opinion, this is the best iteration of that tale that I have seen so far.

It's not historically accurate at all. If anything, it follows the story extremely loosely. I mean the names are partially the same and their personalities match (i.e. monkey, priest, etc) but thats about it. Their opposition are literally monsters and their goal is to reach the west. They use guns and have a dragon that transforms into a jeep. So you can't take this seriously. But there is one thing that this show has and the other anime does not: attitude. The four travelers, Gojyo, Sanzo, Hakkai, and Goku, are all badass and their chemistry between each other are hilariously cool.

Now I enjoyed the English dub of this show simply because the banter between the four was actually more believable in a realistic friendship sort of way. When they make fun of each other it sounds like something I would say to my friends. No matter how much they sound like they hate each other guts and despise each other but when it comes down to it, they will follow each other to the ends of the earth. That is something that is often attempted in anime but rarely executed very well.

All the adventures they encounter are your typical random shonen encounters that they have to overcome. I would have cared less if their teamwork wasn't so awesome and macho even under stressful conditions. No matter what they faced, they still managed to accomplish it in a virile manner.

Overall this show, like many others like it, can not be fully appreciated unless you're ready to accept the fact that its story is very very vague. Secondly, I highly recommend the English dub since they sound much more badass than the Japanese dub and really made this show from okay to pretty darn good.

Saiyuki is one of those shounen action titles that tries being cool with the attitudes and vices that our main cast of characters give into as Sanzo and his demon comrades journey west from China to halt the efforts of demon forces to resurrect the powerful demon Gyumao. The series is really loose with faithfulness to Journey to the West with the four members of the Sanzo party having their vices to give into with the older members frequently smoking, gambling, womanizing or drinking and Son Goku depicted to almost always be hungry, no different from the character's depiction from Dragon Ball. Also several members ... of the demon side assisting in Gyumao's resurrection are more like honorable villains as they don't often cause trouble for Sanzo's party and usually find themselves teaming up to take on a worst enemy threat. The first half mostly features the Sanzo group thwarting whatever "demon of the day" threat opposes them with some exploring tragic pasts that each of the group members have to bear. This half also tosses in some rather subpar attempts at humor compliments of the archetypal personalities of the Sanzo party members clashing with one another and having the occasional filler episode with some bizarre predicaments such as a group of scammers impersonating the members of Sanzo's party.

The second half of the series delves into exploring what the world of heaven is like in Saiyuki when Sanzo's group come at odds with a trio of fallen gods having their own hidden plans with Son Goku's power and the scroll used by Sanzo. These episodes are slightly better as they do introduce the first genuinely serious threat that Sanzo's party has to confront and more light is shed on Son Goku's time while he was in heaven while dealing with prejudice from the other gods for his heretic status, befriending another heretic like himself in the form of Nataku and interacting with gods who are actually past incarnations of the older Sanzo party members. The episodes do have their shortcomings in that they don't explore the final moments of the four while they were still in heaven and that the show still resorts to occasionally slipping in either a "demon of the day" conflict or "comical" filler episode with Sanzo's group.

The visuals to the series are rather lackluster. In spite of the attractive character designs shown with members of Sanzo's group, the Gyumao party and a number of the god characters, lining on character designs were on the rough side and animation was rather lacking at many points since Saiyuki made liberal use of animation shortcuts to limit onscreen movement, this being quite noticeable during action scenes when characters strike battle poses or simple movements in a lazy attempt to depict action. While having a much longer episode run than Saiyuki, Inuyasha was much better looking in the visual department in 2000 with clean details and better implementing its animation shortcuts to create convincingly engaging action scenes.

Overall, I'm mostly indifferent to Saiyuki since it tries being something that I am not too convinced it really is due to the characters and storytelling being mostly cliched in the series, even with the slightly more engaging second half with the trio of gods that Sanzo's party have to deal with. Would only recommend this if you're a diehard fan of shounen action titles.

Where do I start......I couldn't even finish this crap, only mad it 25 episodes in. The character animation was fine but stills during fight scenes were terrible. There was no character development and even though it has a long complex story they came across to me as stand alone. Their attempts at humor just seemed lackluster and homosexual at best. Wouldn't recommend this for anyone. 3 is probably a high rating for this and I'm ashamed to say that i spent $70.00 on this garbage. To make it worse the place I bought it wouldn't let me trade it in......guess ... they knew it was crap too!!!