Saiyuki Review

story 7/10

The story has some noticeable problems... Firstly, the show really doesn't come into its own until the second 'arc' starts about halfway through it. Until then, there's lots of mulling around and very slow buildup of a story that ends up never getting resolved. Also, there are a LOT of filler episodes, particularly in the first half of the show, and some of the back stories of the characters end up being told over and over again. I think there must have been at least three episodes, if not more, that retell generally the same story of what happened to Hakkai... The only things that makes these filler episodes entertaining are the brief glimpses into the ethical structure that the show operates around, which I will mention later in this section, and the interplay between various characters, particularly Goku/Gojyou and Goku/Sanzo.

This show also requires a large suspension of disbelief. While supposedly inspired by ancient China and featuring all sorts of mysticism and fantasy, it makes unexplained inroads on the modern world. Sanzo carries a revolver, various characters use cigarette lighters, look through binoculars, drive cars (?!) and one guy even has a machine gun! Now, I was able to just accept that this kind of stuff is nothing exceptional in this anime's world, since it never claims to take place in the 'real' world, but some other problems are just plain silly. IE towards the end, in one episode, two characters have their weapons broken (not damaged... broken to pieces) by a bad guy, but manage to defeat him anyway. The show then cuts away to another place, and when it comes back, those two characters are fighting another bad guy and both have their weapons back in perfect condition with no explanation given.

However, one element goes a long way to making up for these deficiencies, and that is the moral ‘edge’ of the show. Even the silliest filler episodes usually have some sort of ethical topic it breaches on, and unlike almost every other action anime out there, that ethics lesson is never sugarcoated. I quickly became aggravated at the anti-violent "can’t we all be friends" and "love everyone even if they’re trying to kill you" mentality of shows like Get Backers and Trigun, but Saiyuki takes the opposite road, encouraging self-determination, confidence, independence, and fighting (even killing, if you have to) for what you believe in. I was overjoyed to see an action anime in which the ‘good guys’ aren’t wracked with insecurity every time they have to fight a bad guy, and where bad guys actually die when they lose instead of being spared and magically converting to the side of good. It goes a long way to helping me take this show seriously as an action show, and I never onc e felt like shaking the characters and slapping some sense into them like I almost inevitably do at many points in these kinds of animes.

The ending is pretty well-done overall as well. It’s not quite ‘final,’ since there are already two sequel TV series to this one, but it closes out the arc that develops over the second half of the show, and doesn’t feel rushed at the end like many animes do.

animation 6/10

The animation is undeniably low-budget for a modern anime. Most action scenes consist of lots of still shots that are simply panned across the screen to simulate movement. It also tries to incorporate 3DCG into the show to animate some 'special power' FX, and they tend to stand out as being highly fake-looking. It's not that the CG is so awful really--it's just that they completely clash with the rest of the show, which is drawn in a very stylized manner. On the other hand, I did like the character designs and a lot of the settings in the show are also creative and atmospheric. Saiyuki is a ‘bishounen’ show, which is to say it’s a show which definitely tries to draw its male characters in a very certain way, a way which will likely appeal to female fans. However, it’s not at all ‘shounen-ai’ (which designates shows with homosexual themes), and I enjoyed the clean, crisp art style even though, as a heterosexual male, pretty guys don’t do very much for me.

sound 8/10

The sound is quite good. Like many animes, it suffers from the 'reuse the same two major themes over and over' syndrome... You've got the 'action theme,' the 'happy theme' and the 'dramatic theme' that come in at scenes that fit the criteria. Those themes are well-arranged, however, and overall were effective. The OPs and EDs are also high quality It's not every day you have a show that combines sad piano music with modern J-pop but hey, as long as it works...

The voice acting in the original Japanese version is overall good, if not stellar. Goku sounds way too much like a stereotypical punk kid with attitude, when his character is actually a lot more complex than that, but aside from him, the characters seem relatively well-voiced. The dub for this show is unusually good... It shows not only in the voice acting, but also in the script writing. The dub actually aids a lot of the interplay between the characters, particularly when it's for comic effect, by making the script a lot more 'mature,' so to speak. Let's just say you'll hear some words that US TV stations would have problems with if this show were ever aired in that format. It's difficult to express in words, but I felt it added an edge to the show that made some of the cheesy one-liners (there are a lot) seem tolerable. I could smile at them, because I didn't feel like the characters were taking them seriously either. Overall, in terms of the voices of major characters, I think the dubbed Goku is much better to the original and the dubbed Sanzo is slightly better. Gojyou and Hakkai I liked better in the Japanese version. Overall though, this is one of the few shows I've seen that I would actually recommend people to watch dubbed.

characters 8/10

The characters are what really make this show worth watching. All four main characters are not only well-developed--they’re flat out fun to watch, which is highly important in a show of this type. Each of the characters has a defined history and rapport with at least two of the others, and that makes for a multi-dimensional setup where the characters aren’t just always on the same side. Goku and Gojyou and chronically at each others’ throats; Gojyou and Hakkai are old friends; Hakkai and Sanzo share a bond from a past life, and the relationship between Sanzo and Goku, which is somewhere between master/student and father/son, is often the centerpiece of the show. Every time I watched them, I got a sense that they’re not just mindlessly cast into being on the same adventure, but are actual friends, which comes with all the good and bad times that it does in reality. The importance of that in a show that follows one group for 50 episodes cannot be overstated. Even in the othe rwise largely pointless filler episodes, Saiyuki’s commitment to developing the four main characters not just in themselves but also in how they relate to each other keeps the show fun.

Somewhat less impressive is the amount of development that more minor characters receive. The ‘bad guys’ introduced in the first part of the story end up being a lot less important at the end than you’d figure, and I felt like the show didn’t really come into its own until the second half, when it introduced the characters of Homura, Shien and Zenon and delved far back into the past lives of the main characters. Without giving anything away, let’s just say that all four major characters were far from ordinary in their past lives, and that those lives are both developed and satisfyingly intertwined into the main story. The servants of Gyumao, particularly the more cliché ones like Liren, get little if any development and I particularly would have liked to see more about the obviously insane yet highly amusing Dr. Ni.

overall 7.5/10

Saiyuki’s problems, from its animation to its story, are quite apparent, but in the end the pluses outweighed the minuses for me. I came away from this show feeling like I know the characters far better than I did in most action animes I’ve seen, and with a view on ethics that I could be proud of embracing for 50 episodes. I ended up not caring much about the cheaply animated action sequences and cliché filler plots (both of which there are unfortunately large amounts of) because seeing these particular characters go through it was undeniably entertaining. Overall, I heartily recommend Saiyuki to fans of action/adventure animes who are more interested in following a group of interesting characters than in high budget animation. As long as you can accept some of the show’s odd quirks and inconsistencies, you should be in for a good time.