I didn't think it was possible to do worse than Saiyuki Reload:Gunlock, which I rate even lower than the Saiyuki movie, and then I saw this. As much as I love Saiyuki, I got bored within the first minute of watching it.
This OVA was originally a Saiyuki interactive video game, Kibou no Zaika, created as a sequel to the Requiem movie (something which I didn't enjoy, either; I watched it once and shelved it). I have only seen this sort of thing work once, and it was in an anime short.
I'm not even going to bother breaking this down in one of my typical long review styles, because it's just not worth my time. Instead, I'll just briefly cover it.
Story
The story is your basic "Saiyuki Mary-Sue side story"; that's all which needs to be said about the plot.
For anyone who actually wants to know what this is about...well, frankly, I think the "Saiyuki Mary-Sue filler" is the best way to explain it, because anyone who has seen the series instantly will know the basics of this.
In slightly more detail, Hakkai and Sanzo see a slow falling shooting star, which turns out to be some wish granting thing in the form of, yep, a young woman. So of course, everyone is after this wish-granting girl.
Other
The animation was horrible. Because it was a collection of scenes, there are skips and pauses in the video, as well as prompts for the interactive parts which still sometimes make it to the screen. And the fight scenes? Well, the final battle was so boring that I could have fallen asleep.
More still scenes and non-contact scenes which I had problems with in the original anime of Saiyuki made appearances, and the final boss fight just felt like a snoozefest.
The characters were extremely flat, and some were overlooked. Goku seems to be the main protagonist in this, and he was a little OOC just like the rest of them. Not to mention the major OOCness during the final fight.
Saiyuki is a character-driven series, so if something like this occurs where the connection to the characters feels cut off, it crashes and burns.
Overall
If you're a major, major fan of the series (as in, one of those people who has to see EVERYTHING which is animated in a series, and read everything published of a series), then go ahead...but don't say I didn't warn you.
Goku is my second favorite Saiyuki character (Hakkai being the first), and I still disliked this, so I can't even say that it's something Goku fans will enjoy.
If you aren't the sort who doesn't have to see everything a series comes out with, you might want to skip this one.
It's the sort of thing that you finish watching and look at the screen before saying:
"I want the last 40+ minutes of my life back."
