Emonquente

To be completely honest, I watched one episode of this, and got rid of it immediately after, but I did watch all 50 of the first season, and felt that one was all I could really handle of this. This really is a shame since (while pointless) the first season was very good.

I don't want to discuss everything in length so, bullet-point style:

Story: Probably about the same as the first season, but handled worse than the first season by a suitable factor to pair with the rest of the worsening.

Animation: About the same as the first season, character design isn't quite as good, everything else also seems just slightly . . . off.

Sound: And by this I mean voice-acting. If you can stand 5 minutes of these actors, you are a Buddisatta. They are not the original actors, they are absolutely not good. They feel over-acted and yet emotionless, completely flat, and I just get the feeling the actors are complete amateurs, much as in the old days of anime where a single 11-year-old girl would play an entire cast. As for the rest of the sound, I'm not the kind of person that bothers reviewing it because somehow I never seem to be able to remember anything but the characters' voices.

Characters: They are just as the voices that portray them are flat, bland, and just bad.

Overall: 4

If you've never seen Saiyuki it may be funny to watch this and the others first -- that is, if it is indeed any better when you don't have a point of reference, or you can suffer through it just so you can appreciate the -real- Saiyuki all the more.

Sorry that this is a bit short and abrupt, but it needed something, and I only had this to offer.