ART + LIFE
Saiyuki RELOAD 7 "review" and thoughts.
So I bought Saiyuki RELOAD volume 7 last night. I called Waldenbooks over in Marion to see if it was in. It wasn't. Whoever was at Waldenbooks tried to tell me that this is because it hasn't been released yet. LIES! Dirty LIES! I didn't tell the lady that she was a dirty liar telling dirty lies, sadly, so I just said okay and we were like bye and hung up on each other. It's interesting how much that is like every dysfunctional relationship ever.
Anyway.
So I called Barnes and Noble in Carbondale to see if they had it. I had just checked the previous night and had been spurned (it wasn't there), so I figured instead of wasting more gas, I would just call. The clerk, after asking me to spell Saiyuki, went to go see if it was in. She said it was and I made her confirm that it was indeed Saiyuki RELOAD and not just regular Saiyuki, because I knew that they had the regular version which I don't need to buy because I own it and read it before. So she put a copy of the book behind the counter JUST FOR ME <3 and after one false start involving me forgetting to grab letters my mom somehow conned me into mailing for her, I went to Barnes and Noble and boughten me a Saiyuki RELOAD.
I also bought a "Dulce de Leches" latte, which is the flavor of the month at the coffeebucksbarnesandnoblecafe thing. I pronounced it entirely incorrectly, which seems to be a disturbing trend recently. The last time I was at that cafe thing was Monday night, and I was insanely tired from having had only two hours of sleep the previous night but going to the gym, anyway, and despite knowing that this is not how to pronounce this item, ordered a "doppo expresso." I hate my life, and I think I'm going to go listen to Linkin Park (incidentally, "Finally" by CeCe Peniston, who has the most unfortunate REAL BIRTH NAME I AM NOT KIDDING in the history of dance music, is playing on my iTunes right now. I don't own any Linkin Park). But my excuse was that I was tired and needed the power of espresso to make sure I didn't pass out in my car on the way home from Taco Bell (which was my next destination).
So anyway, back to yesterday. I bought Saiyuki RELOAD volume 7 and immediately went home (after mailing letters) and read it.
I am a fangirl, so of course it was awesome. Please don't be expecting to read an unbiased review here. I bought the freaking Saiyuki RELOAD Gunlock PS2 game, so you can see my mental state when it comes to Saiyuki. I'm assuming this mental state comes from listening exclusively to Dir en Grey in my car so that I've been mentally brainwashed into thinking guitar noise and screaming is soothing. To where I think Kagerou is easy listening (I'm listening to that, now, via iTunes. I have it endlessly looped because it's better for typing to that way). I'm not sure how listening to Dir en Grey makes me a crazy Saiyuki fan because I was watching Saiyuki before I was listening to Dir en Grey, but it's easy to blame things on music.
Anyway, you wanted a review, didn't you? I'm sorry.
So my review is, basically, if you like Saiyuki, read this book, for it is awesome. If you do not like Saiyuki or haven't read Saiyuki yet, you clearly have something deeply, deeply wrong with you, so go buy all the other books first, read them, and then read this book, for it is awesome. Goku and Hakkai have a big old demonfight and there is blood and swear words (well, they're Gojyo's swear words because all Goku says is AAAAAA and Hakkai is too polite for swear words). That should be enough to sway you if you were waffling before, so go buy it, already.
Okay, onto spoilery parts. And analysis (analyses?).
THERE ARE SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT SORT OF SO DON'T READ UNLESS YOU DON'T CARE.
I actually read the scans of this at (unnamed source) when it was in raw Japanese. And when I say read, I mean "looked at whilst going DUHHHHH" because I cannot read in Japanese. Many of the pages were actually unfinished when I read the Zero-Sum version. They were just pencils, so I'm so glad she actually did finish the pages for the tankoubon edition of this, because while I love her sketches, it looks better when everything is finished (and definitely looks more cohesive).
But I had been looking forward to this fight forever since seeing scans of it. I mean, Hakkai takes off his damn earrings and actually has an ON-SCREEN manfight with Seitan Taisei Goku Great Sage Equal to the Square Root of Heaven Or Whatever It Is (non hatted Goku, ie Goku without his hat). The significance of this is that while Hakkai has taken off his earrings/power limiters before, we've never actually gotten to see what it is he looks like or can do; they usually just switch over to another scene of Kougaiji scratching his ass or something, and then later, they switch back to Hakkai putting his earrings on again and everybody is like "OH MY GOD THAT WAS THE AWESOMEST FIGHT EVER GOOD THING WE WERE HERE TO SEE IT BECAUSE IT WAS THE COOLEST THING WE WILL EVER SEE." Apparently as a youkai he is super viney. The coolest thing about the character design, though, is that only one of his eyes is all youkai-y because the other one is fake and looks like his regular Hakkai Eye (he can be the honorary fourth member of the Amazon Trio. Sailor Moon crossover FTW).
The other coolest thing is that he is a badass mofo and he WILL cut a bitch.
Basically, what builds up to this scene is that Goku is, uhm, smacked or almost killed by Ukoku Sanzo somehow (don't ask me for really intelligent commentary on this because I'm not entirely sure what happened, even after reading this part in English, or why it happened, though I'm sure it will either be explained later or else it won't) and it makes Sanzo freak out and run away like a little girl (well, not exactly, but). Hakkai can't heal Goku because it's too bad or something and he has organs so they decide to take off his hat because he heals himself more quickly when he isn't wearing a hat.
Except that he also kicks people's asses more quickly when he isn't wearing a hat, so now they are pretty much screeeeeeeeewed. So Hakkai takes off his jewelry like they do in the UFC (because you don't want a sweaty guy to pull off your nipple ring with his toe) and they have a damn manfight to try and put the hat back on Goku.
Two interesting things.
There's a little flashback scene where Sanzo says that Hakkai shouldn't ever, ever, ever take off his limiters unless he absolutely has to because he could be affected by the minus wave that's making all the youkai CRAZYGONUTS, and because if he loses it, there's no guarantee they can ever get him back (like, it's not like they can just put a hat on him). Well, there's a point in the fight where Hakkai is just tearing the crap out of Goku (not literally, because that would be gross) when he's lying on the ground, prone. Gojyo makes him stop, and Hakkai is like what am I doing and gets back to the business of hat putting back on-ery.
The interesting thing #1 is that I'm not sure that this is so much "youkai influence" as it is the true nature of Hakkai. Remember, this is a guy who went nuts BEFORE he ever was a demonthing and killed a whole lot of people, including women and children. This dude is a mass murderer, and cruelty is well within his nature. In fact, we still see bits of how Hakkai isn't as in control of himself as a person as he'd like to pretend (totally forgetting about youkai, here) in random bits through the series lately (like when Hazel talks about killing the youkai in, uh, a recent volume...5? to save the life of the human baby, Hakkai is really mad about that, interestingly....which could be another essay, really, since Hakkai is pretty much being pissed at Hazel for doing pretty much exactly what he, himself, did), so I'm sure there will be more subtext about this later. I just find it really interesting. I've been a Sanzo fangirl from the beginning, but I've slowly also really come to appreciate how complex and twisted Hakkai really is. He really is NOT all that nice. Also his neck and sideburns are really hot. Shut up, they are.
Interesting thing #2 is something I missed until the second reading (and subtleties like this are why people who pan Saiyuki for another journey west knockoff and write everybody off as stupid fangirls are wrong and can bite me and my horse, too). When Gojyo and Hakkai are trying to fix Goku, Sanzo is off doing his own thing, presumably looking for whoever smacked Goku (well, it was Ukoku Sanzo, who is apparently much more magical than Genjyo Sanzo...seriously, Sanzo can't do any of the random magickal things other Sanzos do. He's mainly just limited to the Makai Tenjou move. I wonder if it's because he's still unaccepting of the title? Anyway...). On page 82, you see Sanzo sort of looking down with this really haunted look in his eyes. And you see his gun in a separate panel. But it's pointing in the opposite direction that his face is...toward him. Even though you never see the gun and his face in the same panel, it totally looks to me like Sanzo's come just unglued enough to kill himself, and even though he does shake himself out of it right before anything happens, you have to wonder exactly how close they are to losing the whole game right here.
Clearly Ukoku knew exactly what he was doing.
Anyway.
So I called Barnes and Noble in Carbondale to see if they had it. I had just checked the previous night and had been spurned (it wasn't there), so I figured instead of wasting more gas, I would just call. The clerk, after asking me to spell Saiyuki, went to go see if it was in. She said it was and I made her confirm that it was indeed Saiyuki RELOAD and not just regular Saiyuki, because I knew that they had the regular version which I don't need to buy because I own it and read it before. So she put a copy of the book behind the counter JUST FOR ME <3 and after one false start involving me forgetting to grab letters my mom somehow conned me into mailing for her, I went to Barnes and Noble and boughten me a Saiyuki RELOAD.
I also bought a "Dulce de Leches" latte, which is the flavor of the month at the coffeebucksbarnesandnoblecafe thing. I pronounced it entirely incorrectly, which seems to be a disturbing trend recently. The last time I was at that cafe thing was Monday night, and I was insanely tired from having had only two hours of sleep the previous night but going to the gym, anyway, and despite knowing that this is not how to pronounce this item, ordered a "doppo expresso." I hate my life, and I think I'm going to go listen to Linkin Park (incidentally, "Finally" by CeCe Peniston, who has the most unfortunate REAL BIRTH NAME I AM NOT KIDDING in the history of dance music, is playing on my iTunes right now. I don't own any Linkin Park). But my excuse was that I was tired and needed the power of espresso to make sure I didn't pass out in my car on the way home from Taco Bell (which was my next destination).
So anyway, back to yesterday. I bought Saiyuki RELOAD volume 7 and immediately went home (after mailing letters) and read it.
I am a fangirl, so of course it was awesome. Please don't be expecting to read an unbiased review here. I bought the freaking Saiyuki RELOAD Gunlock PS2 game, so you can see my mental state when it comes to Saiyuki. I'm assuming this mental state comes from listening exclusively to Dir en Grey in my car so that I've been mentally brainwashed into thinking guitar noise and screaming is soothing. To where I think Kagerou is easy listening (I'm listening to that, now, via iTunes. I have it endlessly looped because it's better for typing to that way). I'm not sure how listening to Dir en Grey makes me a crazy Saiyuki fan because I was watching Saiyuki before I was listening to Dir en Grey, but it's easy to blame things on music.
Anyway, you wanted a review, didn't you? I'm sorry.
So my review is, basically, if you like Saiyuki, read this book, for it is awesome. If you do not like Saiyuki or haven't read Saiyuki yet, you clearly have something deeply, deeply wrong with you, so go buy all the other books first, read them, and then read this book, for it is awesome. Goku and Hakkai have a big old demonfight and there is blood and swear words (well, they're Gojyo's swear words because all Goku says is AAAAAA and Hakkai is too polite for swear words). That should be enough to sway you if you were waffling before, so go buy it, already.
Okay, onto spoilery parts. And analysis (analyses?).
THERE ARE SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT SORT OF SO DON'T READ UNLESS YOU DON'T CARE.
I actually read the scans of this at (unnamed source) when it was in raw Japanese. And when I say read, I mean "looked at whilst going DUHHHHH" because I cannot read in Japanese. Many of the pages were actually unfinished when I read the Zero-Sum version. They were just pencils, so I'm so glad she actually did finish the pages for the tankoubon edition of this, because while I love her sketches, it looks better when everything is finished (and definitely looks more cohesive).
But I had been looking forward to this fight forever since seeing scans of it. I mean, Hakkai takes off his damn earrings and actually has an ON-SCREEN manfight with Seitan Taisei Goku Great Sage Equal to the Square Root of Heaven Or Whatever It Is (non hatted Goku, ie Goku without his hat). The significance of this is that while Hakkai has taken off his earrings/power limiters before, we've never actually gotten to see what it is he looks like or can do; they usually just switch over to another scene of Kougaiji scratching his ass or something, and then later, they switch back to Hakkai putting his earrings on again and everybody is like "OH MY GOD THAT WAS THE AWESOMEST FIGHT EVER GOOD THING WE WERE HERE TO SEE IT BECAUSE IT WAS THE COOLEST THING WE WILL EVER SEE." Apparently as a youkai he is super viney. The coolest thing about the character design, though, is that only one of his eyes is all youkai-y because the other one is fake and looks like his regular Hakkai Eye (he can be the honorary fourth member of the Amazon Trio. Sailor Moon crossover FTW).
The other coolest thing is that he is a badass mofo and he WILL cut a bitch.
Basically, what builds up to this scene is that Goku is, uhm, smacked or almost killed by Ukoku Sanzo somehow (don't ask me for really intelligent commentary on this because I'm not entirely sure what happened, even after reading this part in English, or why it happened, though I'm sure it will either be explained later or else it won't) and it makes Sanzo freak out and run away like a little girl (well, not exactly, but). Hakkai can't heal Goku because it's too bad or something and he has organs so they decide to take off his hat because he heals himself more quickly when he isn't wearing a hat.
Except that he also kicks people's asses more quickly when he isn't wearing a hat, so now they are pretty much screeeeeeeeewed. So Hakkai takes off his jewelry like they do in the UFC (because you don't want a sweaty guy to pull off your nipple ring with his toe) and they have a damn manfight to try and put the hat back on Goku.
Two interesting things.
There's a little flashback scene where Sanzo says that Hakkai shouldn't ever, ever, ever take off his limiters unless he absolutely has to because he could be affected by the minus wave that's making all the youkai CRAZYGONUTS, and because if he loses it, there's no guarantee they can ever get him back (like, it's not like they can just put a hat on him). Well, there's a point in the fight where Hakkai is just tearing the crap out of Goku (not literally, because that would be gross) when he's lying on the ground, prone. Gojyo makes him stop, and Hakkai is like what am I doing and gets back to the business of hat putting back on-ery.
The interesting thing #1 is that I'm not sure that this is so much "youkai influence" as it is the true nature of Hakkai. Remember, this is a guy who went nuts BEFORE he ever was a demonthing and killed a whole lot of people, including women and children. This dude is a mass murderer, and cruelty is well within his nature. In fact, we still see bits of how Hakkai isn't as in control of himself as a person as he'd like to pretend (totally forgetting about youkai, here) in random bits through the series lately (like when Hazel talks about killing the youkai in, uh, a recent volume...5? to save the life of the human baby, Hakkai is really mad about that, interestingly....which could be another essay, really, since Hakkai is pretty much being pissed at Hazel for doing pretty much exactly what he, himself, did), so I'm sure there will be more subtext about this later. I just find it really interesting. I've been a Sanzo fangirl from the beginning, but I've slowly also really come to appreciate how complex and twisted Hakkai really is. He really is NOT all that nice. Also his neck and sideburns are really hot. Shut up, they are.
Interesting thing #2 is something I missed until the second reading (and subtleties like this are why people who pan Saiyuki for another journey west knockoff and write everybody off as stupid fangirls are wrong and can bite me and my horse, too). When Gojyo and Hakkai are trying to fix Goku, Sanzo is off doing his own thing, presumably looking for whoever smacked Goku (well, it was Ukoku Sanzo, who is apparently much more magical than Genjyo Sanzo...seriously, Sanzo can't do any of the random magickal things other Sanzos do. He's mainly just limited to the Makai Tenjou move. I wonder if it's because he's still unaccepting of the title? Anyway...). On page 82, you see Sanzo sort of looking down with this really haunted look in his eyes. And you see his gun in a separate panel. But it's pointing in the opposite direction that his face is...toward him. Even though you never see the gun and his face in the same panel, it totally looks to me like Sanzo's come just unglued enough to kill himself, and even though he does shake himself out of it right before anything happens, you have to wonder exactly how close they are to losing the whole game right here.
Clearly Ukoku knew exactly what he was doing.
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Honestly, I think that if Hakkai and Goku continued to fight, they would both DIE. Hakkai isn't the person to just die, even if he was severely injured. His will to kill and live, and his love and will to kill for his sister will be the thing that keeps him alive. Goku wouldn't allow himself to die, either. Staying in a cave for five hundred years, just to die a few years after? ...I don't think so. I think that Hakkai and Goku have some things in common....and Hakkai knows it. Hakkai and Sanzo have things in common, and BOTH of them know that....I think that's why they have that special 'connection', if you know what I mean. (Not a yaoi connection! ) Hakkai and Goyjo have, even if it's a little, a connection as well. Everyone has something to live for in Saiyuki, and I think that's why most of them are not dying. But, what's going to happen when they fulfill what they needed? What's going to happen? OR what's going to happen if they DON'T fulfill what they want? Wow, Saiyuki is a twisted, happy/sad, depressing/glad type of story! And that's why I love it! That's why I keep going back to buy the manga and Anime!
MARINECORPS123
2007-04-21 15:21:57
I just got my copy today! One heck of a fight between my two fav characters. I didn't know who to root for. As for Gojyo getting in the middle of this fight almost made me want to kick him in the .... . I wanted to see if Hakkai could take Goku. Or if Goku would do to Hakkai what he did to Kougaiji. But no, Gojyo had to step in. And Hakkai's demon face and powers were so ..... .
MACK
2007-04-13 17:33:46