#gensoumaden saiyuki episode 2

[candycutter13]

Character Quote #241

Goku watches evil demon lady transform into a giant spider demon.

Goku: “Ew! Doesn’t look tasty!” Gojyo: “I envy the way your brain must be wired to think like that.”

Source: Gensoumaden Saiyuki (S1 Episode 02) Character: Son Goku & Sha Gojyo

[shanaraharlyah]

2, 6, 32 and 42 for the tv asks 😊

Thanks for the ask!  It made me sit and think a little!  :)

2. Favourite television show from the early 2000′s - This one's tough for me since I was mostly watching older anime on Cartoon Network at the time or else series that started in the 90s.  I'll go with Gensoumaden Saiyuki since it originally aired 2000-2001 and I got into it by mid 2000s after it was localized.  Coincidentally this is actually my favorite anime and manga to date as well.  Guess I have a thing for Journey to the West.  :)

6. Favourite television show of all time - The X Files.  I just love it so much!  It's got the overarching conspiracies, the monster of the week, the amazing comedic episodes as well as the really disturbing.  I have to binge watch it all every so often.  Without it, we wouldn't have gems like Fringe (which is also way up there on my favorites list).  <3

32. Favourite movie villian - Hmm.  Davey Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean?  I tend to like villains with a tragic backstory that twisted them into what they are.  Plus he looks like Cthulhu and has a Scottish accent.  XD

42. Favourite animated movie - Howls Moving Castle.  While it doesn't really follow the story in the original book, it is such a beautiful film all by itself.  Studio Ghibli's animation is gorgeous as always and I feel like every time I watch it again I pick up on some small detail I missed before. <3

[justastoryteller]

How to Watch Saiyuki

A masterpost by me, because I love four (4) dumb boys.

What is Saiyuki?

Saiyuki, by Kazuya Minekura, is a long-running manga and anime series extremely loosely based on the classic Chinese novel, Journey to the West, in which a priest (Genjo Sanzo) and his three demon pals (Son Goku, Sha Gojyo, and Cho Hakkai) go on a long and meandering journey across China to get to India and stop the resurrection of a powerful demon king. With lots of action, angst, and comedy, this is a great series if you like classic anime and your favorite character type is Jerk With A Heart of Gold Who Secretly Really Loves His Friends.

The manga was first published in 1997, and was followed by 2 prequel and 2 sequel manga series (the second of which, Saiyuki Reload Blast, is still publishing, albeit very slowly due to the author’s health issues),as well as 5 separate anime series, a movie,  2 OVAs, 3 stage plays, several audio CDs, and 2 video games. While this guide will only be addressing the anime/OVAs, I highly recommend the manga if you want a more cohesive plot, though admittedly the art style is a bit rough in the beginning.

Content warnings: 

Violence/gore: the first anime series has slain enemies dissolve into glitter (I’m not kidding), but the rest go full-bloody, some more than others.

Torture/imprisonment

Incest: stated outright in Gojyo’s backstory (between his step-mother and half-brother, and depicted as a really bad thing), and implied in Hakkai’s (accidental on both their parts, and outright stated in the manga)

Pedophilia: not actually depicted, but used as an insult in Sanzo’s backstory (regarding his teacher/guardian), and very rarely used the same way toward his relationship with Goku.

Suicide/self-harm

Rape (mentioned, not shown)

Child abuse/endangerment

As a general rule, if anything from anyone’s backstory upsets you, keep in mind that the series as a whole brings up their backstories constantly, so you will be seeing those things a lot. 

What should you watch?

The various anime adaptations vary greatly in animation style and budget--which means honestly some of it is awful, animation-wise. That’s just how it is. In total, there’s well over 100 episodes, including the movie, but good news! A lot of it is filler and therefore skippable! I’ve provided links to a fan wiki for information on which episodes are filler and which ones correspond to events and plots in the manga.

My recommendations are as follows:

Gensoumaden Saiyuki: 50 episodes, made in 2000 but looks like it was made in the 80s. Watching the first 12 episodes will give you an introduction to who the characters are, what they’re doing, who the main antagonists are, and get you through the first mini-boss arc. After that, only 9 of the remaining 38 episodes aren’t filler, and while some of the filler is enjoyable, a lot of it is just stupid. The final boss of the series does address some of the prequel events (Saiyuki Gaiden, see below), but is ultimately an OC created only for this series (with the creator’s approval), with no bearing on the overall plot. You can skip the rest without missing much.

Saiyuki: Requiem: movie. If you really liked all the Gensoumaden filler and also enjoy dark-as-fuck lighting, go ahead and watch this. Otherwise don’t bother.

Saiyuki Reload: 25 episodes, 12 of which are filler. Watch as much of this as you want! The overall animation and filler quality is much better than Gensoumaden, and there are funny omakes called Urasai! at the end of each episode.

Saiyuki Reload Gunlock: 26 episodes, most of which are filler. This series tries to do the Reload manga plot that was missed in the first Reload anime, but fails to do it any justice whatsoever, and also somehow has worse animation than Gensoumaden. Honestly you can just skip this one.

Saiyuki Reload: Burial: 3-episode OVA. Watch all three! I honestly love this OVA. The episodes are all prequels--the first is a bit long and shows how both Genjo Sanzo and Ukoku Sanzo became Sanzo priests, the second shows Sanzo finding and freeing Goku, and the third covers Hakkai moving in with Gojyo.

Saiyuki Gaiden: 3-episode OVA. Also a prequel, this covers the events 500 years before the series that led to Goku’s imprisonment. If your favorite character is Goku, every part of this will hurt you. It’s a beautiful OVA, but unless you already have a general understanding of the plot, either from reading the Gaiden manga, watching the second half of Gensoumaden, or watching Blast (see below), the pacing might be too fast. Definitely watch it, but perhaps after Blast if it seems confusing.

Saiyuki Reload Blast: 12 episodes. Watch the whole thing! This came out in 2017 and the animation and overall quality is awesome. It doesn’t quite finish the series, but finally jumps the boys up to their final destination, where the manga is slowly but surely wrapping up. Most of the important Gaiden plot details are covered in this series as well.

Saiyuki Reload: Zeroin: (ongoing at time of writing) Watch the whole thing! This one premiered in 2022 and is finally giving the Reload manga arc the justice it deserves. It’s beautiful, using an animation style similar to Blast, and contains a lot of the moments that made me love this series and these stupid asshole boys so much.

And there you have it! If you get through this list and find that you want more of the Sanzo party, then congratulations, it’s time to go back and watch all of that filler you skipped, hooray! (and godspeed).

If any other Saiyuki fans want to offer their comments/opinions/recommendations/rebuttals, please feel free! 

[avenger-hawk]

What other minor and/or major fandoms are you in? (Or what other shows/series do you keep track of?)

This might be boring to read because there are people who are up to date with manga/anime/tv shows/movies while I’m the opposite xD I’m the type of person who sticks with something they love to the point of obsession for a very long time.

Other than the Naruto one, the last fandom I joined was the MetaMoro fandom (italian singers and beautiful couple), last year. I never shipped real people in my whole life cause I don’t care about real people enough, and cause found it kinda creepy (btw I bet tumblr police has something to say about this as well) but things happen and you can’t control what you like (hi again tumblr morality police), besides, there is no fanservice in Italy for this kind of things, it’s not like idols or kpop bands or US celebrities, so..I didn’t even want to be active in the fandom tbh, but I just happened to write some comments in my tags and then I received asks and suddenly people were interested in my opinion, then in my ideas so they suggested prompts and before I knew it I was posting angsty darkfics lol ( so this is the fandom that steals my time from naruto fic writing)

I’m not in other fandoms, these 2 take too much time already, and most of the anime/shows I like are either quite old or over since a while. I don’t know most of the shows people talk about, and when I stumble on their gifs/images I just don’t feel interested.

I am a Game of Thrones fan, I sometimes wrote a few comments on episodes and with my personal blog I follow GoT blogs with gifs and edits, but I don’t read fics and I never read fan theories though.

Before Naruto my favourite manga/anime were Gensoumaden Saiyuki (I wasn’t into it anymore but they published the Gaiden prequel volumes in my country and I almost cried reading the end for how beautiful and sad it was) and most of it all Bleach…I loved it so much, I read fics, searched for doujinshi and fanarts, saved screenshots. It was in my heart for years, and it still is even though I didn’t follow it that much, so when it ended I wasn’t as angry as for Naruto, for example. But I periodically think (more like obsess) about it again, when I stumble on stuff online. And I do periodically think, more like, replay, the scenarios I would think about, my ‘bedtime stories’ lol, as back then I didn’t even consider writing a fic.

I recently read the Psycho Pass manga for the first time, as I had watched the anime already. Then I rewatched the anime and I liked it even more than the first time, so much that I obsessively sought fanarts and fics, too bad that my fave ship is popular only in the reverse top/bottom dynamic compared to the one I like

I’m deeply into Noragami which is the latest manga I’ve been reading, I want to watch the anime but I haven’t yet. Also I haven’t looked for fanarts/fics, even though I really love Yato, and I am very intrigued by the angsty parts like when he cried getting to know his shinki’s past, or when he’s stung and blighted when his shinki has bad thoughts &co. Or the way his father manipulated him, or when he was bitten by Hiyori gone ayakashi…This kind of things is my kind of things, so I’m all in for the dark side of it, but I’m afraid I’m a minority so I don’t even bother looking for stuff. (maybe this was better in the other ask about crack ships lol)

Also because I often drop shows/anime when I disagree with the plot, and especially with tv series this happens a lot cause they keep them going on and on season after season and annoying shit happens, like, I was a fan of The 100 (and I shipped Claire/Lexa and Lincoln/Octavia) but after Lexa died and there was the season finale/cliffhanger for the next one I stopped watching cause I disliked it. Or Vikings but same, I didn’t like it anymore after the first series, it’s like certain stories go out of hand and become ‘too big’ and I can’t put up with that kind of absurdity. And I have an open mind, my favourite stories are those that question reality, so my concept of absurdity is related to unbelievable because it’s badly written imo. Same for Mr Robot, I watched it all but I didn’t like certain things and I’m afraid I’m gonna hate the next season. Or Sense 8, but that was canceled and I even managed to quit it before the forced ending lol. I’m a huge fan of Star Trek The Next Generation and BattleStar Galactica, I bingewatched the latter on a summer, like when I bingewatched LOST with my ex, who was addicted on series more than I. He was an ass*ole but he made me watch good stuff lol. Like cute Pushing Daisies. Older series are more interesting imo. It’s like the popular ones are like videogames, each season with a bigger ‘aim’, while others are canceled without even trying to continue and see if people get to like them. Some stories grow on people more slowly, but they don’t get it. The latest show I tried to watch was American Gods, its concept seemed interesting and I like the many different cultures and mythologies it refers to, but I found certain things disturbing/triggering so I stopped.

I also liked Death Note but for the story more than the characters. I was reading Tomodachi Game cause it’s quite similar for certain things but I have to catch up. Oh and I never finished Nabari No Ou, even though I liked it. Why didn’t I finish? I forgot. Same for Gintama. Like pretty much anyone else I read manga with an app and I watch anime/shows on my laptop and I decided to read more paper books instead, and use devices less, so I follow my favourite musicians/bands, and ofc my 2 fandoms and mostly I write my fics. Or, well, I try to.

[candycutter13]

Ms spider lady, i see you are a fan of the knights lurking in the shadows lol 3.3

[candycutter13]

Character Quote #240

“Being over twenty doesnt make you great or anything.”

Source: Gensoumaden Saiyuki (S1 Episode 02) Character: Son Goku

I feel meh being over 20 😑🤷 But Goku you’re older than everyone else lol