on Gintama and Saiyuki

[xparrot]

New Gintama - waaaaaai~~~! Absolutely as awesome as I expected it to be, if not more, since they went ahead and started with the 2 years later arc!! Which makes sense but I didn't see it coming, and yeah, it's as hysterical as I knew it would be. Especially Shinpachi's scream (gif courtesy of nemissa) which, I won't lie, was what I was most looking forward to seeing animated from this arc (that and Okita, which will come next week - can't wait~!)

In the last week I also went and reread/read the whole Saiyuki manga series (I'd never read the second half of Gaiden or Reload) and oh man, it's such ridiculous, angstastic, at times nonsensical, unabashed emo-porn - and it's still one of my favorite series of all time. Minekura's art (and all her boys) are gorgeous and her characters and stories push so many buttons of mine. Nothing brings the h/c quite like Saiyuki, and their particular flavor of always-at-odds-and-pretending-not-to-care-about-each-other-although-in-truth-we-really-really-do is about as perfectly tuned to my own tastes for that kink as anything I've ever seen.

The way they get along in spite of themselves - or don't get along but love each other anyway - is irresistible. They get into these huge fights and moral clashes and sometimes they split up, but they always find their way back to each other in the nick of time. I love Gojyo leaving them during the Kami-sama arc, and then them leaving Sanzo during Even a Worm (oh man, that whole sequence in that arc, from Goku going down and Sanzo totally losing his shit and Hakkai going youkai and Gojyo stopping him with only a look and generally just being awesome - yoooow...)(Even a Worm hasn't been animated, has it? Siiiiigh!)

(Then the end of the arc, and they're all (as usual) lying on the ground too beaten to actually move ("We can't fall asleep here, one of us will definitely be dead by the time we wake up in the morning." "The dead guy's the loser." "You know you're most likely to be that guy, Sanzo...") and yelling at one another to stop being dumb because it hurts to laugh and janken'ing to see who has to haul Sanzo's broken body back to Jeep - with Sanzo playing too, even though he can't walk, because he won't suffer one of them dragging him - whahahah awwww...)

I think Gojyo's still my favorite (he cares so much and is so bad at hiding it! <3333) but I don't really know, because I love them all, in all their fucked-up borderline-psychotic co-dependent glory. Sanzo might be Minekura's special woobie but she gives all of them their fair dues. And I love that it's not quite BL, so there's no confirmed pairings and instead she just hints at everything - any combination of the four has a unique and intense bond. (For the record my 58/93 OTPs are UNTIL THE END OF TIIIIIIIME...but that doesn't mean I don't love the various shades of brotherly love between everyone else, too.)

Also I adore Kougaiji and his crew (and how they are so much better at being heroes than the Sanzou-ikkou) and I actually got rather fond of Hazel, enough to feel sorry for him and Gat by the end (even if I know better than to get too attached to any non-major chars, since their stories almost always end tragically...)

...And okay, I kind of can't help but love-to-hate-going-on-actual-love Ukoku because, uhhh, glasses-wearing evil genius sociopaths are my type? ^^;;;

Wasn't there a Gaiden OAV? Should go hunt that up...(Though I vaguely fear watching the anime, when Hakkai now will sound like Zura ^^;)

(And now I've gone and tracked down a translation of the actual Journey to the West, since it's a little odd that Saiyuki's the only version I'm really familiar with...roughly akin to Men in Tights being one's only knowledge of Robin Hood, or Merlin being your primary experience of Arthurian legend.)

Comments

[nijibug.livejournal.com]

I grew up with the original JttW ♥
I have a lot of friends who are fans of Saiyuki and I keep meaning to start it! (I even have the scanlations in my bookmark tab.) But I just need to find the tiiime *sobbb*

(Omg what is this you say? Ishida voices Hakkai? He'll never be anyone but Zura to me. That is going to be a weird experience to say the least. Then again, I probably won't watch the Saiyuki anime in favor of just reading the manga.)

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

I wish I'd gotten hold of JttW as a small thing, I'd have been all over it - legends and myths and fairy tales were about my favorite things ever to read when I was young (and probably why when I started reading for novels SF/F appealed to me best...) As it is I suspect I miss a major part of the joke of Saiyuki, since before it my only exposure to the original story was by way of Dragon Ball ^^;;

Anyway, I think when you have the time that you'd like Saiyuki - as long as the, er, loose interpretation of JttW doesn't throw you too much! ^^; (though I'm biased; it's one of my major animanga fandoms, I've ficced for it and all; it just hits so many of my nakama-ship buttons. ^^ But then I know you share some of those buttons with me, so~)

(and hee, yup, before Gintama, Hakkai was my major association for Ishida! The seiyuu are pretty much all the anime has going for it. They're fantastic, but otherwise it's kind of a mess, low production values, runs out of manga. The later series and some of the OAVs are worth checking out but yeah, the manga's definitely superior.)

[joonscribble.livejournal.com]

I'll admit it, I effing LOVE Ukoku and his alter ego Nii Jenyi. I mean, look at my default icon. Sociopathic evil geniuses are like the best thing ever. But I think I fell in love hard after watching his story in the Saiyuki Burial anime series that gives you a small taste of where he came from and his general mindset about life.

If you do find the Gaiden OAV, can you let me know where? I only remember the Gaiden segments in one of the other series runs.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Ahahah you use that icon enough that I'd kind of forgotten who it was!

Mmmmm, Ukoku...yeah, I don't know what it is about the anime sociopaths. Sometimes they don't work for me, and Nii is so creepy weird in his toy-bunny-wielding evil...and Ukoku is nihilism personified and makes no bones about it. But there's something so compelling about him (have you read all of Reload? The end of that, his laughter, cinched it for me; he's just the right degree of bugfuck crazy to synch with my fangirl tastes...)

(also I have a thing for ravens, so...!)

The Gaiden OAV is apparently being released this year, the first of 3 DVDs was supposed to be out in March, though I don't know if it came out, production schedules are understandably a bit rough in Japan these days...

[snarkydame.livejournal.com]

Minekura's art is just amazing. Too bad the anime couldn't really keep up with that level of pretty.

I keep going long stretches without thinking about Saiyuki, and then somebody posts something (pokes you) or a picture shows up somewhere, and then there it is, in the front of my brain again. Oh the horror. ;)

(although I will admit -- I get the pairings, that's fairly obvious, but I never understood where the numbers came from? It's a puzzle.)

New Gintama! Now I really need to catch up.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the later anime series were prettier, but nothing matches her unique style.

And I do the same thing with Saiyuki - I haven't read it for years, even while in Japan I was only looking at it now and then; but whenever I come back to it I love it as much as ever. It's just pure fangirl crack, is what it is.

The numbers are Japanese fangirl sorta-puns, hence them making no sense in English! but in Japanese - go = 5, ha(chi) = 8, kuu = 9, and san = 3. (Hakkai and Sanzo's names actually begin with the kanji for 8 and 3 respectively; Hakkai's name means "8 Commandments" and Sanzo refers to 3 branches of Buddhist sutras.)

New Gintama! Now I really need to catch up.

YES, YES YOU DO!!! If the first ep is any indication, Gintama' is going to be EPIC~~~~! (it has to be, really, because they're going to do Kabuki-chou arc, which is made of awesome!)

[snarkydame.livejournal.com]

I figured it had something to do with their names! Thanks for clearing that up. ♥

Epic Gintama is the best thing. :D

[rgbrobbie.livejournal.com]

For the record my 58/93 OTPs are UNTIL THE END OF TIIIIIIIME...

Sigh, the only time my defective slash goggles have ever worked was for 58 and 39. There was absolutely no way I could NOT see it. C'mon. They'll always be special to me.

And of course I have to thank you and Saiyuki for introducing me to your mom. Not too many of us crazy middle-aged anime loving fangirls out there! (Can't wait to see her and your dad in exactly one month's time!)

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they're kind of undeniably in love ^_^

And yay for fangirl friendships! They're looking forward to seeing you & LA, too (sorry I'm missing the trip, need to be here to continue the job hunt! >.<)

[ro-anshi.livejournal.com]

sorry I'm missing the trip, need to be here to continue the job hunt!

I too am very sorry you (and your sister) won't be able to join on the Los Angeles part of the program. One of these days, we'll manage to meet! (Did your sister tell you she and I actually talked on the phone a while ago by accident?)

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

She did, and she really enjoyed it - she just told me now to tell you how much she regrets not being able to go down herself! Someday, someday! (I'd also love to see LA, only been the once (my main memory is that the Mexican food is delicious! ^^))

[gnine.livejournal.com]

Okay, so I MAY have already done a Saiyuki reread around this time last year, but now you're talking 'bout it and mom has all of the officially translated volumes just sitting there, in easy reach and I know I should read it in Japanese but you have my volumes and well...oh well *scurries off to go reread. Again...because, well...SAIYUKI!! ^_-*

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Heh...I was reading the Japanese for some of them because a lot of the translations were...less than accurate. How are the official translations, anyway? (and did they release v.10 of Reload or not? There was rumor of it getting canceled...?)

[nenya85.livejournal.com]

Where did you find a translation of Journey to the West? I've been looking for one.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

The Wiki article has a link to a freeware pdf of a translation of the entire thing - it's colloquial and quite readable (wish it were annotated but hey, free!)

[nenya85.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Going to check it out...