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Fri, Dec. 9th, 2005
Minekura Kazuya - Saiyuki, vol. 01-09 (Eng. trans.)
Fri, Dec. 9th, 2005 05:34 pmI started reading this because many people were talking about a) how good it was, b) how good the art was, and c) how good it was.
I actually wasn't particularly impressed with vols. 1-3. It took a while to get used to Minekura's art, which is very different from most shoujo and shounen art. The eyes are slantier and tend to swoop downward, the linework is much finer and more detailed, and only Goku has big, sparkly eyes. Sort of.
Saiyuki is a take on the Chinese classic Journey to the West ("sai" in Japanese can either mean written as "west" or "extreme," depending on which kanji is used... so Saiyuki is technically "Journey to the Extreme"), and a very loose (and cool) one at that.
Basically, something has driven all the youkai (demons, but not necessarily evil) crazy, and they've been rampaging around. Genjyo Sanzo, Buddhist priest extraoridinaire, has been ordered by Kanzeon Bosatsu (the bodhisattva Kuan-Yin) to go around with Goku (Monkey), Hakkai, and Gojyo, all youkai who haven't been affected to stop it. Or... find scriptures. Or... find scriptures to stop it.
To be honest, I actually forgot what the plot was! There's a whole other thing in which a mirror group of youkai are attempting to resurrect a demon king for assorted Oedipal reasons, and both groups fight a lot.
The first few volumes aren't all that interesting because the story is very episodic, as opposed to epic (much like Journey to the West). But then Minekura starts getting into the characters' backstory, and hooboy!!! Angst galore! Angst and pretty characters and then I melted into a little puddle and wibbled a whole lot.
The grand arc doesn't get concluded by the end of the nine-volume series and is being continued in Saiyuki Reload (someone -- Rachel? Mely? -- told me that the arc got split up because of a change of publishers or something). But honestly, the arc doesn't matter all that much to me; it's merely a vehicle to let me spend more time with the characters, who all have deep, dark, tortured pasts. Also, I adore the dynamics among Sanzo, Gojyo, Hakkai and Goku (*wibble*HakkaiGojyo*wibble*).
Racing through Saiyuki Reload now, as well as Saiyuki Gaiden, a look at past incarnations of the characters.
Also,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rachelmanjia had mentioned that I should get the books themselves because the translations were really good, but I didn't really take note until some point in vol. 4, where Gojyo is yelling something like, "Frickkin' argh!" Then I sort of stopped and realized that they sounded natural, not stilted at all. The translators also manage to make it so that the characters' voices are all very distinctive, which is nifty! I really want to check out the original and compare it to the translation for fun...
Really, I don't want to write up some objective thing at all! I just want to squee madly about all the characters and the art and the characters and their angst and the art and the characters!
( SPOILERS! )
Me on Saiyuki and Journey to the West
Any other links would be highly, highly appreciated!
I actually wasn't particularly impressed with vols. 1-3. It took a while to get used to Minekura's art, which is very different from most shoujo and shounen art. The eyes are slantier and tend to swoop downward, the linework is much finer and more detailed, and only Goku has big, sparkly eyes. Sort of.
Saiyuki is a take on the Chinese classic Journey to the West ("sai" in Japanese can either mean written as "west" or "extreme," depending on which kanji is used... so Saiyuki is technically "Journey to the Extreme"), and a very loose (and cool) one at that.
Basically, something has driven all the youkai (demons, but not necessarily evil) crazy, and they've been rampaging around. Genjyo Sanzo, Buddhist priest extraoridinaire, has been ordered by Kanzeon Bosatsu (the bodhisattva Kuan-Yin) to go around with Goku (Monkey), Hakkai, and Gojyo, all youkai who haven't been affected to stop it. Or... find scriptures. Or... find scriptures to stop it.
To be honest, I actually forgot what the plot was! There's a whole other thing in which a mirror group of youkai are attempting to resurrect a demon king for assorted Oedipal reasons, and both groups fight a lot.
The first few volumes aren't all that interesting because the story is very episodic, as opposed to epic (much like Journey to the West). But then Minekura starts getting into the characters' backstory, and hooboy!!! Angst galore! Angst and pretty characters and then I melted into a little puddle and wibbled a whole lot.
The grand arc doesn't get concluded by the end of the nine-volume series and is being continued in Saiyuki Reload (someone -- Rachel? Mely? -- told me that the arc got split up because of a change of publishers or something). But honestly, the arc doesn't matter all that much to me; it's merely a vehicle to let me spend more time with the characters, who all have deep, dark, tortured pasts. Also, I adore the dynamics among Sanzo, Gojyo, Hakkai and Goku (*wibble*HakkaiGojyo*wibble*).
Racing through Saiyuki Reload now, as well as Saiyuki Gaiden, a look at past incarnations of the characters.
Also,
rachelmanjia had mentioned that I should get the books themselves because the translations were really good, but I didn't really take note until some point in vol. 4, where Gojyo is yelling something like, "Frickkin' argh!" Then I sort of stopped and realized that they sounded natural, not stilted at all. The translators also manage to make it so that the characters' voices are all very distinctive, which is nifty! I really want to check out the original and compare it to the translation for fun...Really, I don't want to write up some objective thing at all! I just want to squee madly about all the characters and the art and the characters and their angst and the art and the characters!
( SPOILERS! )
Me on Saiyuki and Journey to the West
Any other links would be highly, highly appreciated!