Forum - View topicSaiyuki Reload Blast (TV).
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Tony K.
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 11452 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Saiyuki Reload Blast (TV) Genres: Themes: Plot Summary: It's been two years since the holy monk Sanzo and his followers Goku, Gojyo, and Hakkai were presumed dead, but not only are they very much alive but also continuing their journey to the west. ---------------------------------- Also creating this at the request of Gina Szanboti. |
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SonicFanA
 Posts: 159 |
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Yay! Saiyuki is back! Looks like we are going to find out what happened with Nataku. Episode 4 brings back Gaiden. It is kind of fun seeing Gaiden animated differently through out the years.
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11626 |
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I know. I was wondering how many times they're going to animate this story, but even though this is what, the 4th time around? I still find myself enjoying it, because it's always a little different, with the dialog and the framing and what details they decide to focus on.
The previous episodes were fun too, with some self-aware pokes at their own tropes. I listened to the first episode dubbed, and while I do miss Hunt and wasn't expecting Guardiola, I thought Solusod and Sinclair did just fine. Matranga and Ayers sound like they've never been away from the roles. Certainly much better than the phoned-in performances from everyone in Gaiden. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11626 |
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Episode 5
So it seems like we've finally gotten past where they usually skip over to expulsion. I can't remember whether I've seen Naraku do that before or not (it seems vaguely familiar, so maybe once?), but I don't recall Goku ever breaking his tiara while still in Heaven before. In fact, I was under the impression that Naraku never learned his name. Maybe I just need to go review all the previous versions of this arc. 
But who could stand against that innocent grin? He's like a puppymonkeybaby, except not repulsively creepy. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15580 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Oh, I might say that I have been watching this too. I am probably in the weird camp that I have not actually watched aby of the previous stuff, but I am following it okay. Although, I don't really see the point in this sudden flashback arc.
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11626 |
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Is your question about the meaning of the Heaven arc, or why they suddenly dumped it in here?
I don't know why now, but it's basically just showing their past lives, why they got kicked out of Heaven, and how they're fates have always been entwined, I guess.
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SonicFanA
Posts: 159 |
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Saiyuki Reload Blast Episode 6
Ah, the part of Gaiden that made me cry when I watched the ova. They didn't show the guts though but still as bloody. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11626 |
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Ya know, Reload was just some more Saiyuki stories. So was Reload Gunlock. So I figured Blast would be the same. Instead they seem to be focused on the "reload" part of the title.
Oh well, saves me digging out my disks to rewatch this. Cause I still love this in all its tropey tropeness.
And it was kinda cool to see Merciful Goddess kick some ass. I don't recall her doing that in Gaiden (though she probably did). 
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11626 |
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Episode 7
Finally getting some new stuff. And it's pretty good so far. I like Sharak. Nice to see Sanzo, that is, Gen-pyon, get to talk shop with another Sanzo priest. It also seemed like they stepped up the artwork a bit, but since there was so little action, I guess they could take their time to make all the faces look like Minekura drew them herself, since they only had to animate lip flap. About time the Gyumaoh crew showed up.
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15580 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Maybe I am not understanding the world properly, but there feels like something inherently wrong that all demons seem to make up gangs of thugs who are the same old just evil bad guys, like there is nothing else to the,. So we don't feel bad about them being slaughtered and the main characters leaving behind mountains of corpses, which feels like it clashes just with how the demons otherwise dress like normal people.
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11626 |
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I think the anime assumes you've seen at least one of the previous series and have the background, so they kind of gloss over a lot, among all the stuff they're repeating. I think previous anime seasons are fair game, yes? So unless someone complains, I won't wall-of-black this. I haven't read any of the manga, so there are no manga spoilers.
Yes, there is something inherently wrong with the world, which is what their journey is all about. Remember that Nataku was being sent down to try to overthrow Gyumaoh? He succeeded in sealing him, but then after Nataku died, and our boys were killed/booted out, Heaven kind of dropped the ball on that, and his wife has been trying to break the seal and resurrect him ever since (I think he's just sealed but they keep calling it resurrection like he's dead). Their experiments and the miasma from all the shenanigans has spread from where he's sealed at Houtou Castle in India all the way into China and has driven the demons mad (i.e., human-hating and extremely violent, not necessarily irrational), and so they started attacking humans and wrecking shit. Previously humans and demons pretty much lived in harmony, in the same communities, sometimes intermarrying (I'm not clear on whether that became taboo only after everything went to hell or if it was always so). Sha Gojyo is half demon and his older stepbrother Jien, aka Dokugakuji, (the guy on the left in the last shot of this episode) is a full demon. Gojyo's demon stepmother went nuts though (I think she was always a bit crazy since her husband died, as she was sleeping with her son afterward) and tried to kill him (note the claw marks on his face), but Jien killed his mother to protect young Gojyo. Some other episodes also concerned human-demon relations, and looked at demons who hadn't yet gone mad trying to hold on to their sanity, while the humans around them were terrified of them if they knew they were demons, and treated them badly. Of course some demons were always nasty pieces of work, so the miasma just made them worse. And the closer they get to India, the more every demon they encounter is affected. I forget how, but the demons working directly for Lady Gyokumen seem to be protected from going mad. Jien is working for her because he's an ally of Kougaiji (the guy on the right in the last shot), the son of Gyumaoh. Kougaiji I think doesn't really want his father restored, but Lady G. has carbonited his mother Ratsetsunyo to blackmail him into cooperating with her, with the promise to release her once Gyumaoh is back in action. So anyway, our merry band slaughters all the demons who attack them or humans, but note Gojyo's comment to Sharak about being a decent person after she said she didn't want to wipe out all demons. It's like not hesitating to kill a plague of rabid dogs, but still not automatically equating dogs with rabid. And they've also been known to kill an evil human now and then too. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11626 |
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Episode 8
Well, looks like I didn't need to write all that after all, since they just recapped the hell out of it.
I have to admit it's a pretty creative way to weaken Sanzo by making his scroll unusable. I've always wondered where he keeps all his ammo though. They used to at least show him reloading sometimes. I got a chuckle out of his answer to how he became a Sanzo priest since he hadn't learned half of the stuff he's supposed to know. "I'd like to know that myself." I'm now curious about what's under Hassan's hat. I wonder if he's actually demon like Sanzo's party. |
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Dessa
 Posts: 4438 |
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Well, and now we know exactly why they gave us the Gaiden backstory.
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11626 |
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Episode 9
I'm kinda shocked they spoiler[killed off Dokugakuji]. Though it remains to be seen if it's permanent. I've been waiting for them to drop the other shoe over Gojyo's demon mark, so that's probably going to be the trigger. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11626 |
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Episode 10
While they're blazing through the new stuff now, having spent most of their time on the old parts, I have trouble seeing how they're going to find a reasonable stopping point in two more episodes. So zero fallout from the death of a major supporting character, huh. And that was quite a shoe dropped by the "loli hag," which they probably won't have time to dig any deeper into. Actually, they dropped so many shoes in this episode, the writers must all be going barefoot by now. The boys "relaxing" in the middle of nowhere was nice, and the credit card gag surprisingly didn't get old. More nostalgic than anything. Sharak's little secret was nice too. I'm thinking Hassan's hat really is hiding what I thought it was.
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