The Show:
The Saiyuki Double Barrel Collection wraps up with volume 6. This
two disc set presents volumes 11 and 12 of the original releases at a reduced
price, and finishes up the story of Homura, the War God and his attempt
to remake heaven and earth in his own image. Though the story does
reach a conclusion, it was a little dissatisfying, and when all was said
and done the show just seemed to drag on too long and have too many filler
episodes.
Series synopsis:
Based on an ancient Chinese tale, Siayuki takes place back in the dark
ages of prehistory, when demons and men lived together peacefully.
Something has happened though, and a dark force has fallen across the land.
Now demons have become violent and are attacking humans whenever they find
them. A trio of sages detect the source of the ills: someone is merging
science with black magic and trying to resurrect a powerful demon.
To prevent this, they send a monk and three demons (who have not been
overcome by the dark force) on a journey to the west; to India. There
they are to stop the resurrection of the dark god. The four
who are chosen are Sanzo, a pragmatic monk who possesses a powerful 'scripture,'
Goku, the Monkey King who is always hungry, Hakkai, a quite and thoughtful
demon who is good in a fight, and Gojyo, a randy water sprite who constantly
fights with Goku. As the four travel to their ultimate destination,
in Hakkai's dragon that can turn into a Jeep, they encounter teams of demons
who are intent on ending their journey early.
In the second season (starting with volume 4) the team has a new enemy,
Homura, the Prince of War. This deity wants to obtain Sanzo's scripture
in order to destroy heaven itself. This guy is no push-over and promises
to add some problems for the group traveling west.
This show is fairly episodic in nature. Though there is a bit
of continuity, for the most part there are stand alone episodes, with the
occasional two-parter, that have the team traveling to a new town and fighting
the demons that they find there.
Volume 6:
This volume holds together better than most, since it involves the last
final battle with the War God Homura. After a stand alone episode
and some more time in the past filling in background details, the story
shifts into overdrive. Homura and his companions approach Sanzo and
give him an ultimatum, one that they know he'll never agree to: turn over
his scripture or face the consequence. When he doesn't comply, a
battle of epic proportions takes place.
You see, Homura's plans are finally about to come to fruition, and it's
up the Sanzo and his friends to keep the God from remaking both heaven
and earth. In order for his plan to work though he needs to sacrifice
Goku, something that he's more than willing to do. With the stakes
so high, Sanzo and his companions can't afford to lose, but Homura has
created a number of traps and barriers that will buy him the time he needs
to destroy the universe that we know.
This last volume wasn't bad, but somewhere along the line this series
just lost me. Though I enjoyed the second season more than the first,
when I received this volume in the mail I just sighed. I sort of
dreaded watching these last two discs, since I realized that I really don't
care what happens to any of the characters, the good or bad ones.
This is an episodic series, which is fine, but the shows just started blending
together and each one seemed the same as the all of the previous ones.
I'll admit that this volume does a little better since it's wrapping up
the last major story line, but all in all a lot of the episodes in this
series seemed to be going nowhere.
The ending to the show was okay, though a little too melodramatic for
my tastes. This isn't a show that is familiar with subtlety, and
the whole battle in the tower took too long and was more drawn out than
I would have liked. When all was said and done, I wasn't moved or
really even entertained. I was just glad that the series was over.
The DVD:
This two disc set comes in a clear single-width double keepcase.
There are four episodes on each disc, each one of which seems to be identical
to the original releases.
Audio:
This DVD has both the original Japanese soundtrack in Japanese, and
a 5.1 English dub. I alternated language tracks as I watched
the show, and enjoyed the Japanese track a bit more. The English
dub was fine, there really wasn't anything wrong with it, but I felt that
the Japanese voices sounded better coming from the characters than the
English ones. Both dubs sounded good, with no hiss of distortion
being present.
Video:
The full frame video quality was about average for a recent show.
There was some aliasing, but the colors were bright and the image was sharp.
A solid transfer that fits the show well.
Extras:
The both discs in this set includes the original opening and closing
animations, a reel of production sketches and many text pages of cultural
notes. The last of these I found very helpful and interesting.
Final Thoughts:
This isn't a bad show, but it just doesn't offer a lot. It's a
run of the mill anime that really doesn't offer anything new or exciting.
This volume does wrap up the big story arc from the second season nicely,
but the show never really made me care about the characters or what happened
to them. Because of that, the last few episodes weren't suspenseful
or engrossing. If you've followed the show this far, be sure and
pick this up to see how everything turns out. This would make a good
rental, but I don't see much replay value in the series.
Buy: