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The Show:
ADV is back! The one-time leader in
the US
anime market fell on hard times and it was looking that they might not
survive. They sold many of the property
rights they possessed to FUNimation and went a long time without
releasing any
anime. I was ready to right them off,
but it looks like I was a bit premature.
ADV has just released several boxed sets of earlier released
series, all
at bargain prices, and I for one couldn't be happier.
The more companies that are releasing anime,
the better for the US
anime market and consumers. It's a
win-win situation. One of their recent
wave of series sets is Saiyuki, an
amusing light tale of demons, magic, and the possible end of the world.
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 detects 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.
The first season involves the group mainly travelling to new towns and
fighting
the demon or evil presence that they discover.
The best episodes are the ones that reveal the characters
backgrounds
and history, and the occasional two-part story.
Those are plotted a bit more deeply and don't feel as rushed.
In the second season 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, he's a god after all and
immortal, and
promises to add some problems for the group traveling west.
This series is enjoyable, though not anything special.
Some of adventures are exciting, and there
are some good laughs over the course of the program, but it never rises
above
the mediocre lever. One of the reasons
is that Saiyuki is fairly episodic in
nature, especially in the first season, and it has the feel of a
"monster
of the week" show a lot of the time.
Thought there's not a lot of continuity the nice thing is that
the show
will unexpectedly present an episode that refers to earlier events. Because of that, at least in part, the
characters don't change from the way they are when you first meet them. Their personalities are pretty much set in
stone.
One of the things that I really dislike is the frequent references to
modern
day conveniences that didn't exist in ancient China.
The group travels around in a jeep, they pay
for their food with an ATM card and Sanzo packs a gun, but the villages
that
they encounter have no electricity or any technology at all. I'm sure this was done for humor's sake, but
I just found it distracting.
Another strike against the show is that the animation is pretty cheap. While not the worst that I've ever seen, it
is pretty well down on the list. Most of
the show is still images with just the characters mouths animated. A lot of the action scenes consist of still
images that are panned across or zoomed in on.
I will admit that they do a good job of giving the illusion of
motion,
but it's just an illusion. The show does
use some infrequent CGI effects, such as when demons explode
(bloodlessly)
after being killed. This motion just
serves to remind viewers that the rest of the show is very limited.
The DVD:
The ten discs that make up the two seasons of Saiyuki come in two
inch-wide
cases. Each case contains five discs on
a spindle. That really surprised me, I
was assuming they would come on pages, and putting them on spindles was
a bad
choice. The discs are too easily
scratched, and it's hard to get the disc you need.
The two cases have a cover, similar to the limited
edition slipcovers that come on some DVDs.
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:
Nothing in the way of extras, just some previews for ADV titles, some
of
which they no longer sell. Oh yeah,
there's also an ad for NewType USA,
ADV's magazine that is no longer being published.
Final Thoughts:
This isn't a bad show, but it just doesn't offer a lot. It's a
run of
the mill anime but for the price it's going for, half of what the
previous
collected edition retailed for, I'd say it was worth picking up. There's certainly more than enough
entertainment to justify the price, especially with the discounts
available at
various Internet retailers. Recommended. |
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