Season Two, Volume Two:

Episode 31: Ambition: The Arrogance Of The Gods:
Having previously made a deal with Homura for godhood, Souto and his team are given the assignment of getting the scripture from the Sanzo party. After splitting up our team of heroes, the enemy attempts to eliminate the team one by one. Sanzo has other ideas about the scroll and patiently leads his attackers into a trap. Will his clever nature be enough against a group of gods?

Episode 32: Fake Star Strike Back: The Pride Of Clowns:
The team arrives in a new town and settle in to get some dinner. They run into their former imposters, now working at regular jobs, who trip out to see the team responsible for their untimely downfall in times gone by. When the imposters snap, they revive their former personas in order to challenge the team, a decision that proves a bad idea for them considering their history.

Episode 33: Faraway Dream: Dried Up Tears:
The team set out in a blizzard with no food or supplies, needing to walk since their transportation is affected by the weather as well. The team encounters the latest being seeking the scripture, a guy who can make it snow and freeze the team like no one before them. Goku is unaffected by the magic and he revives the team. During the battle, we see flashbacks of the man's history (where he has been enhanced to perform the task at hand). It becomes apparent that forbidden magic is at play, magic that even the demons aren't usually willing to use.

Episode 34: Second Contact: The War Prince Once Again:
Homura attacks Goku while his minions attack the rest of the team. Even though the Sanzo Party is losing big time, they are left surprised when their foes leave prematurely. Goku received the biggest beating of the group, but kept his limiter on, something Homura tried to get him to take off. By keeping it on, Homura lost on grounds of principle.

On the surface, the show appears to be a fighting anime but the subtext going on allows the story to have far more depth than the usual anime series. Going into its second season in this domestic release, I can only label this one as Recommended although I'd strongly suggest you watch the volumes in order to keep on track with everything going on. There's a lot to enjoy here for fans of obscure anime but be prepared to watch this one a few times to catch everything going on.

Picture: The picture was presented in 1.33:1 ratio full frame color, as originally shot. For the most part, it was well done and I didn't see any compression artifacts or other problems with the picture aside from a bit of grain and some minimal video noise.

Sound: The sound was presented in either a 5.1 English language Dolby Digital track or the original 2.0 Japanese track with English subtitles. During the dialogue, the separation wasn't all that great but during the fight scenes it was better. In all, I liked the Japanese track better but the English dub was also enjoyable for me.

Extras: The best extra was the background notes that filled in a lot of the cultural information for the series. Considering how limited my knowledge of Chinese mythology is, this made a number of aspects much clearer than they would've been. The other extras were trailers, sketches, a clean open and closing sequence, and a pretty color poster as an insert. One other extra I liked was on the flip side of the poster. It was a brief historical account of Gyumaoh's family tree, titled: The Antagonists.

Final Thoughts: I actually liked this one more than Saiyuki 7, but that was probably due to the fact that it was easier to follow as much as anything else. The technical aspects were good and the extras contributed to the replay value so check it out if you like this type of anime: a buddy series where the buddies aren't really friendly towards one another, only enough to survive.