Saiyuki, Vol. 2: Old Friends, New Enemies (2000)
Review by Dindrane
Film:
DVD:

Original Story by Kazuya Minekura
Directed by Hayato Date
Character Design by Yuji Moriyama
Music by Motoi Sakuraba

Features:

• Clean opening/closing
  
• Cultural background notes
  
• Production sketches
  
• Poster
  

Dindrane's Anime Warnings:

• Silliness out of nowhere
• Scary demon villains
• Drinking, smoking, and gambling
• Language

Released by: ADV
Region: 1
Rating: 15+
Anamorphic: N/A; appears in its original 1.33:1 format.

My Advice: Get it.

This second disc of the Saiyuki saga takes viewers even further along on the trail of the demons of Shangri-la. First, we learn a bit more of Sanzo’s past as our heroes meet up with a demon-slayer named Rikudo, who casts talismans at demons and wears prayer beads that look very familiar to Sanzo. Then, the group sees a fortune teller in a marketplace who declares that Hakkai is evil and carrying a dark secret. Hakkai does seem to know this man, but what is really going on? Then, our bishie band meets up with Kougaiji, the son of the Demon King, Gyumaoh; Kougaiji, to save the life of his mother, the trapped demon Rasetsunyo, is forced to turn against humans and help his father’s lover, Gyukumen Koushu, revive this sleeping demon. Finally, we have a brief moment of comedy as a group of imposters has Sanzo and party thrown into jail as imposters themselves.

This group of episodes does an excellent job of developing the characters down their respective arcs, as well as dangling some unanswered questions before us that will hopefully be resolved later. What is Hakkai hiding? Can Kougaiji be convinced that he can help his mother more by helping Sanzo, instead of trying to kill him and steal the sacred scroll? And just who is Chin Yisou and what does he want? At least we finally have a better idea of who is behind the recent troubles with the demons and why, as Gyukumen Koushu struggles to revive her sleeping lover, Gyumaoh, and uses Gyumaoh’s son to do it.

This disc duplicates the kind of features found on the first disc, for the most part, which is a good thing. This disc also comes with a fold-out relationship chart that has pictures of each character, hero and villain alike, and shows with arrows how they are related to each other. This is a good way to remember who was whose sensei, as well as who owes whom their life and so on. Without this chart, the foreign names could become rather confusing to Western audiences, as could the multi-layered relationships of duty, honor, and family.

The audio and video quality are both fine. Again, there are some nice artistic details to the visuals, like the shadow of the Merciful Goddess being in the shape of a crane. The art is overall perhaps a bit more stylized than the first disc, as the legend progresses and firmly enters the realm of myth, along with the combination of CGI and cel animation. The translation in the dub does its best to keep to the spirit of the Japanese original without sacrificing feel and meaning to be merely literal. A translator’s job is also to make an original accessible, and if he or she just translated the original word-by-word, then the actual meaning can be lost.

Overall, if you enjoyed the first disc, then you will love this one. Anyone interested in Chinese or Japanese legend will appreciate this more serious, if historically questionable, version of the Sanzo tale, as will anime fans who just want a good story and fun characters. Any title that can use as its basis one of the most popularized and best-known stories in Asian culture without making it drag or seem done to death has my vote, and Saiyuki is definitely doing a good job of staying active and interesting.