saiyuki rant of doom
BUAH! So I finished Saiyuki Reload's ninth volume last night and...
//Actually, it’s been few nights already since that… I’m just slow at writing my thoughts down.//
(...Haha... And please excuse me and my fangirl rant and analysis. I'm just too into Saiyuki. Can't really be helped. <3)
But here we go:
- I wasn't too keen on the fact that Hazel's past takes about 50 pages of the book at first. I have never been that big of a fan of his, so every extra page he takes from our ikkou's events just keeps adding more of my disliking upon him. But damn, even if I don't actually like the character yet, the chapter definitely at least eased my disliking a bit; he was such a cute little kid! <3 So I'm now just wondering how the heck did he end up to be this suspicious and greasy little queer guy...? Thank god the rest of the volume showed (and actually every time when he's been even a bit serious about something and not just kept hitting on sanzo [...]) that he actually is a good guy (not that he did that much within this volume).
And if sanzo's and Hazel's pasts weren't alike enough, father Filbert surely makes the very last touch. I mean, he's like west's counterpart for east's Koumyou; both have (or had) the same senile feel about them (I think the nonchalant smile had something to do with it ^^') though which lifts up at times and shows the immense wisdom they both had. Both were in the same way very kind and warm characters, perfect adults for abandoned kids like sanzo and Hazel. Though I think Koumyou was a bit scary at times…
I think there's no question that Koumyou was the first and only one Ukoku had respect for or some kind of attachment. "...I'm jealous" as he says almost to himself after hearing Filberts obvious answer: "Of course I do" to his question like statement of: "...You care about him (Hazel), don't you?" and immediately remembering Koumyou who answered the same way ("Of course I do") to the same question, only strengthens the argument. We really don't even know what kind of background Ukoku has, what his life was like before he entered to Zen'ou temple. I can easily imagine it being an unpleasant one, maybe something what Wild Adapter's Kubota had. I'm kind of curious of it (Ukoku's time before Zen'ou), but in the same time I'm hoping that Minekura won't bring it up.
- But yeah, Ukoku has become such an important character, eh? Who would have thought that when he was introduced to us for the very first time? (Well, even Minekura herself didn't know that that time, but...^^') I think that even more that Gyumaoh, Koushu or her team around the whole revival, Ukoku is the real villain here, and once he has been kicked out of the picture, there really isn't any obstacle between sanzo ikkou and the stopping of the revival. Finally. XD (But I hope Minekura still has a lot of Saiyuki to tell us.) But Ukoku is a one badass villain and scary as all hell. I think Tolkien's Sauron is one of the most successful villain ever made. He’s not a big hairy monster, but just a one burning eye on top of a tower, watching everything that's happening. And that's a lot scarier.
Ukoku is like all human emotions, a human, gone very wrong. (At least from the view of a common opinion, that's the way a personality like his would be described). Like the body is still acting like normal, human, but everything inside has died a long ago, rotted away. I love the description Hazel makes of him: "The things he says are like a black stain. *few pages later* It was black. Like a small hole eaten away by a bug. I'm sure that's where the light started to rot away."
He's a perfect match with the muten sutra if we are matchmaking couples between sanzos and sutras based on their natures. And in the same time he's the worst possible person to have it. I think I now finally know what that scene in Ukoku's burial really meant:
"Your selection...I'd like to ask what criteria you based it on."
"The fact that you don't know proves that you're not qualified to participate."
"In that case...Please enlighten me. What is it that makes a sanzo priest?"
"Everything that you don't have"
If I recall right, the first and only time Ukoku has shown any strong real human emotions, is when Kou woke up from that whole brainwashing thing, and he was damn pissed and angry then. I don't see him as the kind of character who acts or acts against others because of hate, anger or for example, revenge in mind etc. because he practically tosses all emotions into a trashcan. "The interference of emotions twist information." So I can't see him letting himself being led by those emotions. And still it seems like he really does have something personal against sanzo. Of course it all could just be a part of his famous game, and no questions that it isn't. But really, it probably wouldn't be any surprise if he proved to have a real grudge against sanzo. Well… I’m kind of thinking that it would be because of the fact that Koumyou sacrificed himself for the young Kouryuu, neglecting and leaving Ukoku behind. Of course this would act as a major crack on his badass image, but it would be so minekura -like. The crack, I mean. Not being perfectly something, like totally evil or good (like everything is, for example, in fairy tales told to you when you were little, like the cruel stepmother and the princess who’s perfectly perfect in every single way). (And this is why I’m hoping that all my theories about Ukoku’s past and possible jealously for sanzo over Koumyou are all in my head: I want him to be completely bad and evil, and he’s doing such a good job in it that any sob story about now him would just ruin everything.)
-And I never dared to hope that we would get sanzo’s heritage! I do remember thinking about it sometimes in the past (because the whole “drifting on a boat” was so vague), but I thought there was no way that Minekura would actually bring it up. *__* But heh, Koumyou has always been portrayed so strongly as sanzo’s father figure throughout the whole series that I think it’s almost crazy to imagine him actually having real parents beside Koumyou, even though the father just impregnated him and mother delivered. I think I had gotten used to the idea of: “Kanzeon just dropped him and his little boat from the Heavens and then Koumyou just found him.” So yeah, just imagining that his real father might be out there somewhere in Shangri-la, or maybe they have even passed by each other, is weird and just plain crazy. And now I’m wondering whether or not this little info was merely just info Ukoku decided to bring up to mess with sanzo a little bit more. Or might it actually lead us to something later?
- And yes. That little info and all the others Ukoku brought up. How did he actually know all that? Although I can imagine him doing research on each of the important character in his little game (though I’m not sure how exactly he still would find out so much), but the other option would be that he just…knows. Because there have been plenty of scenes where he has been somewhere completely different than the ikkou and still knew what they are up to: like in Saiyuki’s eight volume he says: “Yes, yes. But I think the kiddie troupe’s busy with something else right now. And you know what? It just might kill them this time.” This was while the whole kami-sama arc, and because of Ukoku’s connection to him, it might be what would explain his knowledge of the matter at hand, but still, I do recall other scenes where he knows weirdly just too much of the ikkou’s movements (or I’m just going crazy here).
- I have no idea how much of me died of happiness when sanzo referred to the others as some ones important to him, not calling them his slaves etc., not trying to live anymore in that hallucination of not needing nor caring about them,( which although was terribly cute of but in the same time extremely annoying), but finally admitting out loud that they are important, and embracing the whole sanzo ikkou -thing as someone described it. I have always found it very puzzling, the way he’s completely open with himself of Koumyou’s importance to him, he knows it, doesn’t deny it, is very protective of the relationship and throughout the whole series Koumyou has had such and influence over him, his actions and thoughts and even saved him from some tricky situations. And the man is dead to begin with. And then we have the other three and his extremely different way of dealing with them. Of course, after losing someone dear to him, no wonder that he’s been alert with his feelings towards others, not letting himself to care for them too deeply (which, if recall right, came up within the Saiyuki series). A defense system really. But it went in such extreme lengths that that icy cold and harsh statement: “The four of us are just bound by rotten karma. But at least they come in handy every once in a while”,( which, I think, sounds extremely cold and unfair for the others) became the reality to him since he actually believed in those words himself. Heh, after all these 18 volumes of Saiyuki and him still acting this way, I actually almost started to believe that maybe he really doesn’t care for the others at all. (Well, he’s always had his own moments every now and then when his actions haven’t lived up to his unconcerned, earlier statements, but stiiiil.) So this scene was very relieving, too. ;)
But I think that in a lot of ways, this volume has some same themes as Saiyuki’s ninth volume has. That was the volume where they finally invented the word “teamwork” and actually worked together. And here they return back together after being apart, after one member had gone for his own personal mission, like Gojyo had back then, when he was the one to leave the group. And that volume was also the one where sanzo also acknowledged the others:
Kami-sama: “You have so many things! It’s not fair. Hey…Won’t you give them to me?”
sanzo: “I won’t”
(Gah, was I even a bit frustrated when he went back to his “we are taveling together just because of a rotten karma.” after all that... I think I will break something if he says something like that after all that’s happened now… [And although it’s a matter of “of course” that sanzo and the others aren’t the same persons as Konzen and the others on Gaiden, they are still their incarnations so of course we are trying to pick up the similarities and differences between them [and parallels <3] so it’s both fun and heartbreaking to see how different sanzo and Konzen are. Konzen is extremely protective over Goku and no matter how many times the scene of Goku crapping Konzen’s hair and saying how he’s like the sun is showed to us, it always comes to the other way around: Goku is his. And he isn’t exactly trying to hide it either. He acknowledges the change within himself and adores it. I would say the total opposite of sanzo in this matter. And while we can pick up same qualities between Hakkai and Tenpou as well as between Gojyo and Kenren [plus there’s the same kind of feel about them, between the Saiyuki-selves and Gaiden-selves}, sanzo really doesn’t resemble Konzen in any ways. It seems the only thing linking them are the droopy eyes. ^^’)
It also happens to be that kami-sama was Ukoku’s disciple, and that’s when we were introduced to Ukoku for the first time. And now the team is fighting that same boss villain.
Also, “muichimotsu” was a big theme that time, and that it is now, too. But somehow I feel that it hasn’t made any progress since then. Back then in S9 sanzo stated: “It (muichimtsu) teaches to live without attachment…But is it right to throw everything away to live? (…) Then I realized something, more than anything…I’ve been bound by ‘muichimotsu’.”
And in SR9 Ukoku says: “Bound by nothing. Right? If ‘muichimotsu’ is truly ‘having nothing’ then would you, who recities that teaching to this day, honestly be able to abandon everything?”
So isn’t this just going in circles? Sanzo already made “his own version of muichimotsu” and criticized the theme of throwing everything away and already knows that he himself can’t, so isn’t Ukoku’s mindf***ing here pointless? (Although as a scene it is one of the best and powerful ones in a whole while.)
(Ah, I love how sanzo remembers all those scenes starting right from the very first volumes! [And I’m sure there has been enough fangirling over those moments when he’s reaching with his hand and yells “Nooo!” as he sees the very first meetings with Hakkai, Gojyo, and finally, with Goku. {Who also is the one to pull him out. <3}])
(But remembering the earlier volumes… It made me wonder about Kanzeon and Nataku [or what’s left of him]. Where are they…? I mean, they used to appear within the series before, Kanzeon even dropped by from the Heavens, but I think the last time we saw her/him and Nataku [when we are of course not counting Gaiden] was in Reload’s first volume…? Well, maybe Minekura hasn’t felt the need to draw them since she has been working on Gaiden, but…If she/he came by to give sanzo a blood transfusion in the third volume, then surely here too would have been a fine moment for her/him to drop by…? Which also *again* reminds me of that Goku used to have flashbacks of Konzen and the others whenever he turned into Seiten Taisei [well, twice within Saiyuki]. But that didn’t happen the next time in Reload. Which leads me to woder whether or not Minekura plans to have Goku to remember his past. I think it would be so cool if the very next chapter after Gaiden’s last one would be something like Goku waking up and the whole Gaiden we have seen being his dream he saw [because it seems that Minekura’s characters tend to dream of their pasts and remember forgotten things a lot during that] or just otherwise remembering it all then.)
But um… Yeah… To sum it up: a great, great volume indeed! 8D (And I’m sure I forgot to write about something… But I guess this is more than enough for now. *grin*)
//Actually, it’s been few nights already since that… I’m just slow at writing my thoughts down.//
(...Haha... And please excuse me and my fangirl rant and analysis. I'm just too into Saiyuki. Can't really be helped. <3)
But here we go:
- I wasn't too keen on the fact that Hazel's past takes about 50 pages of the book at first. I have never been that big of a fan of his, so every extra page he takes from our ikkou's events just keeps adding more of my disliking upon him. But damn, even if I don't actually like the character yet, the chapter definitely at least eased my disliking a bit; he was such a cute little kid! <3 So I'm now just wondering how the heck did he end up to be this suspicious and greasy little queer guy...? Thank god the rest of the volume showed (and actually every time when he's been even a bit serious about something and not just kept hitting on sanzo [...]) that he actually is a good guy (not that he did that much within this volume).
And if sanzo's and Hazel's pasts weren't alike enough, father Filbert surely makes the very last touch. I mean, he's like west's counterpart for east's Koumyou; both have (or had) the same senile feel about them (I think the nonchalant smile had something to do with it ^^') though which lifts up at times and shows the immense wisdom they both had. Both were in the same way very kind and warm characters, perfect adults for abandoned kids like sanzo and Hazel. Though I think Koumyou was a bit scary at times…
I think there's no question that Koumyou was the first and only one Ukoku had respect for or some kind of attachment. "...I'm jealous" as he says almost to himself after hearing Filberts obvious answer: "Of course I do" to his question like statement of: "...You care about him (Hazel), don't you?" and immediately remembering Koumyou who answered the same way ("Of course I do") to the same question, only strengthens the argument. We really don't even know what kind of background Ukoku has, what his life was like before he entered to Zen'ou temple. I can easily imagine it being an unpleasant one, maybe something what Wild Adapter's Kubota had. I'm kind of curious of it (Ukoku's time before Zen'ou), but in the same time I'm hoping that Minekura won't bring it up.
- But yeah, Ukoku has become such an important character, eh? Who would have thought that when he was introduced to us for the very first time? (Well, even Minekura herself didn't know that that time, but...^^') I think that even more that Gyumaoh, Koushu or her team around the whole revival, Ukoku is the real villain here, and once he has been kicked out of the picture, there really isn't any obstacle between sanzo ikkou and the stopping of the revival. Finally. XD (But I hope Minekura still has a lot of Saiyuki to tell us.) But Ukoku is a one badass villain and scary as all hell. I think Tolkien's Sauron is one of the most successful villain ever made. He’s not a big hairy monster, but just a one burning eye on top of a tower, watching everything that's happening. And that's a lot scarier.
Ukoku is like all human emotions, a human, gone very wrong. (At least from the view of a common opinion, that's the way a personality like his would be described). Like the body is still acting like normal, human, but everything inside has died a long ago, rotted away. I love the description Hazel makes of him: "The things he says are like a black stain. *few pages later* It was black. Like a small hole eaten away by a bug. I'm sure that's where the light started to rot away."
He's a perfect match with the muten sutra if we are matchmaking couples between sanzos and sutras based on their natures. And in the same time he's the worst possible person to have it. I think I now finally know what that scene in Ukoku's burial really meant:
"Your selection...I'd like to ask what criteria you based it on."
"The fact that you don't know proves that you're not qualified to participate."
"In that case...Please enlighten me. What is it that makes a sanzo priest?"
"Everything that you don't have"
If I recall right, the first and only time Ukoku has shown any strong real human emotions, is when Kou woke up from that whole brainwashing thing, and he was damn pissed and angry then. I don't see him as the kind of character who acts or acts against others because of hate, anger or for example, revenge in mind etc. because he practically tosses all emotions into a trashcan. "The interference of emotions twist information." So I can't see him letting himself being led by those emotions. And still it seems like he really does have something personal against sanzo. Of course it all could just be a part of his famous game, and no questions that it isn't. But really, it probably wouldn't be any surprise if he proved to have a real grudge against sanzo. Well… I’m kind of thinking that it would be because of the fact that Koumyou sacrificed himself for the young Kouryuu, neglecting and leaving Ukoku behind. Of course this would act as a major crack on his badass image, but it would be so minekura -like. The crack, I mean. Not being perfectly something, like totally evil or good (like everything is, for example, in fairy tales told to you when you were little, like the cruel stepmother and the princess who’s perfectly perfect in every single way). (And this is why I’m hoping that all my theories about Ukoku’s past and possible jealously for sanzo over Koumyou are all in my head: I want him to be completely bad and evil, and he’s doing such a good job in it that any sob story about now him would just ruin everything.)
-And I never dared to hope that we would get sanzo’s heritage! I do remember thinking about it sometimes in the past (because the whole “drifting on a boat” was so vague), but I thought there was no way that Minekura would actually bring it up. *__* But heh, Koumyou has always been portrayed so strongly as sanzo’s father figure throughout the whole series that I think it’s almost crazy to imagine him actually having real parents beside Koumyou, even though the father just impregnated him and mother delivered. I think I had gotten used to the idea of: “Kanzeon just dropped him and his little boat from the Heavens and then Koumyou just found him.” So yeah, just imagining that his real father might be out there somewhere in Shangri-la, or maybe they have even passed by each other, is weird and just plain crazy. And now I’m wondering whether or not this little info was merely just info Ukoku decided to bring up to mess with sanzo a little bit more. Or might it actually lead us to something later?
- And yes. That little info and all the others Ukoku brought up. How did he actually know all that? Although I can imagine him doing research on each of the important character in his little game (though I’m not sure how exactly he still would find out so much), but the other option would be that he just…knows. Because there have been plenty of scenes where he has been somewhere completely different than the ikkou and still knew what they are up to: like in Saiyuki’s eight volume he says: “Yes, yes. But I think the kiddie troupe’s busy with something else right now. And you know what? It just might kill them this time.” This was while the whole kami-sama arc, and because of Ukoku’s connection to him, it might be what would explain his knowledge of the matter at hand, but still, I do recall other scenes where he knows weirdly just too much of the ikkou’s movements (or I’m just going crazy here).
- I have no idea how much of me died of happiness when sanzo referred to the others as some ones important to him, not calling them his slaves etc., not trying to live anymore in that hallucination of not needing nor caring about them,( which although was terribly cute of but in the same time extremely annoying), but finally admitting out loud that they are important, and embracing the whole sanzo ikkou -thing as someone described it. I have always found it very puzzling, the way he’s completely open with himself of Koumyou’s importance to him, he knows it, doesn’t deny it, is very protective of the relationship and throughout the whole series Koumyou has had such and influence over him, his actions and thoughts and even saved him from some tricky situations. And the man is dead to begin with. And then we have the other three and his extremely different way of dealing with them. Of course, after losing someone dear to him, no wonder that he’s been alert with his feelings towards others, not letting himself to care for them too deeply (which, if recall right, came up within the Saiyuki series). A defense system really. But it went in such extreme lengths that that icy cold and harsh statement: “The four of us are just bound by rotten karma. But at least they come in handy every once in a while”,( which, I think, sounds extremely cold and unfair for the others) became the reality to him since he actually believed in those words himself. Heh, after all these 18 volumes of Saiyuki and him still acting this way, I actually almost started to believe that maybe he really doesn’t care for the others at all. (Well, he’s always had his own moments every now and then when his actions haven’t lived up to his unconcerned, earlier statements, but stiiiil.) So this scene was very relieving, too. ;)
But I think that in a lot of ways, this volume has some same themes as Saiyuki’s ninth volume has. That was the volume where they finally invented the word “teamwork” and actually worked together. And here they return back together after being apart, after one member had gone for his own personal mission, like Gojyo had back then, when he was the one to leave the group. And that volume was also the one where sanzo also acknowledged the others:
Kami-sama: “You have so many things! It’s not fair. Hey…Won’t you give them to me?”
sanzo: “I won’t”
(Gah, was I even a bit frustrated when he went back to his “we are taveling together just because of a rotten karma.” after all that... I think I will break something if he says something like that after all that’s happened now… [And although it’s a matter of “of course” that sanzo and the others aren’t the same persons as Konzen and the others on Gaiden, they are still their incarnations so of course we are trying to pick up the similarities and differences between them [and parallels <3] so it’s both fun and heartbreaking to see how different sanzo and Konzen are. Konzen is extremely protective over Goku and no matter how many times the scene of Goku crapping Konzen’s hair and saying how he’s like the sun is showed to us, it always comes to the other way around: Goku is his. And he isn’t exactly trying to hide it either. He acknowledges the change within himself and adores it. I would say the total opposite of sanzo in this matter. And while we can pick up same qualities between Hakkai and Tenpou as well as between Gojyo and Kenren [plus there’s the same kind of feel about them, between the Saiyuki-selves and Gaiden-selves}, sanzo really doesn’t resemble Konzen in any ways. It seems the only thing linking them are the droopy eyes. ^^’)
It also happens to be that kami-sama was Ukoku’s disciple, and that’s when we were introduced to Ukoku for the first time. And now the team is fighting that same boss villain.
Also, “muichimotsu” was a big theme that time, and that it is now, too. But somehow I feel that it hasn’t made any progress since then. Back then in S9 sanzo stated: “It (muichimtsu) teaches to live without attachment…But is it right to throw everything away to live? (…) Then I realized something, more than anything…I’ve been bound by ‘muichimotsu’.”
And in SR9 Ukoku says: “Bound by nothing. Right? If ‘muichimotsu’ is truly ‘having nothing’ then would you, who recities that teaching to this day, honestly be able to abandon everything?”
So isn’t this just going in circles? Sanzo already made “his own version of muichimotsu” and criticized the theme of throwing everything away and already knows that he himself can’t, so isn’t Ukoku’s mindf***ing here pointless? (Although as a scene it is one of the best and powerful ones in a whole while.)
(Ah, I love how sanzo remembers all those scenes starting right from the very first volumes! [And I’m sure there has been enough fangirling over those moments when he’s reaching with his hand and yells “Nooo!” as he sees the very first meetings with Hakkai, Gojyo, and finally, with Goku. {Who also is the one to pull him out. <3}])
(But remembering the earlier volumes… It made me wonder about Kanzeon and Nataku [or what’s left of him]. Where are they…? I mean, they used to appear within the series before, Kanzeon even dropped by from the Heavens, but I think the last time we saw her/him and Nataku [when we are of course not counting Gaiden] was in Reload’s first volume…? Well, maybe Minekura hasn’t felt the need to draw them since she has been working on Gaiden, but…If she/he came by to give sanzo a blood transfusion in the third volume, then surely here too would have been a fine moment for her/him to drop by…? Which also *again* reminds me of that Goku used to have flashbacks of Konzen and the others whenever he turned into Seiten Taisei [well, twice within Saiyuki]. But that didn’t happen the next time in Reload. Which leads me to woder whether or not Minekura plans to have Goku to remember his past. I think it would be so cool if the very next chapter after Gaiden’s last one would be something like Goku waking up and the whole Gaiden we have seen being his dream he saw [because it seems that Minekura’s characters tend to dream of their pasts and remember forgotten things a lot during that] or just otherwise remembering it all then.)
But um… Yeah… To sum it up: a great, great volume indeed! 8D (And I’m sure I forgot to write about something… But I guess this is more than enough for now. *grin*)