#saiyukiposting

[artsy-hobbitses]

As weird as it sounds I am DEEPLY in love with how Minekura bloodies up her boys, there’s a certain elegance and artistry (?) to it that drives up the urgency to 720% with surprisingly little actual gore.

I like my men battered and bloodied and defiant, and Minekura delivers in SPADES.

[artsy-hobbitses]

Reading my new Saiyuki comic which just came in also means I just noticed Gojyo wearing something he DEFINITELY has no reason to wear in-narrative or in-character. Personal headcanon is that this cross used to be Hakkai’s (since he has a Catholic school background and Kanan was at least visually devout given that she's depicted with one up to the moment of her death) which he was initially found with, but which he left behind at Gojyo's place when he went to find Hyakugan Maoh’s castle, as he feels like he has no right to wear it anymore after what he's done. And during the period where Gojyo assumed he was dead, Gojyo might have found it and kept it as what he thought in the moment (He doesn’t care about its religious significance, just that it belonged to a man he wished he was given more time to know better) was a final memento before Gonou reappears as Hakkai. Presumming that Gojyo actually keeps this character-anachronistic piece even after Hakkai's return, extremely self-indulgent headcanon addendum says Hakkai tells him to keep it, because from a man who knows he's going to hell when he dies, "The only heaven I'll be sent to, is when I'm alone with you."

[artsy-hobbitses]

Gensomaden Saiyuki rewatch DONE

First fifty episodes anyway, for the first time since I was 16 and the verdict:

This is 80%-ish a character drama in anime form and absolutely not an Action anime, at least not until we get anywhere near the Homura arc and tbh I am somehow completely alright with that because what they clearly had to budget for in animation (and I do mean BUDGET), they make up for in pacing, art direction and storyboarding. It's ridiculously atmospheric.

That thing where I say Goku Preston describes Sanzo Jace as his Sun, and his first time seeing Sanzo Jace is Sanzo Jace reaching out for him backlit against the sunlight, symbolically breaking his chains and pulling out of his systemic prison? Yeah, I think I know where that came from.

Every emotional beat still hits for the home run. Every single one.

Homura holy shit you deserved better. BURN IT ALL DOWN.

The amount of child abuse/deaths (Saiyuki does not spare kids, let's make that clear, this is very much a 'terrible things happen to everyone' world) that happen here deserve a Michael Jordan 'Fuck them kids' poster.

The way women are depicted here is. Interesting, In that almost an equal number of them get fridged as there are those who absolutely THRASH the men so I honestly cannot say where this rates on that scale, but it can be said that the roles they play are pretty diverse.

A good 80% of the themes still send me into emotional freefall.

Except that one theme that keeps playing over Gojyo's child abuse flashbacks which is like. Distilled Depression. So depression I didn't have the heart to download it.

And even after how terribly his mum hurt him, he still thought she was beautiful FUCK AUGH ASKJFGSJFGHJFFFF

Playing Hakkai's love theme over the scene where Gojyo is shouldering him bloodied and battered after the season's biggest battle and he's like "I won't faint, you said when you saved me back then that I was going to be the first and last man you brought to your bed, right?" is A CHOICE. Absolutely zero complaints, total perfection, but A CHOICE for sure. The kind there is no heterosexual explanation for.

Throwing up more rainbows in Mantis Shrimp colours as they close the season with Gojyo telling Hakkai that it's hard for him to think of anything to wish upon a falling star for, because sleeping underneath this night sky, just the four of them (and one dragon jeep) on a journey to the west, he's got everything he ever wants, all while Sanzo is secretly smiling to himself and the credits play.

God I love these idiots so much.

[artsy-hobbitses]

HARDCOVER RESURRECTED EDITION CAME SIX DAYS EARLY just one more edition to go before I finish the collection!

Also my husband was cackling because I made tea kettle noises as I was flipping the pages and was like “THIS IS THE ONE!!! THIS IS THE EDITION WHERE HAKKAI RIPS HIS OWN EYE OUT AND YEETS IT I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO SEE IT IN PRINT!!!11 8DDDDD”

(That it was literally the first page I opened up to by accident which makes it more hysterical). We are so exceedingly normal about blorbo in this household 💖

[artsy-hobbitses]

Finally cleared off Saiyuki: Zeroin and the amount of passive-aggressive vitriol Hakkai has for Hazel, far more than any of the group has, felt like it came out of nowhere initially. Until I remember this is a kid who grew up in a Catholic orphanage, probably went to Sunday school all the while he was there and then went on a research scholarship to study physics and theology (despite mentioning to his orphanage's head nun as a child that he didn't believe in god, though in retrospect, this may make him an impartial candidate for the subject at least) in college.

On on hand, it feels personal even if he has zero attachment to the belief system---it was what he was raised in, the nuns were kind to him when he had no one else, and he's really not taking kindly to their beliefs being twisted the way Hazel has to justify Youkai lives being worth far less than human lives (not even getting into Hazel being so thoroughly incapable of understanding different belief systems that he ends up accidentally killing a Native man on a reservation, because he cannot grasp that their forest spirits are not the same as his biblical Demons). On the other hand, Hakkai about two seconds from pulling out his glasses so he can take 'thesis defense' as literally as possible by decking this man with his because WHERE TF ARE YOUR CITATIONS ASSHOLE???? WAS THIS EVEN PEER REVIEWED???

[artsy-hobbitses]

Finally finished reading the Kami-Sama arc (staggered out over a few days) and (paraphrasing) “We need teamwork, which we are historically not particularly good at” turning into the world’s most intense Trust Exercise at the climax—because these idiots haven’t had chill to spare 500 years ago and they’re not about to find some now—where becoming each other’s meat shield is not, in fact, an act of desperation but the plan coming together is.

Something.

The kind of something that turns me into the Ben Affleck smoking meme, somewhere in between the “I trust you not to kill me/I trust you not to die” thing—esp with Hakkai taking unprotected shots from Kami-Sama so Sanzo behind him can blow holes at the fucker through/around him—and the smile Gojyo’s got when he falls for the count only for Goku to pop up right behind him for the hot tag (you rest bro, I got this/you).

When I think of fire-forged friendships, this dysfunction junction quartet who probably debate tossing each other out of the moving jeep while on the road at least twice before lunchtime are like.

The article image.

[artsy-hobbitses]

Credited to @theauthorityvol1 and their post which snowballed into this mess I NEED to put into comic form at some point before I throw up from feels.

With the canon/headcanon that Dokugakuji is a bit of an artist---supposedly it's why his nails are kept trimmed though one might also say that's because he's a swordsman but it could be both!---I'd love to depict what love looked like through his eyes, through the sketches and watercolour paintings Kougaiji might eventually find in the room that used to be his whenever Kou inevitably returns to Houtou castle after the events of the Reload Blast anime.

Kougaiji might have been aware that Dokugaku dabbled in art some time back when Dokugaku doodles him and Lirin hosting a little Mother's Day celebration with a still-frozen Rasetsunyo.

Dokugaku apologises when poked about it, because only then does it occur to him that he might be overstepping, but Kou says it's fine and then asks why he's doing that because 500 years ago, you employed expensive artisans to capture grand, important moments in your life, and he doesn't mind if you want a fee or whatever since this really is good work, but maybe he and Lirin should dress up more formal for this session or something?

Which earns him a guffaw from the Big Guy because if that isn’t Classic Kou, but nah, this is the you he wants to capture to memory, this moment, so that he can show you the you that he sees when you start to feel like you're adrift, and so that he nor you ever forgets.

The 'never forget' part will hit like a sledgehammer when Kougaiji finds all of Dokugaku's art with Kou himself, Lirin and Yaone depicted, and he's so mad because you moron, you made it so YOU couldn't be in ANY of them when you tell him it's so that he never forgets, how is he suppose to do that?? When you're not in a single one of them???

But Kou sees the messy lines, the smudged fingerprints where Dokugaku's trying to fix up a portait of him---noticeably, most older drawings of Kou that Dokugaku does bears strong resemblance to Gojyo, but as time goes by, it's distinctively more Kougaiji himself---and it's like.

You're here. In every line, in every brushstroke, in every imperfection. Even if it's not your face immortalised on paper like you did for us, you're here.

And buried under all of those sketchbooks and watercolours, there is one very old piece that stands out to Kougaiji, because it's not himself or Yaone, or Lirin or landscape studies.

It's of this sweet-looking redheaded kid with a big smile, and red flowers, detailed with an almost apologetic, tender wistfulness, and he takes it on himself to find This Person to give this piece to them, because Dokugaku never forgot.

Even if he walked away, he never forgot the you he left behind, the you that will always stay with him no matter how far his path diverged from yours.

[artsy-hobbitses]

The degree to which I am DOWN BAD for Saiyuki right now is "Looking up 2000s style AMVs" down bad and idc you are all suffering copious amounts of emotional damage with me by osmosis.

I am NOT READY for Dokugaku's final moments with Kougaiji (Saiyuki Reload Blast, I think?) where he repeats the same thing he told his baby brother years and years ago, and Gojyo sensing Something Is Wrong but unsure as to where or what.

I am also FUCKED UP by Kenren's little pinky promise with baby Goku and how that paints Gojyo's incessant quarreling with Goku in present day in a whole different light.

Truly the "We'll always find each other, even across different lifetimes" pioneer in 90s anime.