Gensomaden Saiyuki
Jun. 26th, 2003 05:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liralenThis last Christmas ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
incandescens gave me a box with a bunch of DVDs in it with cool Anime drawings on the outside, and three DVDs on the inside and everything was written in Japanese. We'd been talking about the Chinese novel "Journey to the West", which is actually four huge volumes, and it's rather cool supernatural adventure stuff. Lots of involved, extended plot lines throughout. Turns out that the DVDs were a copy of the first season of Gensomaden Saiyuki, which is an adventure very, very loosely based on "Journey to the West".
The world views are vastly different, the characters far, far, far cooler and more modern and, a huge plus for me, done in very Anime style. I've spent pretty much every moment that I'm Jet-free sneaking episodes from the DVDs AND I bought the second set of episodes for myself.
It's mildly addicting. One side characters said, translated roughly, "They seem to be destruction and death dressed in human form, but the way they live their lives is more eloquent than any scripture." That captures a facet of my fascination with the series.
The series also, amusingly enough, captures something of what I felt about the novels in odd ways, and how I'd wished they'd been more about. It's a cool study of how to take a work and make it different and unique in essential ways. I think I really like this series for itself.
So thanks to incandescens for introducing me to it!!
incandescens gave me a box with a bunch of DVDs in it with cool Anime drawings on the outside, and three DVDs on the inside and everything was written in Japanese. We'd been talking about the Chinese novel "Journey to the West", which is actually four huge volumes, and it's rather cool supernatural adventure stuff. Lots of involved, extended plot lines throughout. Turns out that the DVDs were a copy of the first season of Gensomaden Saiyuki, which is an adventure very, very loosely based on "Journey to the West".The world views are vastly different, the characters far, far, far cooler and more modern and, a huge plus for me, done in very Anime style. I've spent pretty much every moment that I'm Jet-free sneaking episodes from the DVDs AND I bought the second set of episodes for myself.
It's mildly addicting. One side characters said, translated roughly, "They seem to be destruction and death dressed in human form, but the way they live their lives is more eloquent than any scripture." That captures a facet of my fascination with the series.
The series also, amusingly enough, captures something of what I felt about the novels in odd ways, and how I'd wished they'd been more about. It's a cool study of how to take a work and make it different and unique in essential ways. I think I really like this series for itself.
So thanks to incandescens for introducing me to it!!
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no subject
Date: 2003-06-26 05:28 pm (UTC)The second series, featuring Homura and his comrades, was written purely for the anime, and wasn't in the manga. Though Minekura, the author, did afterwards do a tiny dozen-page episode involving Homura, and has featured him and comrades in some of the artbooks, she has apparently said she is not going to bring him and comrades into the manga formally. (Sniff, cry a thousand fans.) It has some very fun moments, but it also has some rather obviously filler episodes.
Though one part you will very much enjoy in the second series is the brief (2-3 episode) flashback to 500 years ago, and part of what happened which resulted in Goku being bound for 500 years and the other three dying. We still don't know the full story. Alas.
But you knew I was an enthusiast. ;)
no subject
Date: 2003-06-26 10:51 pm (UTC)But where did you get the second set of episodes? The show's just starting to come out in America, only 2 DVDs so far IIRC. Since I've otherwise seen only a very poor fansub of a chunk of the first season, it'd be lovely to find out what happened without waiting more.
There's some truly gorgeous fanfic out there that I'm sure
Yay having time to enjoy stuff in stolen moments again, finally! If I sent you Utena, do you think you'd get around to watching it?
no subject
Date: 2003-06-27 01:46 am (UTC)Thanks for the compliments. ;) And that story about the trial of Hakkai by mjj is one of my personal favourites, too.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-27 09:29 am (UTC)The last episode on the first set was pretty appalling, too, but it's better than having to wait for the dub. *grin*
no subject
Date: 2003-06-27 01:23 pm (UTC)However, now that it's being brought out legally, at the rate of a DVD every couple of months, the subtitling on _those_ seems tolerable so far. (The dubbing is an entirely different matter. Hakkai swearing? Hakkai saying, "Shit!"? Precisely.)
no subject
Date: 2003-06-27 02:47 pm (UTC)Ah... I now see the legal DVD's.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-27 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-27 02:54 pm (UTC)I'll have to buy the legal ones, now that I know that they exist, too, but in the meantime, it would be cool to have something that I won't be holding my head over while I'm watching the second DVD set.
*grin*
no subject
Date: 2003-06-27 09:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-27 09:30 am (UTC)Actually, the first 3 DVD part of the series was actually pretty good, so far as the subbed translations, enough to know what's going on.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-27 09:35 am (UTC)I like it well enough, and Jet's getting some Cartoon Network anime on a regular basis, so I don't think that this stuff will 'hurt' him at all.