Saiyuki DVD #2, and a Fushig Yuugi comparison

EDIT#1: Let me squeeze in a quick reaction to Naruto episode 93: ( Read more... )

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And now back to your regularly scheduled program of Saiyuki DVD volume 2, commentary.

Oh my god, this is so bad. I keep laughing at it because it's so terrible.

I mean, there are a few jems scattered throughout...

-Droopy-Eyed Monk's bizarre reactions to people. All of them. And to social situations.
-The cussing all around.
-The English voice actors, who play up every bad dialogue moment for all it's worth, with gusto and a wink.
-And Hakkai, of course. In fact, Hakkai is the only one that I have no problem with. Probably because he's really Chichiri from Fushigi Yuugi, version -2.1 (i.e., minus 5 years). I always liked Chichiri. Although Hakkai seems definitely younger than Chichiri. But that's not a surpise either, I guess. That he seems younger. Chichiri, beyond the blood-soaked past and smiling goofy face and magic powers and concerned seriousness, was always all business and duty and serving the cause. That's why he was the de facto leader. At the end of the day, Chichiri knew exactly who and what he was and what he had to do. Hakkai seems to have the bloody past and smiling goofy face and magic powers and concerned seriousness, but hella less direction in life.

...but they can't compare to the overall badness of this show. Bad writing, bad art, inconsistant art (which is even worse), bad random whiny broodyness (Goyjo) , lame and unrealistic character reactions to situations, and a seriously depressing tendency to waste opportunities for good writing. There are so many moments---in every epsiode!-- when this show could be fantastic and fun. Yet, it has a hit & miss ratio of 1:8. That's sad.

It's even more sad, I think, because I watched it not long after watching the new Naruto episode. And even with weird animation errors this episode, Naruto is a hundred thousand times better than Saiyuki.

Anyway, back to the last few very stupid episodes: Can we say, Sailor Moon, anyone? This whole "two bands fight each other then fight giant pink frog" thing just rang of SM to me. And without the cheesy superhero outfits. Instead it was almost-cool-and-sexy outfits, but the cheesyness all the same.

Listen, characters of Saiyuki: If you're not going to run around with a giant bow on your chest and gloves that go to your elbows, you just don't deserve the right to say such cheesy lines. You haven't earned them. Comprendez?


But, yeah.... I'm still watching this show. And in all likelihood I'm going to ask Netflix to send out for the third disc tomorrow. Why?

Free anime. And Hakkai the younger-and-not-quite-as-awesome-Chichiri.



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EDIT #2: Due to thoughts of Chichiri from FY above, self has now spiralled into sad wanna-cry thoughts about that series, which self hasn't done in a long long time. Because that has some really sad sad stuff in season 2. I have yet to watch another anime that spent so much time making me like so many characters only to kill so many of them off. I admired write Yuu Watase for going through with it, but it hurt me to watch it.

I've been looking for the box set of Fushigi Yuugi's second season on DVD, but for 4 years now I've never seen it for less than $175. That's just too much for 13 hours of video. ::cries for insane anime prices::

I know I've compared Saiyuki to FY a couple times now, but really, Saiyuki hasn't earned the comparison yet. Even if their art design is similar. What FY had consistantly from the first episode onward that Saiyuki doesn't is a clear, tight plot. And then the further you got, the more deliciously complicated the plot became until near the end of the two-season show, you felt like you had just invested months of your life into an 800 page fantasy adventure novel and if you didn't get to read the last 3 chapters someone was going to die and it was going to be a bloody, bloody death. Saiyuki, on the other hand, has a very thin plot so far. I've sat through 9 episodes by now, and I have an idea of what the plot is (basically it's a quest to stop evil in the west that's making the demon population go crazy. That's it-- a quest to stop evil. No, really, that's all.) but it's pretty vague and a lot of the things that happen along the way don't seem to have too much to do with it. By the time I got this far into FY, four of the Suzaku warriors had been found, one character had been dragged out of the closet, a big betrayal was under way, and the major character relationships were already under serious strain. This far into Saiyuki, however... all we've done is learned some back stories, met the sub-villains, and wasted way too much time rescuing bystanders.

Also, the characters actually acted a bit more realistically to their situations in FY. When Miaka learns that Yui has willfully betrayed her, she goes bonkers. And they were just best friends. What the hell was up with Gojyo's reaction to meeting his brother after all these years, and learning he works with their enemy? NOTHING! There was so little reaction I was doing successive ::foreheadpalm::s. It was stupid and lame. I mean, I even could have bought into the idea of a minimalist reaction if it has been presented in a way that actually made sense and didn't leave me going, "Um, WTF?"

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EDIT #3: I could be wrong about this, but I think Gojyo is secretly in love with Hakkai and Hakkai is secretly in love with Droopy Eyed. Just a theory I'm throwing out as food for thought.

Funny stuff for you. I bolded my favorites.

Analogies and Metaphors Found in High School Essays

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.