louiselux | Saiyuki Reload 3 thoughts

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Saiyuki Reload 3 thoughts

Just a few quick thoughts on Reload 3, specifically the last chapters of Against the Stream and the Sanzo ikkou-as-team:

I've been rereading these two scenes over and over in the past few days, where the ikkou are fighting Kougaiji.

desdenova's post about structure chimed in with something I noticed: the scene on page 24-25 : Gojyo, Sanzo and Hakkai move completely instinctively as a fighting team, without even discussing what they're going to do: Hakkai defends and Gojyo and Sanzo flank with a double attack, setting up Gojyo's further attack. Goku and Gojyo attack together later on, too.

It's a very clear development for them, from vol 9 when Hakkai first suggests they attack as a team and Goku has to ask what 'teamwork' means. I'm pretty sure Sanzo would never think to utter the word.

There are other things I like about that scene: Gojyo stepping forward to fight Kougaiji-- but it's Doku he tells that he won't hold back. Is this the first time Gojyo has fought Kougaiji one to one?

Gojyo must be more than a little resentful and jealous of how Kougaiji has replaced Gojyo in Doku's loyalties and this is only highlighted by Doku watching them fight and making those comparisons between the two. Gojyo taunts Kougaiji, which the others don't do (Prince Stupid). In fact, their fight turns into fisticuffs and wrestling, which I like because I can imagine Gojyo just itching to pop him one on the nose. Also, some of Yaone's thoughts about Kougaiji in that scene: 'kinder than anyone' could easily mean Gojyo too.

Also, I love how Yaone and Doku quite openly adore their leader, and Sanzo's annoyance when Gojyo points this out: 'No one asked you!"

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I had a wonderful image then of Kou and Gojyo's fight disolving into a bitch-slapping girlfight. ^___^

Excellent observations. Fascinating. *wallows in wonderful detail that is Minekura!universe*

Ha! Maybe the bitchslapping will come at the end of the journey, when they've got a bit more free time and the pressure's off.

Mmm, I just recently acquired that volume, but hadn't taken the time to read it through yet -- although I did pick up Vol 2 again to start from the beginning of AtS again.

However, I was also looking through Vol 2 (first series) this past week for a reference, and stopped to look through the scene where they first meet Kougaiji's whole team, ie, when Gojyo and Doku first meet after 10ish years. And the mostly-unspoken exchange ends up with telling each other they've chosen their sides and don't regret it, so "I won't hold back." I'm thinking that point you noticed in Vol 3 is a conscious and deliberate echo on Gojyo's part -- definitely it is on Minekura's.

Things like that, and other things described in

desdenova's awesome post, are really giving me a new appreciation of how the whole story thus far hangs together. I spend far too much time appreciating individual moments and not enough stepping back and admiring the forest as well as the trees.

Thanks!

Oh, yes! Another example of Minekura repeating herself in the best way. I'm sure it must be something to do with the serial nature of the story that distracts you from seeing the whole. I've found that too and in fact don't think I've read the whole thing through from start to finish non stop.

Is this the first time Gojyo has fought Kougaiji one to one?

Well, I wouldn't really call it "one to one"; the whole point of that scene is that all three are ganging up on him, yeah? But yes, this is the first time Gojyo has directly engaged Kougaigi. It is also, if I'm not mistaken, the first time Sanzo has seriously participated in one of these inter-team combats. (He did get the drop on Kougaiji the first time the two groups fought, but that was more of a "okay, playtime's over" deal than "I'm really trying to beat you, now.")

I looked over that chapter again, and it really does an excellent job of highlighting the change in the ikkou's approach to combat since the Kami-sama encounter. You see it in the reaction-shots of Kou, Doku, and Yaone: they're all absolutely shocked (and in Doku & Yaone's case, horrified) at the unrelenting efficiency the guys display in their effort to take down Kou. It's like, "Wow, these guys aren't fooling around this time. They're really trying to kill him."

I actually meant one on one to mean 'hand to hand', so sorry for not being clearer. I couldn't remember another scene where they'd actually wrestled each other, or even where Gojyo had engaged him directly. Although in vol 3 of the original series they do all engage him individuall very briefly and Kougaiji catches Gojyo's shakoujo blade between his fingernails.

Which actually makes me think that Gojyo skills must be far more honed by this point.

It's like, "Wow, these guys aren't fooling around this time. They're really trying to kill him."

Yes, and it's also amusing how, when Goku thinks he's might have actually killed Kougaiji at the beginning of the final chapter of AtS, the ikkou all look so alarmed. Like, 'have we *finally* killed him?' You feel that if they had they'd be sorry.

Ah, yeah, the teamwork. I love Doku sneering at Gojyo sending the shakujou's crescent blade on the chain at him until he realizes that Goku snuck in and is about the use the chain and blade as cover to wallop the crap out of him.

I get really ticked off at Doku for Gojyo's sake. Moron, your brother is alive but you're spending a lot of time trying to hurt and kill him in service of the guy you adopted to make up for abandoning him. That is messed up.

I don't even want to guess at what initial training with the shakujou had been like. Can you imagine the early, clumsy mishaps? Eek.

Must be like learning nunchaku, right? People who do that hit themselves in the head a lot at first. Gojyo must have practiced with a blunt blade until he got the hang of it. Still, ouch.

With that length of chain going, he could mess himself up badly from accidentally hitting himself with that alone, even without using a sharp blade. ::shudder::

Although I always imagined that the shakoujou, being an extension of his youkai magic, was more a force of will than anything else so it would go exactly where he wanted it to go every time.

Even with that idea, we don't always instinctively know our own dimensions in space, leading to occasional toe stubbings and closing fingers in doors. I still fear for him. *g*

I have always imagined youkai weapons to be more like extensions of the body than extensions of will-- maybe they're automatically a weapon you're easy and skilled and comfortable with, but you still have to train.

Hakkai certainly seems to get much better with qi as time goes on, and that seems to be his youkai weapon.

Oh, good point! And the image of Gojyo attempting to practise with his new weapon is very compelling. *g*

I actually think qi is something anyone can use if they train-- Hakkai says as much to Goku in Vol. 1. I think his youkai weapon is the Recently Revealed Thing In Zero-Sum.

Hmm, I had forgotten about the Recently Revealed Thing, but I suspect that you're right.

Ohhhh. I hadn't thought of that before, but yes, it makes a lot of sense.

Perhaps that's where Hakkai practised his healing skills? "My hand's come off!" "Please stop shouting Gojyo, I'm trying to concentrate."

It *is* messed up, and I always wonder would they really fight each other to the death? I suppose it can be explained by them both having been able to move on and find a new family elsewhere. I imagine this moving on might be slightly easier for Gojyo than Doku, hence the continual angsting.

*snerk*

My personal conviction that Doku is a moron helps me think Doku is never going to get over it. The man has no self-knowledge. Any personal insight that comes has to be beaten into his head.

By Yaone, for example? She does actually wallop him one at some point, I seem to remember.

Yeah. He was so lost in his "I suck" that he was completely useless to himself and anyone else, just frozen, so she smacked him and started yelling out of him to snap out of it and do something constructive.

Which is very different from Gojyo's brand of 'I suck', which is to avoid thinking too deeply: get drunk, have a fight, have sex.

Definitely. Gojyo's brand of "I suck" is to find something he can do to try to avoid thinking about it. He seems to pride himself on being a doer, not a thinker as part of the image he likes to project.

I Think that Doku thinks more of it as a fun challenge..if anything it actually happened to Gojyo he'd be mortified..consider the brotherhood episode frm the anime

Probably, but I can't help remembering how he left Sanzo's group in the desert to drag their injured selves to town in exhausted Jeep or die even after Kou said that if Goku could defeat him he could use the dragon to get them to town to save the poisoned Sanzo's life. Saving Gojyo from Zakuro gives him some points from me, though he did it by punching Gojyo in the gut.

I do have more feeling toward him in the anime because it had the brotherhood episode. In the manga he tends to really tick me off.

Yeah I would say so..But I think he's sort of taken to his path and will follow it through no matter how stupid that sounds..but the bottom line is..he's still gojyo's bro..

...tho' it makes me wonder if Kougaiji is for some reason forced or actually just orders Doku to kill Gojyo..would he go ahead and do it? Pretend to try his best against Gojyo? Or actually turn on Kou? Or even flee the team due to indecisiveness?...I think that's when we;ll know his true colors..tho' as unlikely as that'd happen..

He's very fortunate that Kou has never forced the issue. I'm not sure what Doku would do if ordered outright to kill his half-brother... and I don't think he knows himself what he'd do until he got to that point.

Yeah that's true..for some reason his blind loyalty seems stronger than his love for his bro but it comes to the nub../=
It's interesting open up the character's psyche

~~Just noticed this place is old..and I get the feeling i've been here before..cept' for some reason i can't recall did'nt comment~~

I was surprised to get a ping for my comment on this way-back entry, but I enjoyed talking to you. *g*

Boku mo! Ja mata na?

I think if I was Gojyo, I'd resent Doku a hell of a lot more than he does, but then, that's the thing with Gojyo. He doesn't hold grudges, especially to the degree he should with the people that deserve it the most. It must make it harder that Doku goes out and replaces him with someone that's the better version of him -red hair, red eyes, mother issues, but a proper youkai.

Gojyo's life is such a combination of people wanting him (sometimes sexually, sometimes just a desire for his presence) and rejecting him - it's unusual for a hanyou to live as long as he did before his mother tried to kill him, which indicates that they wanted to keep him. His mother wanted Gojyo enough to keep him around, feed him, shelter him when infatnticide seems to be pretty standard for hanyou. At the same time, she rejects him, rejects his existence as an actual person (seeing his biological mother only), rejects anything he offers (and Gojyo offers a lot) and at the end, rejects him to the point of murder.

Jien's care before then shows the same thing - he wants Gojyo,enough to look after him, to protect him from his mother, to try and pacify her. He doesn't want him enough to go away with him - choosing to stay with their mother rather than leave- and at the end, when he does choose Gojyo's life over hers... he leaves Gojyo behind. Not so much a case of choosing Gojyo's life over his mother's maybe, as choosing her death over his.

Doku's issue might also stem from this-- his mother saw him as a person, as her son, less than she saw him as a part of his father-- the best part, the one that was tied to her, belonged to her. Doku accepts the self or persona she gave him, and then he does the same with Koujaiji-- he's Kougaiji's man, his subordinate, given that life on his "rebirth", and he holds to that.

If we go into team comparisons, it's interesting to note that Yaone and Doku are the ones that devote themselves to their leader in a religious sense, are saved by him, whereas Lirin doesn't - she doesn't view herself in the same "Kougaiji's________) as the key point of herself, even though she's the one with the most genetic and personal ties. It's interesting, because Goku is so very much Sanzo's, though he's arguably the most alien to him (never been human, born in a different time, etc.).

The Hakkai/Yaone parallel has, I'm sure, been gone in to in much greater detail by others, though it's always interesting to note that Kougaiji saved Yaone, allowing her to keep her life, and Sanzo killed Gonou/caused the birth of Hakkai, giving him a new life but also taking the old. In a sense, both owe their current life to their current leader, and so are tied to him, but Hakkai might also be seen as owing his death to him (and there's a whole other thing in there about how death is not necessarily bad, especially for Gonou/Hakkai, but I won't go into that now).

And Gojyo is the one with the least connection to Sanzo at all, the one who isn't tied to Sanzo, was never rescued by him, never "reborn" through Sanzo's actions, owes him nothing. Gojyo is there just because.

Lots of interesting stuff there.

Isn't there some mention in Gaiden that Tenpou and Konzen had known each other for some time before Kenren ever showed up? Or am I hallucinating that?

I think Gojyo has a strong, but indirect and semi-resentful connection to Sanzo, which is that after Gojyo had gone as far as he could with Gonou-- physically put him back together and gave him a reason to kill the last remaining Centipede Youkai-- Sanzo was the one who went the rest of the distance, went after him when he ran off, put him back together mentally and emotionally, gave him a new name and a new life, and then cut him loose so he could show up again at Gojyo's door.

It was probably the best thing anyone ever did for Gojyo since his brother (who I also have issues with) saved his life and left him holding the bag, but I bet it burns Gojyo up that someone else was the one to save Hakkai when he couldn't-- and I don't think he could have.

I think you're rightabout Gaiden. I'm pretty sure Konzen and Tenpou knew each other quite well, before Goku and Kenren moved in.

I think Gojyo's connection is pretty strong as well, but it's indirect, and it mostly exists because Sanzo tells him he does, because Sanzo orders him to be connected, to do this work, this contribution. I think that Gojyo does it because not to do it would be to break the connection between them, between Hakkai and himself, between him and Sanzo, him and Gojyo. By doing it, he puts himself with them.

It's also possible that he does it to repay for Hakkai, which is another self-inflicted bond. He doesn't have to do this, since Hakkai is nothing to him, but conversely, if he does, then that means Hakkai is something to him, somebody for him...

Or to put it another way, Gojyo doesn't owe Sanzo anything for himself, but only for others, and then only if he... well preyends/accepts that as the case. He's only obligated if these people matter to him, they only matter f they're connected, they're only connected if they share some kind of obligation or purpose...

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Saiyuki Reload 3 thoughts

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