Saiyuki Reload 3 thoughts

[louiselux]

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!"

Comments

[scribblemoose]

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*

[kintail.livejournal.com]

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!

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

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."

[viridian5.livejournal.com]

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.

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

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.