Up until high school, my anime watching was done via Toonami, Kids WB, Adult Swim, and Blockbuster rentals. Back then, watching anime online would've been an absolute chore--hours of downloading just to watch one episode. It was this way throughout all of high school too, only becoming easier as the 2010s were beginning. Fansubs were passed around on VHS tapes and burned DVDs that you got from various uh, sources that were typically questionable. For a kid, accessing anything like that was not going to be often, confined to someone passing something around from someone's older sibling. My early manga reading went from issues of JUMP bought for $5 at the grocery store to reading whatever Viz and Tokyopop had put out while sitting on a couch at Borders. Back then, I tended to gravitate to manga that was similar to shows I'd already watched. By high school, two major things happened. One, I was sick to death of tournament arcs and other boring shonen cliches and said fuck it, what's in the girly shit. Two, my parents switched from basic cable to getting all the premium channels that sometimes had anime that wouldn't normally be on basic cable for one reason or anything. And so started my new explorations. As for shojo and josei, I discovered that much like the shonen stuff I was bored with, nearly all of it was also absolute garbage. I did get a few favorites out of it though, like Hakushaku Cain. Very relateable manga. Saiyuki was another found favorite during that time. I didn't seek out the manga first, but I'd heard of it by then. I knew it was really popular with fujoshi, so I'd ignored it for a long time. I figured it was one of those shows like Weiss Kreuz that's just a paper thin empty plot, and not much else beyond aesthetics whose popularity was solely due to having "pretty boys" (how anime fandoms define "pretty boys" anyway, they sure do use that term quite loosely). TBH, that element alone probably was the real reason Saiyuki was popular at that time, but I ended up liking it for very different reasons. I came across Saiyuki through Encore WAM's afternoon anime slot. This slot lined up with right about when I'd get home from high school. I remember this slot, when I watched it at least, aired Saiyuki Reload, Saiyuki Reload Gunlock, Gokusen, and Samurai Deeper Kyo at various points. These were all very "budget" anime, cheap to acquire and not too long in length. All of them were primarily action-oriented, which surprised me given Saiyuki's reputation with being mostly fujoshi shipping the Sanzo party in various number combos. My brother and I would sit and watch Saiyuki every afternoon for probably over a year straight, not minding reruns. In the evening, we'd switch to AZN's anime slot, which was usually Descendants of Darkness, another show popular with fujoshi for obvious reasons but was relatively popular outside of that group as well for its supernatural noir elements. You'd often see Descendants of Darkness on lists of "anime that has gay or suggested gay content that would appeal to non-yaoi fans", along with anime like Gravitation as opposed to shit like, IDK, Sukisyo or some shit. Someone just had a flashback reading that name. Can you guess the next genres I explored after shojo and josei were BL and GL? After that venture I then went to explore seinen, starting with Berserk and Gantz. What a journey. Anyway, back to Saiyuki. I ended up becoming a fan of the show, bad as Reload and Reload Gunlock were. So much so I then sought out Gensoumaden, which was actually made first and covered the earlier manga volumes, and online scans. Saiyuki was the second anime to make me seek out scanlations, the first being Inuyasha. For both of these, I had to go to Livejournal, as Viz and Tokyopop were far behind and neither company could be trusted for different reasons. Viz was still publishing some manga (Inuyasha, in fact!) flipped to be read left to right and censoring all kinds of random shit out of their manga. Hakushaku Cain was one of the victims of this, removing religious symbolism outright relevant to the overarching themes in the story and removing a violent image that's absence makes an entire chapter make absolute no sense as our hero Cain, who is supposed to be staring at a disturbing discovering is now just staring at nothing at all, really. (And that's not even getting into the weird naming issues that were constant in the series. Sorry to Jezebel. OH EXCUSE ME, "Jizabel". Who the fuck okay'd that one? You can't just rename a dude Jiz, man.) Tokyopop on the other hand was notorious for dropping really popular titles midway through a series, leaving the official release perpetually in limbo; or heavily promoting manga that was already canceled or on permanent hiatus in Japan. So, I went to LJ. Things typically followed the pattern of raws went up (flocked), quick translation went up (probably public), then scanlation went up (flocked). I kept up with the manga scanlations on and off, lost interest for a bit but came back after Burial, and remember waiting patiently for each Gaiden OVA to come out, having to download each episode under an flocked post, first raw then again subbed. I enjoyed the manga much more than the older anime. By Burial, we were finally getting some proper blood but Gensoumaden, Reload, and Reload Gunlock were all so tame compared to the manga. And there was no boobs out. Tragic. That was another surprising thing for me. Before I watched Saiyuki, I didn't expect there'd be characters like Bosatsu. Damn did I have a crush on her. She's still hot. Haha. Minekura and Kaori Yuki were out there providing all that hot guys touching with a side dish of big tits in the background. That certainly appealed to bisexual teen me. Much as I loved the series, things paused for a while. Minekura has had many health issues over the years, even now. With no updates any time soon, eventually I lost interest and moved on. I rarely checked for updates after a certain point. To my surprise, recently I learned about Zeroin, a bit shocked there was any new Saiyuki anime...only to find out Blast also existed. So, I had some watching to do. That got me thinking, maybe I should rewatch everything. At least, everything that was adapted from the manga. Saiyuki, like many an anime from the 90s and 00s, had a lot of filler. I came across this blog post that listed out what episodes were actually adaptions and went from there. I was curious how my wife might react to this show from my younger days, so I invited her to watch everything with me. I'll be listing both of our reactions to each anime. Before I started my rewatch, my favorite character had been Goku. I related to him a lot in weirdly specific ways. (Someone's trying to sort out how Goku's story overlaps with anything in Cain right now. Haha.) My favorite adaption was the third episode of Burial. I was curious if that would still be true by the end of the rewatch and how I'd like the two new anime. I didn't have high hopes for Zeroin, because I remembered very strongly hating Hazel, mostly due to me really not liking him while watching Gunlock more than being related to his manga counterpart. But the annoyed feelings from years ago were still there. Blast I was more hopeful for, mostly because I wanted to see Sharak animated. Well, now you know my little backstory. Took a while to get to the main point of this, but that's kinda how it is with Saiyuki, isn't it? I'm sure none of you really cared about any of that stuff anyway. Are you ready, you hellions?

Gensoumaden Saiyuki

Holy shit. How did anyone watch this?! We tried, really tried. But we couldn't finish Gensoumaden's non-filler episodes. Everything is so...childish compared to the manga. No boobs out, no blood, demons just evaporating and shit. What the fuck is this baby crap. Minekura's early manga art is really bad and Gensoumaden's might technically be better art, but it looks so damn generic. It could be any other random 90s-early 00s anime. The mood is the same way, despite many parts being almost panel by panel. It's just so weirdly off despite not technically being inaccurate. The things that should be happening are happening, but it feels like it's been stripped of everything that makes Saiyuki what it is. It feels so safe. For an anime adaption of a bunch of trashy, rough idiots, this just comes off so sterile and kid-friendly. We bailed on this one. I summarized the important parts like I did when we skipped around through Zoids. Dunno how the hell I convinced her to sit through Zoids with me. Thanks, Thomas. God, how the hell did I get her to sit through all of DBZ+Super and all of Yu-Gi-Oh? Haha. I'm sorry, baby.

Saiyuki Reload

Reload is a step down even further in animation, but stylistically, looks more right. Things aren't quite as "mature" as in the manga, but they're not as juvenile as Gensoumaden either. That's a step up, but there's a lot of padding here too. Gensoumaden also had this problem. I don't like adaptions that cram everything from a manga back to back with no breathing room, but a lot of old anime would just fill space in between real scenes with so much unnecessary bullshit. The main highlight of Reload is the Kami-sama arc. It's alright, though still very much toned down from the manga. I did enjoy watching this part of Reload, but not really anything else. During the Kami-sama arc, I kept thinking of how much I'd rather be reading the manga. I couldn't give less of a shit about Kou's subplot. Dokugaku gets on my fucking nerves. I don't hate Kou, but I can't stand anyone else in his group. Cheesy as it is, the opening to Reload still makes me nostalgic. That opening shot of their backs as Bosatsu says "are you ready, you hellions" is the mental image I get when I think "Sanzo Party". Reload isn't good, but it'll always have a special place in my heart for getting me into Saiyuki in the first place.

Saiyuki Reload Gunlock

Gunlock is effectively pointless with Zeroin existing. After the little arc with Kou at the start that continues on from where Reload left off, there's not much left to Gunlock in terms of manga adaption. Gunlock started the Even a Worm/Hazel arc when the manga had only just started it and then spent the bulk of Gunlock on that with no proper material to adapt from. Animation in Gunlock is worse than Reload and while not exactly right, offers too few major differences with how the Hazel arc goes down to even be interesting as an AU. Completely skippable at this point.

Saiyuki Gaiden

Gaiden, what a mess you are. Not knowing that Blast was going to adapt the first half of Gaiden's manga plot, we watched Gaiden and I spent the first OVA explaining all the things the anime was literally skipping forward through like some jackass fastforwarding most of a movie. Once the pace settled down, the OVA was really good. But that first episode is a major strike against it, as much as I loved the rest of it. Like Burial, Gaiden is much more graphic than the earlier anime titles. I knew what was coming, but I was still in shock when I first read Tenpou's death in the manga. Absolutely gruesome! And to do that to one of the main characters. I loved it. I thought then and there I needed to do something like that in something I wrote one day. Sorry to a certain someone in Mists. The OVA keeps up the gore level. We get a few shots of Tenpou's guts hanging out and loads of blood. Both Gaiden and Burial being OVAs really helped in the content being closer in maturity level to the manga. Gaiden may be the goriest out of all the Saiyuki adaptions. Don't worry. I'll spare you the intestines here. My wife liked the opening for this one. She would make me play the opening for this one every episode. Gaiden's ending is the saddest thing in the entire series. Naturally, we went from Gaiden to Burial to pick up where Goku's story left off. I thought she'd be bored during this one, but she got into Gaiden pretty quickly, once the bullshit half of the first OVA was done with.

Saiyuki Burial

We've arrived at my younger self's favorite place in the adaptions that were around until I left. Gojyo and Hakkai's episode was my favorite out of everything animated, with Goku's section being a close second. But I loved every part of Burial. I mentioned before Goku was my favorite character back then. Koumyou was my second favorite. Burial has the lengthiest amount of screentime Koumyou's ever gotten animated, for obvious reasons. Late Show was also my favorite opening, specifically Gojyo and Hakkai's version. Burial didn't disappoint. From start to finish, it was just as good as I remembered. I think this go around, I liked Ukoku's section more. He's such a disturbing individual, but he's so interesting to watch. Ukuko makes for a great antagonist, especially compared to Kou and his gang. I know I keep harping on about how I don't like them, but I really don't. My wife liked the priest Sanzo took over for. This go around, Goku's section didn't feel quite as emotional to me. I still really liked Gojyo and Hakkai's section, but I think Ukoku's chapter may be my favorite now out of the lot. They're all good though. As with Gaiden, Burial is more graphic than the earlier anime adaptions, but this one is somewhat less graphic compared to Gaiden. The goriest section is Ukoku's for sure. I still like Late Show. When I was younger, I liked most of the music used in all the adaptions. This go around, I only really liked the music in Gaiden and Burial. I suppose my tastes in music have changed a bit since back then. A funny note. When we got to Hakkai and Gojyo's section and Gojyo's old buddy showed up, my wife said "I was going to make a reference to that Gallon of PCP skit (WKUK), and now we have a hostage situation". If you haven't seen that skit, I'd look it up and check out my list of WKUK skits on my Listfauxgraphy page for my personal favorites. They have some skits, like any old comedy group, that haven't aged well or were bad even then, but most of their skits actually still hold up pretty well. When I was in high school, I really didn't like Gojyo. By the time I got to Burial years later, I had realized why. While I related to Goku in some ways, especially in regards to my early childhood, Gojyo was reminding me a little too much of my teenage self in very unflattering ways. I could admit that by then. Once I accepted that was where the negativity was coming from, I got over it and came to really like the guy. I don't dislike anyone in the Sanzo party. Actually, I can relate to all of them, just in different aspects of my life. Sanzo in ways that I don't want to talk about at all. And we will be moving on now.

Saiyuki Reload Zeroin

We've finally reached the new stuff. I was hesitant to get into this one. Again, negative reaction to Hazel and all that, but I was like, you know, maybe I'll have different thoughts on him this go around. Immediately, I really didn't like the art and animation style they went with for Zeroin. It's very comic book-like, but not in a way that makes me think of Minekura's actual art. Really didn't like that, but I got used to it. Whatever subs I was watching kept translating Hazel Grouse as Hazel Growth and driving me absolutely insane with that. GROWTH?! Why?! Gato became Gat, which may be technically actually correct, but damn it, he will always be Gato to me. My cat man that has nothing to do with cats. Initially, I was really hating Hazel again. Intensely. But he did grow on me. (Oh, is that where the GROWTH comes from?) My wife was much softer towards Hazel than I was by the end. He's alright. Better than Kou's gang for sure. Fuck them. The best part of Zeroin was the final battle with Ukoku! This was some good stuff. Back during Reload, during the Kami-sama arc, I remember really feeling that the guys were giving it their all and barely surviving through it, you know, that early DBZ kind of desperation. The fight with Ukoku has that same feeling, but far more intense and frightening. My wife commented she didn't like Ukoku, but she liked when he'd show up because that meant shit was about to go down. I'd forgotten there was a lot of great Sanzo+Goku stuff in the Even a Worm arc because my brain was so clouded by "FUCK HAZEL" thanks to Gunlock. The demon village the guys stay in when they're separated from Sanzo and the experiences Goku has there were some of the moments from the Reload manga I remember really kept me interested in the series when I was trying to follow things on LJ. Also, I just want to say, since we're on the topic of that part of the arc, what the fuck is up with people shipping Goku with Sanzo? I mean, it's always been clear that Sanzo is Goku's dad, but Goku outright says it here. Sanzo's so much Goku's dad he fucking reincarnated to be his dad for a second time. Like damn. I get that they have some really close bonding and it's really sweet. I love those scenes too, but they're not romantic. There's other types of love out there besides romantic, you know. Eh, can't get through to fandumb. When the guys are in the demon village segment, there's that moment where they're all in Jeep talking about how they as a group don't really belong anywhere in the world. That always stood out to me, and I really like that scene. So many things in media never get portraying outcasts right, but I feel like Saiyuki does. The guys are great together as a group, but they can't be anywhere for long. They don't belong anywhere, except with each other. And no matter how many powerful people they defeat or how far they get in that journey, that's never going to change. Zeroin is less graphic than Gaiden and Burial, but more so than the older anime titles. We even get a big classic anime shadow over Gato's lower half when he's cut in two. I don't really mind it. Anything's better than the stupid evaporating demons in Gensoumaden. And when I say less graphic, that doesn't mean there isn't plenty of blood in this. Because there definitely is. It's bloody, just less gorey. One last thing. Never remind me Ukoku has sex. I DON'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THAT.

Saiyuki Reload Blast

Now, we've reached Blast, which covers the most recent manga material. Everything is adapted pretty much as it was in the manga. Out of all the adaptions, this one had my favorite art style and I liked the animation direction here the most. I love when anime add in live action camera-like stuff in. I don't give a shit if it serves no purpose other than to be cool. I love it. So much blood splattered on camera lenses that shouldn't be there. The blood looks really good here too. It has the right texture for proper blood splatter. (God, now I'm sounding like Ukoku. I swear to you, I'm mostly normal.) The Sky Burial part really stood out when I read it years ago. I chose not to give any hints to my wife about what was going to happen. It still stands out as a very memorable moment, especially in regards to Goku. I love the part where Goku's thinking about how he'd feel about the others dying and death, and he's completely unaware those people he currently loves so much are people who've already died before for him and have been drawn to spend their lives with him once again in another life. That's some really deep love right there! I am sad to say I was a little disappointed with Sharak. I don't know why, but in my head she always had a very, very different voice than the VA they picked for her. The VA isn't bad or anything, but it's not how I imagined her sounding. Her scenes didn't come across the same to me as they did in the manga either, but I can't place why. The same stuff happens, but IDK. Maybe the voice is just really throwing me. Well, that's always a possible issue when you move from print to media with sound. Sharak's appearance and position do hit harder now, with all the new health issues Minekura has had to endure. Sharak is an obvious stand in for Minekura herself, from the hair parted to one side, the scars on the face, the smoking, and what I realized now, her lack of being able to have children. Saiyuki's incompleteness is directly tied to Minekura's health. I'd love for there to be an ending one day, but I'm alright with it never coming. Sharak's power involving her having to exert so much energy across a large amount of space, and it binding her to her location, also feels symbolic of her various illnesses drain on her body and her ability to work. Goku's really matured a lot by this point. The older anime titles often didn't allow Goku too many moments of maturing compared to the manga. Goku is at his most mature here. But it also highlights how much he's literally grown up over the course of the series, from a very little kid to nearly an adult. Goku is noticeable taller here than in earlier points in the canon, his face is less babyish. I know, I know, he's "technically" over 500. Shut up with that anime bullshit. Goku is not an adult yet. That was always another thing that weirded me out with shippers pairing him with any of the guys, but especially Sanzo. (Or worse, Konzen. What the actual fuck.) Minekura doesn't seem to think too kindly of the "she's actually 900 years old" bullshit, as we get Talche, as Gojyo put it, a "loli grandma". Gojyo reacts with instant disinterest when he learns the eternally young maiden they're going to see is so young that before she was chosen, she hadn't even gotten her period yet. His disinterest grows when he hears how old she is. "Double no thank you" is right. Haha. I don't really like Talche much, but Talche means Saitaisai scenes. We get the reveal that Saitaisai's eyes are golden like Goku's. Very interesting. But what does it mean? Who knows. Nataku and Kou both have fights here. I didn't really care much for Nataku's scenes. They were well done, but with Nataku being empty and the guys not knowing who Nataku even is, it doesn't invoke much for me. Kou's fight with Sanzo was my favorite fight in Blast. It was really well done and really intense. It's not as good as the fight the guys have with Ukoku in Zeroin, but it was my second favorite fight across all the anime adaptions. My wife commented on Kou's outfit. "Wearing a jacket without a shirt is a choice." Take that as you will. Dokugaku kicks the bucket in Blast. I don't give a shit. Dokugaku over there flashbacking "my poor little tiny itty bitty smaller than a piece of dust innocent little baby brother that I fucking abandoned in the woods after murdering my mom in front of him and leaving him with her dead corpse, poor little baby brother, good thing I have Kou as a new replacement good brother" and it's like Gojyo's right fucking there, man. He's been there the whole time. Ever think of maybe making up with your real brother who's still alive and you know where he is? It's something that has annoyed me any time Dokugakuji shows up and he's going on about his past and his relationship with Kou and the way he talks about Gojyo is like he's dead and not standing in front of him. He's not Racer X. He's not wearing a mask in the background somewhere. Also, you know all that brotherly love shit aside, him and Yaone would be all over Kougaiji's dick if he wanted a threesome. He'd probably start calling Kou brother and Yaone mommy and reminisce about fucking his own mom with his itty bitty tiny smallest child in existence baby brother in the next room. Fucking christ I hate that guy. What, you think he wouldn't fuck Kou at the first opportunity? The dude fucked HIS OWN MOM. He put his dick. In. his. MOM. You can't put your dick in the vagina you CAME OUT OF. Ugh. Yeah, yeah, I know Hakkai got with his sister. But they were already together when they figured out they were siblings and a sibling is still not as bad as your own mom. (It's still bad though. I sometimes jokingly wonder if the real reason Hakkai won't get with anyone is him worrying somehow the next woman will also secretly end up being his sister by some fucked up fate.) Anyway, I'm with Gojyo on this one again. Bye, bye, shitty brother! Feel bad for Kou though. He looked and sounded pretty broken up about it. His VA did a really good job with that scene. We end up where we started. The guys have been fired, but they're still going on their journey forward anyway. I liked Sanzo's line about not freezing their credit card. I think this line or a similar line might have been Gojyo's in the manga, but it's been too long for me to remember clearly. An oddity of Blast is that it has the other half of Gaiden in it. And just like the Gaiden OVA, we don't get the full thing. No, we get one complete half, then fastforwarding through the other half. This time, we fast forward through the half that the OVA covered in detail. I can get why they did it, but that now leaves us with two fractured pieces of Gaiden in two separate works with neither being properly enjoyable on their own. I hate it, but I do like that we got the other half at least animated. I wish we could get a proper redo of the entire series at some point instead of all these various pieces here and there. That propably will never happen, but it'd be nice. Since we get the first half of Gaiden, that means we get plenty of Bosatsu scenes. She looks her best here, IMO. Still sexy. In fact, the animators seem to be highlighting the fact that she's sexy with some of the angles they use on her. What can I say? When it comes to women, Bosatsu is absolutely my type. One irrelevant, irrational last note on Blast. I don't know who did the subs for the version I watched, but translating that last line as "are you ready, you bastards"...I was about to flip a damn table. IT'S HELLIONS, YOU TWAT. KNOW YOUR SAIYUKI LORE BEFORE YOU TRANSLATE. I'm sorry. That's a completely irrational reaction born entirely out of nostalgia and not at all proportional to this one, singular, trivial line. But it's hellions. Fuck you.

How to Watch Saiyuki Coherently

I had wondered if upon rewatching the series I wouldn't end up liking anything about it. I did watch it initially when I was a teenager. Tastes change and kids often have stupid, cringey tastes. Going through the material again, I found I liked it and understood it better now that I'm older. I'd want to give Saiyuki a proper recommendation to others, but it's hard with how things have played out with the various pieces of anime. Thinking on that, I came up with a recommendation of how to best enjoy Saiyuki while watching as much of the various anime as possible. So, here's my guide on how to enjoy Saiyuki. First, don't bother watching Gensoumaden, Reload, or Gunlock. You're going to have to read some manga for this, sorry. Here's my recommended order: 1. Read Saiyuki volumes 1-9, then Saiyuki Reload volumes 1-2 2. Watch Blast episodes 4-6, stop after Bosatsu subdues Goku and the guys escape 3. Watch Gaiden, skipping to the same moment in OVA 1 as where you stopped in Blast episode 6 4. Watch Burial 5. Watch Zeroin 6. Watch Blast, skipping episodes 4-6 This is of course, just my personal opinion of what would be the best way to enjoy it. There's still scenes you'll miss from the manga. If you wanted to get everything, yeah, you might as well just read everything. But if you wanted to experience Saiyuki primarily in anime form, this gets you most of it at its best. Sorry to the Gensoumaden fans out there. I don't know what's wrong with you. Wishing you the best.

Overall Thoughts

After watching everything, I don't think I'll ever rewatch Gensoumaden, Reload, or Gunlock ever again. I'll probably rewatch Reload and Gunlock's OPs every now and then though. Blast had my favorite "style" over all. Burial had my favorite set of stories. Out of everything, Zeroin felt the most like a complete piece though and while I didn't like the style they went with, I do think it is the best out of the lot when you take everything into account. My favorite character is still Goku. Possibly even more so than before. Koumyou is still in at second place. My wife's favorite ended up being a tie between Sanzo and Gojyo. She liked Hazel more than I did, but we both ended up liking that fool by the end of Zeroin. Burial's OP is still my favorite, with Gaiden's being my second favorite. Now that I've finished everything, I already miss the guys. There's a specific dynamic about the group you don't really see in modern anime. Actually, there's quite a lot about even the latter parts of Saiyuki you don't see in modern anime. I miss this kind of stuff. I don't really connect with most anime that comes out lately. When I do watch something, whatever's the "best" out of a season for me is usually what would be in my B-tier list back in the day. The animation is a lot better these days, but something's missing. I feel that way about a lot of media that comes out now. It's so planned around maximizing profit and minimizing effort and risk that it gives about all the pleasure of a cheap stick of gum. Great tasting for a moment, but then it's flavorless five minutes later. I'll probably revisit Saiyuki again several more times in my life. I'm still thinking about several of the scenes now. It's not a perfect series. It doesn't even have a proper ending. Despite the later art being amazing, the early art is really bad. The anime adaptions don't fit neatly together nor have any consistent quality across the whole lot of them. But I still love it anyway. I love so many of these characters. Reload brought me here, shitty as it was, and I'm glad it did. It was also fun to show my wife somethig from my younger days that she never experieced with me. We've known each other since we were both nine and were friends in high school, but there were a lot of things that just weren't shared back then. We connected through other things back then. I always worry when I show her something I enjoyed a long time ago she's going to hate it and I'll have wasted her time, LOL. She ended up enjoying it as much as I did. I like seeing her enjoy something I like, but the things she enjoys about them being different than what I liked about it. It's fun to see where we connect and where we diverge in those connecting places. I don't know if that makes any sense. It was a fun little ride for both of us. Also, one last fuck you to Dokugakuji. Anyway, I think I've said all I wanted to say. This ended up having several rewrites because I kept getting off topic or getting too personal and having to tone it back down. You don't really need to know anything about me. It doesn't matter. I hope someone found this at least a little entertaining. And if you've never seen Saiyuki and decided to read all this nonsense for whatever reason, maybe go do a little more reading after this. I should shut up now. I'm just rambling at this point.