Reviewed on May 31st, 2006

Visually

Saiyuki looks very good. It is good quality and it has fluid animation. It has a large diversity of situations, bringing in different levels of light and color. One of my favorite things about this anime is the shadow effects and the backgrounds; both are great. It all comes together to make a great looking anime.

Audio

There is new music this time around, the music is very good and it fits perfectly. The sound quality is superb and clear. The mouths move perfectly with the voices and the voices match the personality of their characters.

Storyline

The story line gets more involved this time around. We enter the past of some of the characters. More questions are brought up than answered. In the first episode we go into Sanzo's past and learn about his time at his master's temple. Incidentally the group meets up with one of Sanzo's acquaintances from the temple. His name is Rikudo and he uses talismans to kill demons. He has vowed to kill all demons, and attacks Gojyo, Hakkai, and Goku. Rikudo stabs Sanzo and he nears to death. Goku's rage makes the power limiter break and he viciously attacks Rikudo.

Rikudo manages to gets away, but Goku is still out of control. The merciful goddess puts a new limiter on Goku, and saves Sanzo's life. Rikudo dies from his own misfortune of using a cursed talisman. The group leaves that town and find themselves fighting a large group of demons. The group continues on their journey and they come upon a group of imposters. They say they are Sanzo, Gojyo, Hakkai, and Goku, but they are only looking for food and a place to stay. They are the most retarded looking people, its pretty funny.

DVD

You can either have the episode dubbed or subbed. The extras include production sketches, cultural background, and ADV previews. There are 5 episodes on the DVD, which is good compared to some other anime DVDs. The menus have a good graphical interface, along with good background music. A big problem is the lack of extras, it happened with the first DVD and it happened with the second.

Overall

The story line this time around is a lot better, it has a lot of detail and it isn't repetitive. It is rated for ages 13 and up; it has swearing and bloody violence. The first 10 volumes are out and I have the third volume reviewed, so check it out. I give Saiyuki: Volume 2, 5 out of 5.

by Aidan