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

Once again there is good music and the voice acting is pretty good. But it's not anything great or noticeable and it could be made so much better if the music stood out more.

Storyline

Hakkai's past is revealed in this volume. It's a lot more violent than most people think his past would be. Also a demon named Chin Iisou from Hakkai's past comes back to pay a visit. Hakkai at one time was a human, but after killing Chin Iisou clan (to find the women he loved) he turned into a demon. Unfortunately, the woman commits suicide because she was impregnated by a Chin Iisou. Hakkai thought he killed Chin Iisou, but he put a life talisman within the wound that Hakkai gave him. In the following episodes Goku smells food and makes the group go to a temple where they run into Lilin, who also smelled the food.

There Goku and Lilin try to eat some food off a try, but they go bad as soon as they are touched. They then talk to twins, who entice Goku and Lilin into eating some food. Little do they know that the food contains seeds that sprout inside their bodies. Goku and Lilin are also cloned and Gojyo, Hakkai, and Sanzo are forced to fight them. On the final episode in this volume Gojyo goes on a date, WITH A LITTLE GIRL!! Actually, he is forced into the date when the little girl won't leave him alone. She then tells him that her parents where captured by demons and asks Gojyo if he would help her find them.

DVD

AH!! There is only four episodes this time and they didn't even do anything good in the extras! Other than that it's the same. You can either have the episode dubbed or subbed. The extras include production sketches, cultural background, and ADV previews. The menus have a good graphical interface, along with good background music.

Overall

I was a little disappointed with the content this time around. If it had one more episode I would be satisfied. The storyline is getting deeper and deeper and is starting to get more interesting. I can't wait to see the next volume, and as soon as I do I'll review it and put it up on the site. I give Saiyuki: Volume 3, 4 out of 5.

by Aidan