Episode Guide to Gensomaden Saiyuki

1. Go to the West/To the Distant West

(Manga vol. 1, Prologue)

A voiceover explains that Tougenkyo is the land of peace and faith where demon & human lived side-by-side in peace. until now.... But in India, far to the west, lives one who controls those demons—and we see Lady Gyakomen Kyoshu on a huge video screen smiling down on a huge rally of youkai!

Meanwhile at Chang’an: Goku gets hauled out of the peach tree where he's been eating the Goddess' sacred fruit =); Sanzo wonders ‘just why did I pick him up?’ and we see for the first time the scene we know so well, wherein he tells the monkey to quit calling him and he swears he never did. I’ll take you with me, says the monk, since it seems I have no choice. (And my god, listen to his voice - it is unbelievably gentle for steely Sanzo, with a silk-velvet texture, as if he’s overwhelmed by the memories he doesn’t even consciously have. Seki-san knocks it out of the park first time out. And Goku’s manacles crumble away at the moment their hands touch.)

Meanwhile: Gojyo, local babes draped over his shoulders, is beating the tar out of a guy named Soushi at the card table. When he lays out a hand of four queens (“I have such good luck with the ladies,” he purrs) Soushi, furious, throws all his cash onto the table - and then morphs into a snarling youkai and begins tearing the place up! yike! only to be thrown into the street by Gojyo and dispatched with his shakujou. (“Damn, and he was such a good mark, too,” sighs the redhead.)

And elsewhere: Hakkai drives through a dense fog, midway asking his jeep to switch on its fog lamps; it chirps and complies, just in time to see a young youkai has run into their path. Hakuryu has to shapeshift to avoid doing the kid harm. The boy lunges at Hakkai and bites his arm, but Hakkai calmly explains “I am the same as you—well, maybe not exactly...” The demon kid leaps up to drop on him anyway, and Hakkai realizes “he’s lost himself”. As more youkai children materialize out of the fog, Hakkai says “big brother hasn’t got time to play with you” ; Hakuryu shifts back to jeep form and they head out, Hakkai thinking he smells something sinister in all this.

And: Goku, to distract himself from his hunger, asks Sanzo why they suddenly need to see Hakkai and Gojyo. Sanzo says gravely, “there’s something I need to confirm.” “To confirm? --asks the puzzled saru, and Sanzo explains that yesterday he was called before the Sanbutsushin, who told him a dire tale. The sudden savagery of the youkai and their loss of self have been caused by a single event: the opening of a project to raise Gyumaoh. [Sanzo knows the name.] It uses the forbidden art of combining science with youjutsu, youkai magic, She says. (Forbidden? why? asks Goku, and Sanzo somberly replies, “because no one knows what will happen.”)

We see him summoned by the Sanbutsushin and given a mission: to travel to the West and find out who is behind the devilish experiments to raise the terrible demon, Gyuuma'oh. It is these experiments, using a forbidden combination of science and black magic, that have caused the wave of negative energy (the "minus wave") that has sent so many of Tougenkyo's youkai berserk. Sanzo has heard of Gyuuma'oh,"the great demon who refused to co-exist with humans and devoured them as he pleased", but he's said to have fallen in battle against War Prince Nataku at Houton Castle, 500 years ago. Apparently, he was defeated but not destroyed. It's crucial to stop the resurrection if demon/human amity and the peace of Tougenkyo are to be restored. They tell Sanzo to take with him Son Goku, who is already at the temple with him, and gather Cho Hakkai and Sha Gojyo, "with whom you share a past"--they will be his companions on the journey. The monk points out that these three are youkai themselves: my Lords Sanbutsushin, can they truly be trusted? The Three Aspects gently chide him that the three are youkai but human also (we see flashback panels of a young man with bloody hands, a boy cowering in the shadow of a taloned woman, a manacled child behind bars) and it is their strong will and spiritual strength that make them not only the best but the only choice for the job; indeed, the world's only hope. Sanzo, they add, should know this better than anyone.

Sure enough,Hakkai and Gojyo come to the rescue just as monk and monkey are surrounded by hostile youkai, and they confirm the Three Aspects' judgment: Gojyo, Goku and I, says Hakkai, seem to be the only youkai who haven't lost ourselves. "It's got to be us," Gojyo agrees. Goku cements it with his sharp rebuff to a youkai who tries to recruit them to the anti-human cause: "From the day I was born till the day I die, I stand only on my own side."

As Sanzo watches them fight, he remembers his audience with the Three. He asked them if these three youkai could be trusted; they replied as we know, and added that it was Kanzeon Bosatsu Hirself who appointed them as his companions. He tells Them that since he lost what was dearest to him he has trusted only himself; and They reply, then see them yourself and trust the eyes of your heart. Make certain, They say, of what you need to believe in and should believe in, right now--and he thinks of this as he watches them;

And it’s true, as he so often says, that he doesn’t actually ask them: he just says "Let's go West."

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