Saiyuuki Reload

OH LORDY! They done did a few changes to an already bad project....and made shit hella worse! Saiyuki Reload at first seems like an improvement with glossier art, less animation shortcuts and different voice actors from the first installment of [Gensomaden] Saiyuki. But if you're anything like me and you've watched more than your fair share of anime shows, then you should come to the same realization that I have....Reload is prettier but it's not better.

~Art
Right off the bat you will notice that the art and the character designs are a little bit different. The correct term I would use would be “off” I feel ... the art is off. Meaning, it definitely doesn't look like “Saiyuki”it doesn't have that trademark “Kazuya Minekura” style. This just looks like a regular anime or someone else's rendition of Minekura's work.....I guess the word I'm looking for is “FANART” tho to it's credit, really really good fanart [but never as good as the original]. You can obviously see the difference on how the characters look from the closing credits and the anime...very drastic. But even with all the upgrading, there still a lot of shortcuts with the animation: a whole bunch of still-frames & sliding cells being used in the fight scenes. The only good thing now I guess is that, when Sanzo shoot's demons or whatever they actually bleed and die, instead of the image turing to black and white and them using some cheap dissolving F/X.

~Sound
Another notable difference is the change in voice cast. The obvious downshift with the swearing....personally, it was too over the top and so unnecessary [I can appreciate swearing if it made sense....like in Black Lagoon, it made sense for the characters to talk like that], about the casting, I really liked the original Sanzo's voice David Matranga [who also did Orphen], he really had a better voice and could really convey Sanzo's cynicism, Gojyo's voice is definitely better, Goku's voice is also a little better [but still a bit too whiny for my tastes, tho], Yaone's voice is OK but I have a preference for the original voice by Shelley Calene-Black. However OMG! but what is with the Merciful Goddess' voice, she sounds like a complete and total tranny! And of course they totally turned Hakkai into a complete pansy....with some kind of English accent, WTF?

~Story
OK so the the original story got COMPLETELY derailed. Some of the stories seem pretty good, regardless of the obvious deviation from the original work, Like, for example, I loved episode 4 [The Final Promise] which again showed that not all things will come to a happy ending. But of course there were definitely more than a few stories that were complete and utter rubbish: Foolish,waste of time stories like the little dragon-jeep pet going off and defending orphans or the other one about stray kittens These stories were a waste of time, even as far as filler content is concerned. If watched better fillers in Naruto.

~Character
Like I already said, the character design is a complete deviation from Minekura's style. It's not ugly or anything but more like really good fanart. I also hate the new Kougaji face also with the markings.

~Verdict
I think it's worse than the first installment, this show brought zero WOW-factor.

I really enjoyed the manga as well as the original "Saiyuki" series, so I had great expectations for the sequel. However the change in the animation and voice actors really bothered me. The story in itself is amazing and I recommend reading he manga, but in my opinion of you love the first series like me I wouldn't bother watching the anime unless subbed avoid dubbed.