Saiyuuki

I've seen this anime about 30 years ago. I still remember watching this movie on a Sunday afternoon. It was part of the Sunday matinee on TV. At the time I had no idea it was a Japanese cartoon, but the story and artwork was pretty good. I'm not here really to review this anime, more like rant nostalgically about an entertaining and well-done anime. If you ever have a chance to see this anime, do not pass it up if you believe you are a true fan of the sub-culture.

Let me begin my review by stating that I did not see this movie as a kid, and therefore have zero nostalgia goggles to work with. Saiyuuki, for lack of a better term, is not a very spectacular movie. The music is, for the most part, forgettable, and doesn't always work. The musical numbers are unneeded. The visuals are passable, but nothing special. The voice work is okay: again, nothing special. One of this movie's huge problems is getting me to care. I didn't care about the journey. I didn't care about the characters. In fact, I HATED most of the characters. The female love interestis a forgettable, bland cinnamon roll stereotype, and Son Goku is kind of a dick until very, very late into the film (and even then isn't that likable). The side characters are kind of neat on occasion, but most of them only show up for a few seconds aside from the guy who wanted to eat them, the pig, and the monk: and the monk is blander than water. Quite frankly, I went into this movie expecting a classic animation. However, as is sadly often the case with older Japanese animated movies, I instead found myself wondering why I was watching it, and constantly checking how far along I was (as early as 30 minutes into the film!). While not terrible, the film is certainly not good in my eyes. And on my ratings scale, that comes out to a 4/10. While I'm sure some people might enjoy it, with or without nostalgia glasses, I personally think you should give this one a skip.

I'm finding it really difficult to grade these early feature length animations - partly because most of the artists were still exploring the boundaries of what works and balancing a nascently developed industry's profitability - both when it came to the animation and the manga works they were bring primarily adapted from. A common problem that a lot of the animated films of this era seem to have is poor storyboarding and even poorer narrative coherence. While Hakujaden struggles to keep going and is just filled with padding, Sayuuki has the opposite problem. It attempts to cover material way more ambitious in scope and scale thanit has the time to cover while also balancing the extended fight choreography and typical animation tropes that the audiences of the time deemed necessary. The pacing is zippy and quickfire, but the structure is wildly incoherent - not to mention the source adaption material (Tezuka's manga inspired by the original Journey to the West) is in itself a poor adaptation of the Chinese classic. Elements of western mythology are mixed into a primarily Chinese/Buddhist setting and fable that eventually makes the entire world building incoherent. I was expecting a Chinese heaven filled with Chang'e and Immortals and Buddhas, not harp playing angels and astronomers lifted out of Georges Melies's space faring shorts. Action choreography is another issue with movies of this time. One that I suspect is an artifact of the Looney Toons and Hannah Barbara effect. Conflict in animation originated as a means of inducing slapstick humor. Combat rarely has stakes since both sides in any fight - be it the looney toons or their opponents, tom and jerry, are nigh invincible no matter what trick they throw at each other. This tradition has passed onto these films and even into the modern day, where prolonged physical conflict continues on for extended periods and the participants constantly shrug off physical damage. Those battles that Son Gokuu has end up taking me out of immersion and reduce my enjoyment of this particular film. The one thing I loved about this though was the sound design and the choice of music. I watched the Japanese original with subtitles, so I got to experience a lot of the Japanese songs and most were quite catchy. "Ore Wa Son Gokuu" will probably continue to echo within my mind for a few days to come with its deep sonorous, simply and yet catchy tune. Journey to the West as a story in itself is just too long to cover within the time frame of an hour. I think the better mode of approach would have been to pick a specific fable within the epic along the lines of Princess Iron Fan to adapt. None the less, the inspiration Sayuuki had on future animators is quite easy to see. There are clear inspirations drawn by Studio Ghibli from the washed out, yet natural looking peaceful background imagery that have come to define them and are clearly inspired from here and Disney movies.

Based off the Monkey King character from the classical Chinese epic novel Journey to the West (Journey of the West being the inspiration for other cartoons like Dragon Ball Z), this is the story of Alakazam the Great and his journeys after becoming king of the monkeys. I watched it not expecting much after seeing a lot of low-budget early anime, but I was surprised by the great characters like Alakazam, and especially the pig Sir Quigley, whose character design is straight out of John and Joy Halas' Animal Farm. The American dub was really well-done, and actually pretty funny at some times. The movieas a whole is pretty lighthearted, and extremely imaginative. Magic is an important aspect of the movie, and the different ways Alakazam uses it never failed to be interesting. As far as the animation goes, it looks like it was very influenced by classic Disney animation. The fact that it's narrated by the voice of Disney-regular Sterling Holloway (the voice of Winnie the Pooh, and Kaa in the Jungle Book) adds to the Disney feel. The animation has aged well, more than a lot of anime from this time.

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