#Ukoku after he was shot?~

[ichika27]

Saiyuki Reload -Zeroin- 11

A few more episodes and it’s over. I really wish they’d make another season that goes after Blast. Anyways, I understand why people enjoyed this arc in the manga cause it’s great! I’m so happy they decided to make a new adaptation of it.

Hazel has just woken up from a dream. He saw his past up to this point and wondered if anything would have changed if he had taken care that flower like his master asked him to back then. Hazel tells them that due to his desperation back then to be strong and become an exorcist, he got more enthralled with the "crow" rather than his master's words.

Sanzo asked if this so-called crow was the same guy who told Hazel about the Seiten Taisei and told the other two that he too had met this crow and that he knows of this crow's other persona (as the doctor).

And so Priest Ukoku Sanzo finally appears. Upon mentioning that Sanzo should've been taught by Komyou how to greet people, Sanzo fires a shot at him. Sanzo shoots the man multiple times but somehow, none seem to stick and Ukoku just calmly walks over towards him. When he finally got closer, Ukoku was able to hit Sanzo and dodge all of Sanzo's attacks.

Ukoku then manages to injure Sanzo's right arm so Sanzo ended up trying to use his sutra.

Sanzo was unable to finish his incantation as Ukoku seemed to have used his own power. Sanzo sees a vision of the sutra getting destroyed although it's fine in the real world. Sanzo tried to attack him again with his fist but Ukoku just happily dodged them all.

As he does this, Ukoku tells Sanzo all of the info he knew about him and then informs Sanzo of who his real parents were - Sanzo's biological father is Rin Tokou who is a 51 yo politician and his mother is 17 yo Kouran who is a daughter of a shop peddler. The two weren't able to be together due to politics and Kouran got driven out due to her pregnancy and passes away after giving birth. His father went missing shortly after and his whereabouts are unknown even now.

Ukoku continued to dodge and successfully attack Sanzo during his monologue. Ukoku then got to the part where Komyou died protecting Sanzo which pissed of Sanzo. He also said that there's no way Komyou could get killed by weak demons just like that so Komyou must've lost on purpose for Sanzo.

As Sanzo is on the ground from Ukoku's last attack, Gato jumps in to fight, asking Hazel to let him do what he wanted for three minutes. Ukoku shows that he also knows a lot about Gato - where Gato came from and how he met Hazel. Gato isn't affected by this as he thinks all Ukoku has is nothing but data.

Gato fires at Ukoku who runs up to him and dodges. When Gato grabbed Ukoku by the head to fling him away, Ukoku uses his powers and Gato finds one of his hands cut off. This made Hazel panic and tells Gato to move away from Ukoku as Gato may get erased.

Meanwhile, Sanzo managed to finally get up after desperately trying even though he's still in pain from having his limbs broken. He than says he feels ashamed if this was all he got as it meant he can't shoulder the name "Sanzo Party". Ukoku's response to this is to say that being unsuccessful at killing Goku was a miscalculation.

Ukoku activates his sutra, the Muten Scripture whose power is to turn everything - from attacks to even spaces - into nothingness. It could even turn reality into a void.

Ukoku explains how there are two things that humans use to confirm their existence: their "sense of self" (one's experiences and memories) and "others" (confirming one's existence through the eyes of others) which helps build up one another. He then asks what would happen if "Genjo Sanzo" never existed and proceeds to engulf Sanzo in darkness.

Slowly, Sanzo's memories are disappearing starting from the latest ones. Hazel tried to call out to him but he and Gato suddenly disappears or so it seems as Ukoku informs Sanzo that Sanzo is the one disappearing instead.

Sanzo's very existence is starting to disappear. Sanzo tries to run away from the darkness but it follows as Ukoku tells him that he no longer exist and the people he knew had never met him. Memories of meeting Gojyo and Hakkai slowly disappears with the lasts being Goku's.

As he sees the moment when he had met and freed Goku from the cave prison, Sanzo reaches out as he asks for it to stop...

And someone grabs his hand and pulls him out of the darkness flinging him towards a tree in the back lol.

Sanzo opens his eyes and sees his comrades in front of him with Gojyo and Goku arguing about whose fault it was that Sanzo now probably has additional injuries while Hakkai is healing him. Sanzo yells for the two to shut up but his body is still in too much pain and can't get up.

Ukoku says Sanzo must be ashamed to be seen by his comrades in a weak state but Goku responds by saying they've seen each other in such situations before as they travel together after all.

Ukoku smiles as he once again remembered the bet he had made with Komyou. With Komyou betting on the next rising sun.

---

Okay, I have so many thoughts and opinions on this episode’s contents and what I wanted to write here had been playing in my head for days. It felt like there’s so many things I’d be typing that I felt too lazy to start this hahaha. Since it’d be super long, I’d be putting it on a separate post.

It’s finally the battle between Sanzo and Ukoku!

Ukoku is that one annoying asshole villain who isn’t only hard to kill but is being a smug bastard while doing it. I appreciate the Genjo Sanzo lore though. I don’t doubt the info he’s got (how he got it, I dunno) although the part where Sanzo’s real dad went missing and hasn’t been found makes me wonder if he knew where the man was also (but then again, it doesn’t matter unless the guy would show up for some unfathomable reason later).

Ukoku Sanzo’s power is pretty scary the more you think about it. It’s literal nothingness. He can just make anything disappear in a blink of an eye and he can also make it so that you won’t even know what was gone if he wants to. The darkness can be scary but the fact that it can eat you not just from the inside mentally but also your time itself. Many people fear death and their impending last moments but what if those last moments meant there’d be nothing at all left of you at all? I personally believe in the afterlife but if there’s such a thing as the power to take everything away, then we won’t even have that.

It’s kinda rare to see Sanzo feel... scared. The current situation wasn’t something he could easily deal with and it’s trying to take away everything from him including himself. I love that at the end when his memories of reaching out to Goku switched to the current situation of Goku being the one to grab his hand to bring him back to the light. Sanzo took Goku out of his prison of basically nothing (no memories as they were sealed away and nothing much to do for 500 years of his life) and now Goku took Sanzo out of the darkness that was threatening to make Sanzo’s life basically nothing (memories being erased and his entire life not existing in the first place). It’s great!

And if we add the events of Gaiden in there: Goku took Konzen out of his boring monotone life by reaching out first. Konzen dies with his life meaning something and promising to reach out to Goku first next time they meet which he did and as stated above, he also saved Goku’s life of boring monotone imprisonment. Oh my god this show is continuing to give me the feels!

And the guys making a ruckus when Sanzo’s been saved (sort of, Goku broke his bones further by yeeting him to a tree). The last time they all saw each other, Goku and Hakkai were injured and unconscious and Gojyo was upset at Sanzo but now that they’re reunited, everyone is just talking and acting like they normally would. Like everything went back to normal and it didn’t feel wrong - none of them are faking their emotions or forcing things to be like it was before like nothing happened. This is just how they are as a group. As Goku said, they’ve been travelling together after all.

I wonder what happened to Hazel and Gato though. They just sort of suddenly disappeared. They’re probably still there so I’m wondering if they’d back up the Sanzo Party with the fight against Ukoku Sanzo.

I love this arc. I heard it was good but holy crap it’s better than I expected! The themes, the events, and all of the feels. I’ll miss this once this season ends. I guess we’d have until next week or two after this. Til then!

[lenievi]

theories, questions, some translation, some rambling

Saiyuki Reload Blast 1

- shot 1

- who are these cloaked men on the first page? And are they talking about Sanzo-ikkou? Well, I will probably forget about them if they don’t reappear soon, though

- 何様！！？　三蔵様。　lmao

- shot 2

So Nii came to Gyokumen Koushu to sell his idea for a revival, hmmm. So it kind of seems like he went there before Koumyou’s death and then sent the assassins for the sutras, but perhaps he didn’t count on Koumyou basically committing suicide. The thing is Ukoku knew how powerful Koumyou was, so did he expect the ordinary youkai to really succeed? Or maybe, based on the following sentence about the sun, it was all a part of his bet with Koumyou...? (or I’m just reading too much into it) [I need to put together some stuff I wrote in earlier posts and try to make some sense of it.]

Nii: To fulfill your wish my powers will definitely become a necessity. If you support my intellect with your assets, I will show you even the disappearance* of the sun.

* he will erase it, extinguish it

Gyokumen Koushu: That man has an objective he wants to get granted.

I wonder what is Ukoku’s ultimate wish. [I feel like he’s pretty happy with the absolute darkness Sanzo gave him hahaha]

- Gyokumen Koushu: I’ll have “secret weapons”* that were developed by a genius chemist play with Sanzo-ikkou.

* there is suffix “-tachi”, so it means that those “secret weapons” are living things

now, are those cloaked silhouettes the same guys who were shown at the beginning of the manga? Those men seemed like monks, so will these “weapons” be some super monks with super buddhist powers? 

- Saitaisai: So the “sun” rose in the east as expected? It’s as you predicted, Taruchie.

Taruchie: The stars are unchanging.* The sun’s trajectory is an eternally unchanging natural way of things. It arrives from the east to the west and eventually sinks into the earth.

“The sun” will sink and “the darkness” will eat the world.

Saitaisai: Is that also your “prediction”?

Taruchie: No. It’s a “providence”.

* I’m not 100% certain if 星は違えぬ means that “the stars don’t change” and the anime translation is something along the lines of “the stars don’t make mistakes”, but... I don’t think Taruchie reads stars. She means that like stars never change, some things are already set in stone. I think. You know, like sun’s trajectory - that can’t be changed. When a sun sets, darkness begins. That can’t be changed. [but I guess I’ll see in later volumes]

thx for the panel with dead Sanzo. I mean I’m ok with Genjyo Sanzo dying as long as it’s emotionally fulfilling like Gaiden and preferably dying when Goku is around - for Goku’s sake - because otherwise what’s the point, but... I hope that Blast is about getting out of the circle and not repeating the same thing (again and again), because if anyone can, it’s Sanzo-ikkou. I wonder if Seiten Taisei Son Goku is the key to that... but also getting out of the circle would mean never be reborn again...

(Also, I just quickly looked at Ibun yesterday - or rather at the beginning only, and what Genkai says there and he says: “I see the darkness and light”. So could it be possible that Taruchie only sees half of it? Like the sun will sink and the darkness will fall, but... after that the light will come out again, right? Ah well, who knows)

Saitaisai: Even if it were those men?

Taruchie: The sun that doesn’t set, will scorch itself and before long burn out.

Please take this sake cup.  Let me fill it to the brim.  When the flowers bloom, the storm will come.  The human life is nothing more than “goodbyes”.

So, this is my weird translation of the poem that appears at the end of the chapter [idk if it’s really correct though, poems are weird]. It’s originally a Chinese poem by Yu Wuling and there is an English translation on wikipedia.　The Japanese translation that appears in this chapter is by Ibuse Masuji. 

- shot 3　Sky Burial

- “In the end I ended up drinking tea with a youkai!” - lmao Sanzo you didn’t have to drink it. Gojyo didn’t 

- Sanzo: It’s because it seemed like he couldn’t sleep. He’s probably just out there wandering around. 

You were so sleepy before that you couldn’t even talk with the villagers, but you paid attention to if Goku slept or not? 

This (and the breakfast scene) is like the chapter with Zakuro. Hakkai is worried, but Sanzo is like he can take care of himself, let him be (he’s not a child). I really feel that in Blast (and even before, maybe from Kami-sama arc, actually) Sanzo is the one who doesn’t think about Goku as a child anymore and sees him as his equal (more or less). Hakkai will have harder time to let that notion go. Gojyo and Goku’s relationship will always be that older-younger sibling/friend dynamic no matter how old they get imho (which doesn’t mean he doesn’t take him seriously, he does when it matters, but that’s what that kind of relationship is about)

- shot 4-1

“Well, we’ll simply not let them interfere from the start” - (then Kanzeon sneezes :D) - but you know what, Sanzo? If Kanzeon didn’t interfere two years ago, you would be dead. Do you still remember? Does Hakkai still remember that encounter? Do Hakkai and Gojyo remember Kanzeon calling Sanzo “Konzen Douji” or were they too busy with Gojyo “fainting”? (are we just completely dropping “Konzen Douji” and Goku remembering Konzen’s appearance? Did Goku forget about that blond man who was looking at him like Sanzo does?)

- “Nataku’s soul died in front of his young friend together with despair.” hmmmm

- “Something” is starting to move. - I need to reread Gaiden, but I wonder what bigger power was behind Li Touten. Buddha himself? Or some other “golden eyed” existence? 

- even if he’s feeling sick, (even if he’s unconscious, right Kanzeon? :D) Sanzo won’t let anyone touch him and it says a lot about his companions that he allows them to with little complaining and zero “don’t touch me” (unless you’re Gojyo) and then on the next page he’s walking with his arm around Goku’s shoulders as a support

- it’s not just Sanzo’s behaviour that changed, but Goku’s behaviour toward Sanzo also changed. Their relationship in Blast is really good. (it has always been good, but it’s different in Blast)

- did Goku materialized Nyoi-bou when Sanzo and Sharak looked like they wanted to kill each other? (he seems to have it in the last panel too, so I guess so. Thanks)

Goku: Say... Sanzo priests are... Gojyo: Don’t say it. Hakkai: Literally dangerous (文字通りぶっそうなんですね)

bussou = buddhist priest or dangerous depending on kanji