The Wonderful World of Saiyuki
or The little wacky things in Saiyuki that you'll never find in the real world.
by sf

Started : Jan 12, 2002
Status : Complete

Summary - A commentary on the little wacky things in Saiyuki that you'll never find in the real world. Based on both the anime and the manga. Background knowledge of Saiyuki advised.

Notes - WARNING: This is a plotless humor commentary. If you're looking for a story, go away. If you're looking for action, high-adventure and youkai slaughter, go away. If you can't bear *any* slight to Saiyuki, however well-intentioned, go away. Background knowledge of Saiyuki (Anime: Ep 1-26, Manga: Bk 1-8 or at least part of that) and a sense of humor is a MUST. Heavy concentrations of geek-factor and sarcasm ahead.

This is done in Goku's PoV, if you were interested.

Part I : On the Weather, Hair, Spandex Space and Clothing

The Moon is full.

In fact, the moon is *always* full. It had been full, five hundred and eighteen years ago, when I was born and first looked up into the sky. It had been full, ten years ago, on the very day that a much younger Sanzo (Kouryuu, to use the name he had then) had been daydreaming (or nightdreaming) by a conveniently situated window, with the moon hanging bright and full just beyond it. Whoops. I'm not supposed to know that, right?

Well, occasionally, it becomes this really beautiful but totally impossible cresent, just for a change. But otherwise, it's full, like in Episodes 2, 5, 13, 18, 19 and goodness knows where else. Amazing, since we haven't travelled long enough in that time frame for the moon to wax and wane so fast. Like the opening sequence. It shows four phases of the moon in the same scene - just-a-sliver, not-so-full, full, and full again. That is one overworked moon.

Still, nothing beats the feeling of looking up into the cloudy sky on a rainy night (read- the thundery, poury, souking kind of rainy night), and seeing the moon blazing through the darkness, its brilliant surface unobscured by any wisp of cloud. Breath-taking. I'd trade that for the real world anytime.

Overall, China's a beautiful place. The multi-colored sunsets are dazzling to behold, and they last a good, long while. Mornings are great too, since we must have the fastest dawns in the world. The sun rises in a matter of seconds, something it doesn't do anywhere else, even on the equator. But that's geography for you.

It's one of those mornings again, where the sun has risen at the most dramatic moment, in the most dramatic way possible. The weather forecast for today? Clean, clear, blue skies for the whole day, and heavy rain all night. Of course, it never rains in the day, but if we're especially unlucky, we might run into some heavy fog in the middle of the afternoon. Especially if Chin Isou is around. And that would really piss Sanzo off.

Speaking of Sanzo...

Sanzo's having a bad-hair day, which probably means that I should stay out of his way. No, I don't mean that his hair is ruffled or anything-- nevermind that he's just woken up. None of us have that kind of problem. Ducktails and combs are things that happen to someone else. Nevermind how many fights we go through, our hair never *ever* gets ruffled. And have you seen Kougaiji's hair? It flies when there's no wind around, and stays neatly in three strands. Now is that cool or what?

But back to Sanzo. His hair is doing that switching thing again - where his parting changes from the right side of his head to the left to the right from one frame-- I mean, from one *second* to the next. It's like our weapons. One moment Nyoibou's in my left hand; the next, it's in my right. It gets confusing, I grant you. I guess that's why we're all ambidextrous.

Gojyo's hair has its own eccentricities as well. It ties itself up into a pony tail and unties itself as fast as Sanzo's parting switches sides, and it never *ever* gets in his face. You'd think that all that long hair would knot up, fall into soup, or at least require a huge amount of conditioner and shampoo ... but it doesn't. I guess that Babe-Magnet Hair doesn't conform to the norm.

A quick break here -- I need to recharge..

"Ne, Sanzo, I'm hunnnnnnnnngrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!"

"URUSAI!"

"But I'm starving!"

Oh no, here goes...

*THUMP**THUMP**THWACK*

HONESTLY, I don't know where he keeps that fan! Sanzo has the most amount of spandex space of ANY of us. Oh, spandex space is .. um.. space in your spandex. It's that illusive place in Thin Air where things can disappear into and reappear as necessary, leaving our hands free. Gojyo uses his to keep his weapon (and all those extra lengths of chain), his cigarettes, and all those extra cards that he carries around (his decks always have more than 52 cards, after all). Hakkai uses his to store ... goodness knows what Hakkai stores! All I know is after a long shopping trip, all the bags mysteriously disappear *somewhere*, and *I* don't lay hands on them! Then there's Hakuryuu. His spandex space is a little different, but I guess he stores his jeep form in there. There's a lot more jeep than dragon, after all.

As for me, my spandex space has this bad tendency to malfunction. I can chuck Nyoibou in there and pull it out whenever I want, but when there are stupid things like satchels (Big, HEAVY satchels) to carry, I can't seem to get it to work!

Still, Sanzo's spandex space beats all of ours. Most people think that he stores his gun and whatnot up his sleeves - but get this - he *ALWAYS* has his fan and gun and sutras on stand-by, even when his robe is off and his sleeves are inaccessible. ESPECIALLY the fan. Personally, I think that he just stores an extra dimension or two up those sleeves - they ARE big enough, after all. Looking at the amount of stuff he stuffs into his spandex space, he'll need all the space he can get -

Diadem, Gun, Fan (and extras), Gold Card, Paintbrush and Paper, Spectacles, Newspapers, Cigarettes, Lighters, Beer Cans, lots and lots and LOTS of bullets, and not to mention ALL that extra length of sutra that sure doesn't fit around his shoulders! His diadem has its own perks as well - the white cloth that accompanies it disappears and reappears as necessary. There's no explanation for that but spandex space.

The sutras are in a class of their own. Not only do they roll nicely into a scroll, they unwind really fast and disappear even faster. My bet is that the sutras Sanzo wears around his shoulders are really fakes - there's no way those things could be rolled up, and the writing on them is vertical, while the writing on the sutras that he actually *uses* is horizontal.

*THWACK*

"ITAI! What was that for?!"

"Hn."

Why is Hakkai stopping? Are we there yet?

Oh. Youkai. Amazing how there's this never-ending supply of them...

"NYOIBOU!!!"

Cool, Nyoibou always has these nice blue flashing lights that appear with it...

Whoa, whoa, whoa. There sure are a lot of them today... There goes Hakuryuu, doing his amazing disappearing act. He'll reappear, right on cue, after the fight ends. That's one dragon that knows how to look after himself!

Gee, I hope no one gets hurt this round. Sanzo gets *really*, I mean *REALLY* bitchy when he gets injured (take Devastation, Ep 22 / Bk 6). I wish we were as tough as our clothes. No matter how much abuse we take, we can always rely on our clothes to be in perfect condition afterwards - undamaged, clean, and as good as new. They don't even fade. That's a great thing, since we didn't bring a set to change into.

Bang Bang Bang - there goes Sanzo's gun, firing like a semi-automatic, rather than the revolver that it's supposed to be. That must be why it's the only gun that can kill youkai.

And Gojyo's self-cleaning shaku jou - never any blood on it. Not that Nyoibou gets blood on it either. Not even after I plunge it straight through some great-big-youkai, like that spider-demon..

Speaking of which, there are youkai to kill...

[Interlude - sounds of fighting in the background]

Perfect. The characteristic flash as the dying youkai metamorphosizes into a lot of black dots and vanishes. If I just wait a little while, his blood-stained corpse will appear on the ground...

There it is. You always know that you've done your job well when they explode and reappear as a corpse. If they don't explode, chances are that they aren't dead.

Beats me why there are corpses, though, if they explode...

One of life's little mysteries, I guess. If I ask Sanzo about it, he'll just tell me to shut up. And Gojyo will find some way to turn it into an insult. I swear, I don't know where all those insults of his come from... spandex space?!

"OI! Why are you standing around and staring, bakazaru? Waiting to be left behind?"

"Who're you calling a bakazaru, you ero-kappa?!"

"You, you dumbass ape!"

"Yeah, cockroach-kappa?"

"BAKAZARU!!"

"ERO-KAPPA!!"

"URUSAI!!"

*THUMP* *THUMP*

"ITAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIi!!!!!!"

That fan's supposed to be made of *paper*! It's not supposed to be hard enough to kill!

[A little later...]

"Hakkai, are we *there* yet?"

"In a little while. Be patient, Goku."

Whoops, one of Sanzo's veins is starting to pop out. Did I ask that many times? It's only been the tenth time or so this past half hour... Oh well, tact was never one of my strong points. Fortunately, the strength of my head makes up for it. If it was any weaker, Sanzo would probably shatter my skull with that fan of his.

I'll have to proceed with some caution here... "Ne, Sanzo--"

*CLICK*. "No Food."

Oh nonono, he's *really* pissed. One of his gloves/arm-warmers/things-that-he-wears-on-his-lower-arms (no one can decide what to call them) has disappeared again. It's probably just a little forgetfulness on the artist's part-- I mean, a distortion of spandex space or something-- and it'll probably re-appear in a moment, but it's still enough to send Sanzo into a dangerously bad mood.

And Hakkai's still smiling! Does he think it's funny to have a trigger-happy priest sitting in the same jeep as him?! Oh wait, it's not *his* ass on the line..

Ahhh!!! I'm *starving*!!!

--

And so endeth Part I. My original intention was to keep this as a one-part-once-off fiction. After it passed the one thousand word mark, I realized that wasn't going to happen. And then I realized that reading the whole thing at one shot might be too much. So I broke it up into parts. Goku needs to take time off to eat, after all.

Everything written in this fic has been observed in either the manga or the anime at one point or another. Even the disappearing gloves. That is strictly from the anime, though, namely Episodes 1 and 4. As for the rest, I'll let you look out for them yourself ^_^.

Go on reading, part II's here!

Copyright, sf, 2002.