The Last Saiyuki: Unedited Audio and Recording Notes (Patreon)

Manga Details

• From Tucker: Saiyuuki is the Japanese name for the traditional Chinese legend “Journey to the West”
• Author: Nonoue, Daijirou
  • Nonoue has worked as an assistant to Masahiro Hirakata, another author with canceled WSJ titles under their belt (Shinmai Fukei Killco-san, Best Blue) currently doing okay on Jump Plus with “Debby the Corsifa is Emulous
• Author’s other works:
  • Mutou Black (12 chapters)
  • Sajitari (one shot)
• Run dates: Mar 4, 2019 to Aug 19, 2019
• Chapters/Volumes: 3/24

About the Manga

• Plot
  • Ryunosuke is a little kid who loves baseball. His mom died and he wants to join the baseball team and school. However his deadbeat dad, Gohaku, shows up one day to give him a new little sister. Her name is Koharu: she has no arms or legs, is blind, and hasn’t spoken since her parents died. Gohaku tells Ryu to take care of her which leads to Koharu going to the hospital for heat stroke, and Ryu is punished for this by getting locked up in a dark room by his shitty dad, where he imagines a big monster but he thinks it’s a dream.
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  • Then the big monster attacks for real but his dad saved him using the power pole from Dragon Ball. The monster was a manifestation of fear. It involves a complicated power system called Mou, where everyone’s got a mou, but normally it’s in a box. If you let a mou out of the box it will monsterize and if you kill it you will be free of the fear. There’s more to it but eh. Anyway Koharu is a celestial dragon.
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  • The monster reappears and Ryu defeats it with his own power pole, which is special because it can change shape on the fly.
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  • Gohaku takes Ryu and Koharu to the magical world where everyone is a stand user. We meet Estelle, an 11 year old who is obsessed with fake-sailor moon as a way to cope with the death of her mother I think? It’s complicated but she spends a very long time telling us about it. There’s a creepy kid named Sai, and Koharu and Sai are half Goku (not that one). Koharu has a Yami Yugi inside of her named Kei who is a manifestation of the apocalypse maybe?
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  • Divine beings want to become “true humans” which is I believe the secret ending in Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne, so they have to suppress their emotions. There’s a justification for why but it’s long.
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  • Then they spend like 10 chapters discussing the mythological connections between the Ramayana and journey to the west, and I’m going to be honest I think you have to know more about them than I do in order to follow
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  • Right now the biggest enemy is the fear of a natural disaster that will destroy the Earth, and Koharu IS the Earth, and She was created by Ryunosuke’s mother. And people can’t open their mou anymore because of science. Gohaku was never hugged by his dad and that’s why he loved his wife Momo who he also physically abused. Everyone wants the perfect ultimate power source which is a really nice ball. Oswald never could’ve made that shot from that angle. The world ends. Maybe. I have absolutely, truly, no idea what happens next but there’s a time skip to when everyone is older and the comic just ends.
• Characters
  • Ryunosuke
    • Loves baseball
    • 3rd grader
    • Dead mom
  • Koharu Mori
    • No arms or legs and is blind
    • Got some magic powers
    • Voice makes fears
  • MC Dad, Gohaku
    • Long nose
    • Eyepatch
    • Treats son as shit
    • Gets nicer
    • Kind of a badass
  • Sai
    • Second in command in followers of chaos
    • Looks like little kid
    • Evil badguy
    • Originally one being with Koharu
  • Estelle Yoyaka
    • 11 years old
    • Nyoimbo user
    • Part of monster defense alliance
    • Prob the best character in the series
    • Mom died from a disease monster but she’s being brave about it
  • Niro Furuka
    • 32
    • Master
    • Senior official
    • 
      

Why it failed

• Got women with big titties out the gate
• I don’t like these character designs
• I really dislike legit children being MCs in shonen manga
• Man having child torture is pretty fucked up especially for the demographic
• This series is just not going to work for shonen kids
• This pacing is weird, I get it’s trying to be surreal but it just feels like I can’t follow it
• Why does a series with an 8yo protag so violent
• It has the issue of everything being only shown when immediately relevant, like why not show him talking to his friend about his sister when he went to baseball practice vs just investing this convo occurred
• I really hate when memory erasure is a major plot point it just lets the writing be lazy
• So much text about things and I just don’t care nothing about this series is interesting
• The chapters around 14 are faster paced but it means nothing really happens, so rather than overstuffing it it means you can read a chapter in 30 seconds
• This series is ableist as fuck. She is not a person she’s a cute little injured puppy that exists to teach ryunosuke about how lucky he is to not be disabled. It got less ableist as the series went on.

What it did well

• I like the art, the broken glass designs look cool and you can’t call the art lazy even if it’s generic
• People with disability representation
• It’s certainly a creative idea
• I like the MC punching his dad
• I like the whole cosplay to get into a different persona thing
• You can tell the author was inexperienced at making manga and it’s fun to actually see him grow
• Points for not sexualizing the kids

Where it could have gone

• People with disability rights yo
• Dealing with a character struggling to have a dying mom, this could have been OG goodbye eri
• Imagine this has become supernatural baseball league
• What if they have to deal with monsters that arise from rumors, like the existence of yokais

Misc Thoughts

• I think chapter 5 with the baseball friend would have worked much better as a chapter 1-2, imagine he learns the rules then immediately applies them vs dealing with all this dumb child abuse shit
• OP and HXH make me appreciate how the universe has competent adults that are much stronger than the kids
• Some notes from MaxyBee:
  • Assistant on this made bone collection
  • Mission Family replaced this which is still ongoing, I believe it’s the longest currently running jump manga without an anime
  • Recommends reading the author notes in the volumes to get an outline of series development and character profiles
• Weight training at young pages is mostly a bad idea as it can cause issues with bone development
• Demons that look like the fox devil show up which is odd

Final Verdict

• Six Word summary
  • Community
    • Tucker:  Shonen Jump flushed away a diamond!
    • Twolf: Many great interesting ideas, mixed execution
    • Daniel - A Smashing Theory: Wish that timeskip panel happened sooner
    • Agpuh: The miracle worker and the bogart
    • Andy’s Islands: Stick grew long, manga cut short
    • The Laughing Fool: Journey to the best flop yet
  • David: Meanders it’s Journey To The West
  • Jordan: Sometimes Samurai 8 and sometimes B.Ichi
  • Guest: Don’t let others’ disabilities stop you.
• Flop or not
  • If flop, what they could read instead
  • If not, how it compares to Chainsaw Man
  • It’s a flop, read Magu Chan which would be this plot if not taken seriously