|humour|
Once some of the deeper issues surrounding Saiyuki have been discussed and analysed to the best of our abilities, it's time to kick back, relax, and find the humour in the situation. After all, where would this world be without humour? Luckily, Saiyuki has plenty of humour, from Sanzo's baka saru, Goku's elaborate complaints, Hakkai's politeness driving the others to climb the walls, Gojyo's goofy facial expressions, and the mere presence of Kanzeon Bossatsu's hapless chess partner.

 

|hen|
As it turns out, Hakkai fits neatly into a long standing Team Bonet tradition: chifladismo. This term is probably completely new to you, so allow us to explain: A chiflado has been defined by Team Bonet as a spectacles sporting man who is unerringly friendly, polite, and hiding a great deal of pain. This is Hakkai to a T, and we were very thrilled to have found a brand new chiflado for the ranks. Of course, Hakkai's glasses are really a monocle, but Minekura has drawn him with glasses in posters and the such so often that he might as well really have glasses.

 
While we're on the subject of glasses... If Saiyuki manages to convert you into an avid Minekura fan [as it did for me], you will soon find that most of her manga will feature a be-spectacled character [Kubota from Wild Adapters anyone?] that resembles Hakkai quite closely [they actually resemble Gaiden's Tenpou much more closely, but Tenpou's Hakkai so the observation still holds]. If you're a Hakkai fan, this is great news of course. It's like a wonderful, never ending Hakkai Else Worlds. It certainly gives us a good idea of who one of Minekura's favourite characters might be.

 
|kotoba|
After a while of RPG-ing Hakkai, I've found that I've mysteriously developed a penchant for little noises such as maa maa and ara ra. The funny thing is that while I'm pretty certain Hakkai does say maa maa, I can't really remember if he's ever really said ara ra. Regardless of this fact, intoning ara ra reminds me of Hakkai, and my best friend and room mate, Yohji, has already realized that I'll react to most things in this manner. He RPGs Gojyo, so my ara ra is usually answered with a growled out nanda teme? This is in turn followed by my own version of Hakkai's nervous laughter, which is in turn capped off by our Sanzo's eh? dame yo! and so forth into oblivion.

Another speech pattern I've picked up from Hakkai is the somewhat apologetic and polite desu kedo ending. This has brought about its own ritual. I [as Hakkai] will say something like warui desu kedo [trans. that's too bad, but...] to which our Goku [my good friend John, who is really having way too much fun RPG-ing Goku] will reply with "there's no kedo about it!" It's really quite fun, and I can't remember when we've had so much fun RPG-ing a series. It makes us feel very silly sometimes, but we've been RPG-ing as a group for so long [we've been at it for more than seven years now] that we just sink comfortably into our roles with very few backward glances. It makes for decidedly twisted memories, especially when John switches back into his rather serious self and intones: "What happened in winter of 2001? Oh, yeah, I was Goku." Hen desu kedo, nee...

 
|norimono|
Ever since I got a chance to watch CLAMP's Magic Knight Rayearth dubbed for Mexican TV, I've developed a deeply rooted dislike for any sort of cute pet. I make an exception for Anthy's pet mouse, Chu Chu, in Shoujo Kakumei Utena, but not much else beyond that. I find these usually marshmallow fluffy pets as unnecessary and insufferably cute as most people find the animal sidekicks in Disney films. Some of them are down right embarrassing, as can be seen in Gokurakuin Sakurako's Gorgeous Triangle manga: Their pet very much resembles a little green elf, complete with little pointy shoes! My sincere apologies to those of you who love these pets, but I find that they're not needed, they do very little to advance the plot forward, and you can just smell a merchandising gimmick a mile away.

I'm glad to say Jeep inspires none of these feelings. For one, he doesn't speak much, and that's always a plus in these cases. He also doesn't seem to have any qualms about acting just like what he is: a pet. He glides after Hakkai and coos at him every now and then, but he doesn't go around doing stupid things in the background like poking at man-eating plants till they swallow him whole. His design is also refreshingly non-marshmallow in execution, but sleek and thin; Jeep is an elegant looking white dragon, not a pastel coloured puff that bounces around.

Jeep also transforms into an actual jeep. In the anime his transformation is quite jarring and, frankly, embarrassing, but in the manga there is no need for the fear of clunkiness and I actually find myself thinking his automotive ability is quite cool. It allows Hakkai to speak to his car [shades of Nightrider?], for one, and this in turn brings a brand new layer of meaning to a driver's attachment to his vehicle. It also serves as the starting point for quirky jokes, such as when Jeep gets drunk [as a dragon] in the OVA and then refuses to start [as the car] the morning after. It's little things like this that make Jeep truly endearing to me, and I'm glad to see Hakkai has a deep love for him.

 
|onaji|
Right along with avidly RPG-ing Hakkai with no real shame come those moments when I sit around my apartment and wonder why I identify so much with him. I've always believed that readers choose favourite characters who either already remind them of themselves or who act as they wish they could. Once I've chosen a favourite character, that character becomes an inspiration to me, and I develop a fierce attachments to him or her. For a while I not only read about the character, I am that character, as odd or silly as it this may sound. Of course, I don't pick up a monocle and take to wearing green, but I certainly begin to notice character traits in myself that remind me of Hakkai. It's a bit childish, I admit, but it's a good way of getting to know myself and sometimes even appreciating aspects of my personality I've been less than thrilled with before.

In Hakkai's case I see kindness and politeness. As I stated before, I'm pretty polite myself. Sometimes too polite, or so my friends say. I talk softly, bow, excuse myself for almost everything, and have heard the words "you're so sweet" perhaps once too often. Let me tell you, it's hard to be polite in this messy world. Too many people like to walk all over us polite blokes, and it's always a cause of stress and anxiety to stand up for myself and say simple things like no, I can't do that right now. Liking Hakkai certainly doesn't cure this situation, but it makes me feel good to know that there's a character I can identify with. It's even better when the character is genuinely a decent person that people can turn to and depend on. I worry, though, when I see how Hakkai's politeness gets on the other's nerves sometimes. I hope this isn't the case with my friends. If it is, I have only one word to say: sumimasen.

Hakkai's politeness is not the only reason I identify with him, though. I also see in myself his need to smile in order to mask a volatile temper. Although I'm incapable of true violence, my ready and explosive temper is nothing I'm proud of. As with my excessive politeness, though, identifying with Hakkai really does very little to help me cure my temper... but it's a comfort to be able to identify with him and understand, if only a little, how he must feel. Maybe liking him will help me to smile more often, too, and keep that temper in its place. That can't possibly be a bad thing.

 
|meiwaku na|
Not a lot of things annoy me in Saiyuki. Minekura is one of those mangaka (like Chiho Saito, Ozaki Kaori, and Yashiki Yukari) who will probably never do wrong in my eyes. I'm quite hooked on her art style, so although I find the plot of Saiyuki a bit weak I'll probably never tire of the wonderfully up-beat art. However [there's always a however], there are one or two things that do annoy me a little about Saiyuki.

The first is a  phenomenon that I like to term The Merchandising Monster. This monster lurks everywhere, reaching out to both make you very happy and very embarrassed at the same time: key chains, notebooks, pillow cases, sleeping bags, obento. All of them plastered with images of the Sanzoikkou. I find this incredibly embarrassing. I'm also embarrassed by how Hakkai and the others seem to be the newest Gundam Wing or Weiß Kreuz: incredibly handsome Merchandise Monsters. I'm quickly loosing my interest in all of those pictures of Hakkai hamming it up for the camera, looking sexy and not at all like himself. I know that Hakkai is not beyond sensuality in the manga itself, and I have absolutely no bones to pick with it in that context, but those posters and trading cards seem too much like gushing to me. I'm none too fond of gushing. I think it's because I'm getting old... but I much prefer to just enjoy Hakkai in the manga and leave it at that.

My second bone to pick is Minekura's costume designs for Saiyuki. I quite like Hakkai's Chinese-style shirt, with its interesting shoulder strapping, but I just can't understand why the Chinese flavour just stops from the waist down. Half of the male characters in Saiyuki are wearing jeans. This seems incongruous to me. Saiyuki is a legendary story, built upon imagery of ancient China. Minekura acknowledges this by dressing her characters in Chinese costumes, but then she weakens these costumes by capping them off with decidedly modern pants and shoes. Perhaps she meant to blend the modern world with ancient China [after all, I doubt the ancient Chinese drove jeeps], but then why not give Hakkai either a completely Chinese or completely modern costume? I'm not a big fan of Gojyo's rather "street" costume, but at least it's fully modern and therefore a stronger design. The same goes for Sanzo's robes, which are fully Oriental and one of the best costumes in the manga.

At least I can breathe easy knowing that Hakkai's not dressed in bright yellow or orange. That cringe inducing costume belongs to poor Goku.
 

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