English Dub Season Review: Saiyuuki Reload: Zeroin Season One

Overview:

A remake of the 2004 season Saiyuuki Reload Gunlock but this time it follows the manga a little more closely.

Getting ambushed by rogue demons on the road is business as usual for the Sanzou party. But when their latest assailants turn out to be humans, the group is left dumbfounded. The mystery only deepens when they encounter a wandering priest, Hazel Grouse, and his imposing bodyguard, Gaty Nene Hawk.

Our Take:

After doing some research for this season review I understand this show a little more. It’s apparently a remake of a previous season of the series. That seems to be all the rage with anime studios recently. There are a few series I would love to see get that treatment as well.

This show had some ups and downs but for the most part, I wasn’t a fan. Not knowing a lot about the characters and their background made it hard to get invested. If it wasn’t for the amazing voice cast the anime would have been a total loss. This is one of those series that seems to just assume you have seen all past material. I can kind of understand that they aren’t pandering to newcomers and are respecting their true fans but it makes for a hard viewing experience.

As a result, the plot was confusing and I couldn’t quite follow everything revolving around the demons. Plus I would imagine a fan of the series would have already known all that and the fact that most of the Sanzo Party are demons with their demon parts suppressed. So it begged the question, are the demons really the bad ones? This was kind of an interesting thought process to have and it scored points from me there.

The VA’s were awesome. I love getting to hear David Matranga, Ian Sinclair, Howard Wang, and Greg Ayres all together. They really did make the experience all the more enjoyable with how they brought the characters to life. There were a few episodes that focused on Goku (Greg Ayres) a little more and I thought Greg shined there.

In the end Saiyuuki Reload: Zeroin is decently animated and well voiced. The plot was hard to follow but to be fair I am coming at it as a complete newcomer. If you are a fan of this series you were probably going to watch this anyways but newcomers should stay far away till they have watched more of the series.