The world used to live in peace with demons. However, recently that peace has been broken and normally peaceful demons have begun to kill human beings. Into this comes Genzo a monk, who along with 3 friends begins to investigate why the demons have turned their backs on mankind. The story is another of the many spinoffs of the classic Chinese story Journey to the West with the group going on a series of standalone adventures along their way.

    Saiyuki is an anime series that aired in the early 2000's for 50 episodes. Other series based on the same manga have come and gone since, but this month Sentai Filmworks has decided to unleash the 50 complete episodes of the series on 3 Blu-ray discs in standard definition.  The show has a narrative throughline with the group going west, but at the same time working to get to the bottom of the demon problem.   The show itself is a very effective mix of action, drama, romance, and comedy balancing all these disparate genre elements while never failing to create something entertaining, or off balance in any one direction.

    The animation is excellent, character designs while not entirely unique are interesting as are background and locations.  The score is fantastic, and really helps set the tone for the show, and by the end I wanted more. Especially, since after 50 episodes there is no ending. Sentai Filmworks presents Saiyuki in a 480p standard definition 1:33:1 transfer that looks solid, but considering the quality of the animation one could assume this would look great in HD. Still long time fans of the show should be pleased to be able to get all 50 episodes in one place for a low cost, and with a transfer of reasonable quality. Audio is HD with a 5.1 DTS-HD English track, and a 2.0 Japanese track. Both sound just fine with no obvious issues. There are no extras. RECOMMENDED.