Gensomaden Saiyuki
A fifty-episode television anime produced by Studio Pierrot in 2000, adapted from Kazuya Minekura's manga series Saiyuki.
Gensomaden Saiyuki is a 50-episode television anime produced by Studio Pierrot, adapted from the manga of the same name created by Kazuya Minekura. Broadcast on TV Tokyo from April 4, 2000, to March 27, 2001, it was the first anime adaptation in the series and won the 23rd Animage Anime Grand Prix. The story is set in "Shangri-La," a world where humans and demons coexist but have fallen into chaos due to unbalanced experiments. Following the orders of Guanyin, the monk Tang Sanzang forms a party with Sun Wukong, a demon monkey exiled from Heaven; Sha Wujing, a half-demon; and Zhu Bajie, a human-demon hybrid. Together, the "Tripitaka Party" travels west toward Tianzhu in a jeep named "Bai Longma" to thwart the Bull Demon King's conspiracy to revive himself through forbidden experiments. By reimagining the four disciples of Journey to the West in a modern, dark-punk style—featuring cold, handsome characters, gritty dialogue, firearms, cigarettes, and a heavy rock soundtrack—this work has profoundly influenced subsequent Japanese derivative works based on the Saiyuki theme.