Saiyuki/Awesome

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• Son Goku gets his in the Kami-sama arc. After suffering their first really crushing defeat, the Sanzo-ikkou is half-dead and out of options, yet they have no other choice but to go after Kami-sama again, since he stole Sanzo's scripture. Knowing there's no way they can win with that kind of attitude, and hating to see his companions so out of it, Goku forces them to sit down and play mahjongg. And he wins. Repeatedly. They play for an entire day because Gojyo, Sanzo and even Hakkai are so incredibly pissed off that Goku, who has never, ever, beaten any of them, in mahjongg, cards or even rock-paper-scissors, keeps winning with Sanzo's discarded tiles. And never mentions food, even though "I'm hungry!" is almost his Catch Phrase. Finally, Sanzo can't take it anymore and moves to go after Kami-sama alone, when Goku asks him if he's really all right with leaving the table a loser. According to Goku, he's not winning because he's playing strong; he's winning because they're playing weak. And he goes on to give a passionate speech, about how they have their own way of doing things and how he's never, ever going to lose again. He runs out of things to say after a bit, but he gets his point across and he gets his desired results. It's a significant moment in the series that really highlights how far Goku has come on the journey west, and that he's beginning to grow up; this was the first time fans could begin to take him seriously as a character in his own right, not just an Expy of every other stupid Shonen protagonist with a big appetite.
• Sanzo's fight with many youkai in an underground tunnel in the Reload manga. Provides some Character Development in terms of how Sanzo and Hazel differ in their treatment of youkai and battle philosophy, and an aversion of Bottomless Magazines: In a scenario that reminds him of his years spent hunting for the Seiten sutra, Sanzo is down to 4 shots and 5 opponents and finishes off at least two of the attackers with a katana that another youkai dropped. It's a rare glimpse of him fighting without his gun and his level of Badass is undiminished.
  • Then he goes back to the town, where things were just on the point of getting ugly between the inhabitants and the others, fires the one bullet he saved into the air to get the crowd's attention, announces WE ARE LEAVING RIGHT NOW, and nobody dares to do anything to him or to the rest of the ikkou.
• There's another awesome moment of character development/character crystallization in Reload, shortly after the Sanzo ikkou first encounter Hazel. Hazel, who believes that youkai lives are worth less than human lives, has a long, honeyed speech where he coaxes a little youkai boy to let himself be killed to save a human child's life. The other members of the ikkou look in desperation to Sanzo to intercede. Just as Gat is about to kill the little boy, Sanzo says to him, "You're shaking. Why are you scared?" "B-because I want to live." "Louder." "I want to live!" No pretty words, no complex rationalizations. Just the truth.
• The ending of the Reload manga has the previously separated ikkou rejoin Sanzo, just in time to keep him from getting erased by Ukoku's Muten Sutra. With Hakkai healing Sanzo's injuries, Goku and Gojyo attacking Ukoku from two angles at once, and Gat and Hazel temporarily drawing Ukoku's attention, Sanzo gets off one shot Ukoku can't fully dodge, putting out his right eye! Not fatal, but far more damage than anybody else has been able inflict on Ukoku. Fired, for some poetic justice, from Gat's gun (which is about 3 times the size of Sanzo's S&W). And then everyone collapses on the ground bleeding and giggling and playing Jan-Ken-Pon to decide who has to drag The Luggage (Sanzo) to Jeep. The climax being their first battle directly against Ukoku has a wonderful symmetry with the end of the Gensomaden manga, where the ikkou defeat Ukoku's disciple Kami-sama and it's first confirmed that Ukoku is Nii Jienyi.
• In Gaiden:
  • Tenpou punching the living shit out of Li Touten, for trying to get Kenren fired and sexually harassing Tenpou (no kidding--Li Touten comments on how pretty Tenpou's face is and then speculates on his preferred sexual positions). The cold fury radiating from Tenpou is the first glimpse we get of just how dangerous he really is.
  • At the Emperor's birthday celebration, Tenpou and Kenren getting in a fight with some soldiers on Goku's behalf is pretty damn awesome already. Then Konzen shows up, gives Goku a noogie for running off, and tells the entire assembly that all three (Goku, Kenren, and Tenpou) are his responsibility and WE'RE LEAVING RIGHT NOW. And the three of them fall in behind him without a word as he stalks off. It's the first time Konzen displays this kind of charismatic authority and conviction and it becomes much more apparent in his reincarnation as Sanzo.