The Teacher and the student-Hakkai and Goku.

Now if you're someone that's known of me for a while you'll know that I love manga [and anime]. And if you've known me for a REALLY long time you'll know that my favorite manga is Saiyuki-always and forever.

Saiyuki has always been unique in many ways, Kazuya Minekura has a way of making you feel attached to certain characters while on another note she makes you hate/loathe a character to the point where you wish death upon them. Now Saiyuki isn't really for the faint of heart, and I'm not even sure if I phrased that correctly.

There's always a certain depth to each character, even the ones you'd expect to just be background characters. And that goes for the Kougaiji group, but I will save that for another time.

I'm here to talk about Cho Hakkai [formally known as Cho Gonou] and Son Goku.

Cho Hakkai [with Hakuryuu]

 Now Cho Hakkai is my favorite manga/anime character of all series that I like. I'm not quite sure what it is about this demon slayer, but he really pulled me in as a character in general. His role in the group seems fairly simple, drive the rest of them to India [with his magical dragon who can shape shift into a jeep]  and basically play the role as 'mother'.

Though they say they're on the journey for their own reasons, Hakkai seems to genuinely care about his companions [while not being afraid to confront them if need be]. While it's known that he's close to Gojyo [and Sanzo], I wanted to sort of touch on his relationship with Goku.

Son Goku [no not from DBZ]

Son Goku is sort of the 'cheerleader' of the group, if they took Goku away from the group I sort of feel that there would be a darker aura surrounding them. Though he seems younger than the rest, he actually is older than everyone by 500 years. [But that's because he was locked up in a cave for so long, but his maturity is that of a teenager]

And because of his maturity, Goku continues to learn things about himself or others as he goes along his journey. As I continue to read the manga, I take notice of his change and how he matures slightly throughout each chapter-and I feel a big part of that is because Hakkai is there to guide him along the way. While Sanzo teachers Goku important details about surviving, I feel like Hakkai is also an important role in that as well.


To me it's almost like they're both his parents.

Goku holds a lot of trust in Hakkai, to the point where he makes the decision in the desert he entrusts him to get his diadem back on. I don't know if it's just me, but there has to be a lot of trust that would have to go into that. Since to this point Sanzo has always been the one [or the Goddess of Mercy] to be able to do this-it takes a lot for Goku to even trust that Hakkai would be able to complete such a task.

And Hakkai fails at doing the task at hand, which led the healer to feel remorse for not being able to help him. [But Hakkai in general is just a guilty guy I think, poor thing]

What I love about Hakkai though, is that he doesn't see a 'monster' when he sees Seiten Taisei. He just sees Goku, even though the other may not recognize him in that state-Hakkai knows that deep down that their Goku is still in there and he'd be damned if they gave up in retrieving him.

So when they have to make the decision to take the diadem off, Hakkai is determined to make sure he gets it right this time. He even risks his own sanity to accomplish this-even though Sanzo warned him that if he lost it he wouldn't come back like Goku. And he did almost lose it-if it weren't for Gojyo's involvement Hakkai would either be dead or mentally he just would not be there.

Hakkai faces off with Goku in his youkai form.

Hakkai and Goku sort of have this relationship where they sort of learn from each other, like they do the others. That's why I always want to consider their relationship as opposed to Goku's with Sanzo and Hakka's with Gojyo's.

In terms of strength, I believe Seiten Taisei could have killed Hakkai even in his youkai form. And Hakkai probably knew this-and yet he still found a way to get Goku's diadem back on without the help of Sanzo. [who in his own right was dealing with his own mental problems, but yeah.]

I hope in future chapters their relationship is explored-because Hakkai and Goku are alike in some ways considering their pasts. Though Goku doesn't remember, he did slaughter people in a blind rage though his attack seemed more chaotic [and not well thought out like Gonou]. The only difference is that Hakkai can at least gain control over his youkai side, but I think it's a common theory that Seiten Taisei just holds too much anger from wrong doings to even be able to be controlled.

As a whole, Seiten Taisei is an enigma, but that is a subject I will also save for another time. I can't simply wonder if Minekura will finally touch on his roots, and who he was before he was taken into Heaven.

Goku and Hakkai's relationship to me is one of the best, because they feed so well off of each other. And I think Goku cares about Hakkai's wellbeing, and vice versa. I sort of love how they look out for each other, in their own way. I may be odd, but it really is my favorite relationship out of the rest of the group-even if you wouldn't expect it.

This is a sloppy essay or whatever you want to call it, so I might fix it when I'm not as tired.

If you've read-thanks for reading!

They're dorks, but they're MY dorks.