Research Artist #14: Kazuya Minekura

Another manga series I read is called Saiyuki, written and illustrated by Kazuya Minekura. It is roughly based on a myth about a monk who travels to the west, accompanied by the monkey king, Son Wukong in Chinese and Son Goku in Japanese. The artwork is highly detailed and realistic, but is still definitely manga-style. The characters and dialogue are a lot of fun, and the action scenes flow clearly. The coloring for covers and colored images is gorgeous. The language is strong, and there is a fair amount of nudity and gore, but it is worth checking out if you like serious manga. Otherwise, a Google search brings up a lot of good images. The orginal Saiyuki series is nine volumes long, and I have no idea how long the second series, Saiyuki Reload, is. After a point, I had troubles locating the next books. Anyway, here are some samples of Minekura's Saiyuki artwork: