Cigarettes

Cigarettes 【煙草 Tabako】(Sai.1 - Continuous)

☆ Half the characters appearing in the Saiyuki series depend on these “worse than useless” luxury items. An item representative of Minekura-sensei's manga. All the cigarettes in the series are real life brands.

☆ Representative of Sanzo are Marlboro reds (he recognizes only the soft case), while Gojyo favors Hi-Lites. The story behind why Sanzo decided on Marlboros is introduced in “Burial Arc, Sanzo’s Chapter”, in the episode with the high priest Jikaku. Similarly in “Burial Arc, Gojyo and Hakkai’s Chapter”, there’s a scene where Banri casually snatches and smokes one of Gojyo’s Hi-Lites. The reason Gojyo decided on Hi-Lites is that in the past he went with the same brand as Banri. Also Koumyou Sanzo and Ukoku Sanzo are smokers as well, though Koumyou prefers his to use a pipe.

☆ Likewise, it seems that not even the gods can stay away from the addictive substance. Ark Royal is the name of brand that Tenpou smoked. Kenren also smoked them, but appears to be less picky about his brands because cigarettes were a hard commodity to come by in Heaven because they had to be fetched from the lower world. Ark Royal are pipe Tobacco filter cigarettes. Also Xenon, another god though also rebellious, smoked as well. In Saiyuki Gaiden, Kanzeon Bosatsu was seen smoking too, but not always.