Saiyuki

Minekura takes the old Chinese epic Journey to the West and rebuilds it as a road trip with guns, jeeps, and cigarettes. Sanzo is a chain-smoking priest with a pistol; his three companions are a violent half-demon, a flirtatious water sprite, and a cheerful thief, and none of them are the noble heroes the legend suggests. They drive across a land where demons have gone mad, bickering the whole way toward a confrontation in the west. The plot is standard shonen adventure, but the appeal is the four leads and the way Minekura draws them: stylish, damaged, and genuinely fun to spend hundreds of pages with.