Journey to the West: A Chinese novel loved by the Japanese

[Angelcake the Fox]

I know, I know.......you're probably wondering to yourself: "Why in the heck is this guy talking about a Chinese story? This is a forum about Japanese stuff!"

Well, let us not forget that the Japanese as we know them originated in China. Also, although this tale is not of Japanese creation, it is incredibly influential in Japan and has influenced Japanese culture for hundreds of years, and has become just as much a part of Japanese culture as that of China's.

The novel Journey to the West, traditionally said to have been written by scholar Wu Cheng-En, is an ancient and humorous heroic fantasy- with allegory and religous overtones- that chronicles the adventures of Sun-WuKong The Monkey King and his companions: the monk Xuanzang, the pig demon Pigsy, and the water demon Sandy (those are western terms), who are on a quest to go to India to retrieve sacred buddhist sutras. Along the way they meet many creatures and friends, all of which contain some sort of allegorical context.

The star of the show, of course, is Sun WuKong. He's a real womanizer, with a somewhat childish nature. However, he is pure in spirit and has a golden heart, and will help anyone in need. He wears many hats: ruler, magician, warrior, prophet, scholar.......and many others. He also carries around a magic staff that can extend to various lengths as he sees fit.

Does any of this sound familiar to you? Well how about this......

In Japan, Sun Wukong is known by another name......Son Goku.

Yep, you've probably figured out this story's importance by now.....but will get to that later.

Like I said, this story has been VERY influential in Japanese culture. The first manga adaptation of this work was written and drawn by.......well, who else?.....Osamu Tezuka! It was called Monkey King, and featured his signature cartoon epic style.

Go Nagai, creator of Devilman and Mazinger Z, also made his own adaptation, called Super Saiyuki. It contained his signature rauchiness.

However, there is one particular adaptation (sort of) that has become famous the world over......

Yep, you guessed it. Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball.

Heck, he even took the name Son Goku for his characters!

Basically, Dragon Ball is sort of a retelling of the original story.....well, up to a point anyway. There are alot of character parallels. Son Goku is, of course, the Monkey King. Kuririn is Xuanzang the monk, Ooolong is Pigsy, and Yamcha is Sandy.

True, the story deviates a good deal when the 'Z factor' gets involved midway, but still.......

Of course, there have also been a few Japanese tokusatsu series based around the story, with some pretty good special effects to boot!

Anyways, I know that this isn't a thing of Japanese origin, but I feel that it is quite relevant to this forum, as it has been so influential in Japanese culture, modern and ancient, and it also helps show the similarities of two nations who, more often than not, focus way too much on there differences.

[Fliege]

"Journey to the west" is awesome. However, every time I find a retelling of this story on the internet, it only goes up to when Wukong becomes Xuanzang's disciple. Anyone know where I could find the rest of the story?

[Stan Sakai]

i have a Chinese graphic novel of the book, and the art is amazing.

Tezuka's Monkey King was made into an animated movie in the 60's and released in the US as Alakazam the Great, with Frankie Avalon as his voice.

[Angelcake the Fox]

Tezuka's Monkey King was made into an animated movie in the 60's and released in the US as Alakazam the Great, with Frankie Avalon as his voice.

Yeah, but the translation was AWFUL.

Not only that, but they took out all of the religious content, which more or less emasculated the entire point behind the story.

Like I said before, Journey to the West is not just an adventure story, its also a buddhist religious allegory. A western equivalent would be the christian allegory The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, only the former is longer, better written and more entertaining.