Sun Wukong.
Journey to the West (西游记
Xīyóujì pronounced roughly
she-yo-jee) is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, and first published in the 1590s, although it is plainly based on much older folk-legends. It is
Inspired By the pilgrimage undertaken by the Tang dynasty Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang, who nearly a thousand years earlier travelled to India to study Buddhism at its source and obtain accurate copies of Buddhist texts known in China only through inaccurate nth-generation copies.
In the novel, Xuanzang (also called Tripitaka, a Chinese-Sanskrit bilingual pun that can't be concisely explained in English) is accompanied by three supernatural beings who have been assigned to guide and protect him as penance for past misdeeds. Zhu Bajie, pig-like in appearance and a greedy hog in behaviour, and Sha Wujing, a river monster whose fierce appearance belies his thoughtful nature, are former heavenly dignitaries exiled to their current existences. The third companion is Sun Wukong.
Sun Wukong deserves a paragraph to himself. Warrior, magician, and trickster, the Handsome Monkey King (by acclamation of his subjects) and Great Sage Equal of Heaven (self-proclaimed) gets seven chapters devoted to his rise and fall before the novel's nominal hero first appears, and continues to steal the limelight throughout with practiced ease. Every reader has a favourite story — the one about his bet with the Buddha is particularly popular — but alas, this page is too small to do them all justice.
There's also Yulong, a dragon who eats Xuanzang's horse and in restitution is required to transform into horse shape and carry Xuanzang the rest of the way. But even the author seems to forget most of the time that he's not just a horse.
After many adventures, in which Sun Wukong and his allies defend Xuanzang from thieves, robbers, cannibals, false priests, and monsters of all varieties (not to mention the horrifying affair of the escaped goldfish), they reach India and everybody lives happily ever after. Yay!
Journey to the West has been adapted to television many times - especially in Japan, where the story is called
Saiyuki and the characters are Genjo Sanzo, Cho Hakkai, Sha Gojo, and Son Goku. Many anime series have at least one
Shout Out, and some go for outright plunder (from
Gensomaden Saiyuki to, of all things,
Dragonball). One Japanese live-action adaption of the 1970s, and its thoroughly gender-bent cast, is still fondly remembered simply as
Monkey in English-speaking countries from the irreverent (almost
Gag Dub)
BBC translated version, with its annoyingly catchy disco theme-song (
"Monkey Magic, Monkey Magic"
).
The movie
The Forbidden Kingdom, adapts the encounter of Xuanzang and Sun Wukong, complete with the "main" character being named Jason
Tripitakas, and just like in
Journey to the West, Xuanzang/Jason has the carpet pulled out from under him by the Monkey King. Possibly the prime example thereof, and arguably a Jet Li
Crowning Moment Of Awesome, would be that after Jason is explained by Jackie Chan's character to be
the "Seeker" and thus the nominal hero, the Silent Monk — a familiar created by the Monkey King — looks him over before openly laughing in his face.
The team responsible for
Gorillaz, Damon Albarn (he of
Blur) and Jamie Hewlett (of
Tank Girl fame), adapted the story into an opera in 2007. They also did a two-minute animated version for the 2008 Olympic Games, which was used as a title sequence for the BBC television coverage of the event.
Series based on
Journey To The West include:
- Saiyuki
- Dragonball, particularly the early episodes
- Monkey Magic, animated series.
- Gokuu Midnight Eye
- Monkey series
- Starzinger is Journey to the West In Space! (Dubbed into English as Spaceketeers; The Three Musketeers In Space!)
- Alakazam the Great
- Saiyuki (PS 1 video game)
- The Monkey King: The Legend Begins (Wii video game)
- The Forbidden Kingdom (2008 movie starring Jet Li and Jackie Chan)
- Secret Journey (ongoing Shotacon hentai manga by Poju)
- Shinzo
- Kǒudài Xīyóujì (An MMORPG, known in English as Ether Saga Online)
- Monkey King An unsubbed, undubbed Chinese cartoon.
References to
Journey To The West are made in:
- One villain in the Read Or Die OAV series
- A group of villains in Yu Yu Hakusho
- A children's play staged by the main characters of Love Hina
- Kamemon's Perfect form, Shawujingmon, in Digimon Savers.
- A School Play staged by the characters of Urusei Yatsura
- One episode of Lupin III
- The short story "Sir Harold and the Monkey King", from the Harold Shea series of fantasy short stories
- One of the productions of the Imperial Theater Troupe in Sakura Wars.
- The title character of Paprika manifests at one point wearing Sun Wukong's trademark outfit.
- The first chapter of Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years Of Rice And Salt is written in the style of Journey To The West.
- Go Go Sentai Boukenger, where Wukong's size-changing staff was one of the treasures sought by hero and villain.
- The theme to the above-mentioned Monkey series was included as a bonus stage in the first Ouendan game.
- The Bladedancer stories of the Whateley Universe, especially the first one, in which Chou's journey to Whateley Academy is closely based on Xuanzang's journey. Sun Wukong has in fact been established as a recurring supporting character, and he's still good at stealing the show each time he pops up.
- The Genesis Unit of Wily Tower in the Sega Genesis remake collection Mega Man: The Wily Wars.
This story provides examples of:
- Ascend To A Higher Plane Of Existence: Xuanzang and company after they successfully bring back the sacred scriptures.
- Almighty Janitor: Wukong gets assigned the job of Heavenly... Stable Boy. This becomes a Chekhov's Skill later in the story because all horses gain an innate respect/fear for Wukong because of this.
- Bajie's reward for completing the quest is becoming a janitor in Buddha's temple.
- Big Damn Heroes: Sun Wukong and Zhu Bajie do it all the time.
- Bad Ass: The book's ninety-nine chapters long, and every major character gets a chance to be one at least once.
- BFS - Big Fucking Staff: Wukong's weapon is an iron rod that is able to grow very humongously and is said to weigh 8100kg.
- Acquired, full size, from an undersea dragon king that had no idea what do do with it. Which was then shrunk with monkey magic. And put behind Wukong's ear.
- Cave Behind The Falls: Sun Wukong's home
- Celestial Bureaucracy
- Celibate Hero: Xuanzang is a celibate monk, but keeps getting abducted by beautiful women and female demons who find him attractive, good to eat, or both.
- Good to eat because it is said that a single bite of his flesh will grant the eater ten thousand years of life.
- Crazy Awesome: Many of the characters in the Tsai Chih Chung comic adaptation.
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome: Some of the greatest in literature.
- Deus Ex Machina: Whenever Wukong can't resolve something himself, he generally goes to Buddha for help (but he's also lodged his share of complaints against the Celestial Court).
- Guan Yin has to bail him out a lot too.
- It should be noted that all of Heaven called upon the Buddha to help them contain Wukong when literally everything they tried ended up failing or making him worse.
- Does This Remind You Of Anything: Oh, come on. A magical rod that expands at will? Clearly, the Dragon Kings (and Sun Wukong, by extension) must be Compensating For Something.
- Ensemble Darkhorse: Sun Wukong is, at least technically, not the main character.
- Evil Twin: The whole team ends up with their own Dopplegangers; naturally, Sun Wukong's is the hardest to deal with.
- Five Man Band:
- God Mode Sue: The first part of Sun Wukong's history basically has him running roughshod over both humans and deities before Buddha puts a stop to the madness and even after he is released he gets many a Curb Stomp Battle before they reach their destination.
- Impossible Task: Jumping out of the Buddha's palm.
- Indy Ploy: What Sun Wukong usually did after Xuanzang got kidnapped again
- Inspired By: The historical journey of Xuanzang to India—except he did it with a handful of human assistants and even made a few legs of the trip by himself.
- Jerkass Gods: Sun Wukong, before his imprisonment, literally beats up, steals from, and terrorizes everyone he meets. He scares a Dragon God to such an extent that he gives Wukong the nail holding the Milky Way in place just to get him out of his house. He gets better. ...sort of.
- And after they do collect the scriptures, the Buddha's servants hand over a bunch of blank scrolls after realising that the pilgrims didn't bring any gifts.
- Jerk With A Heart Of Gold: Wukong, after he was stuck under a rock for a few centuries, is so grateful to Xuanzang that he swears everlasting loyalty (though Xuanzang, being a monk, doesn't approve of Wukong's more violent problem solving methods). Previous to his attitude adjustment, Wukong was more of a Jerkass Stu.
- James Bondage: Being abducted — for food or otherwise, deceived and generally harassed seems to be a main occupation of Xuanzang. Usually just to show how badass Sun Wukong is.
- Lawful Stupid: Xuanzang, SO very much. Every time a demon disguises itself as a human in peril, you can wager your donkey that Xuanzang will insist on helping said disguised demon. Despite knowing that demons can take human form, and that Wukong can see through their disguises, Xuanzang gladly ignores Wukong's advice because he's just that compassionate of a guy. Only once in the entire book, in one of the later chapters, does he consider that Wukong might be right...only to revert back to Lawful Stupid when the demon (disguised as a child) puts on the puppy dog eyes.
- Leisure Suit Larry: Bajie, who started the series blackmailing a girl to serve as his eventual bride and fights a continual battle against gluttony and lust. (The whole reason he ended up as a pig-demon in the first place was that he made inappropriate remarks to a fellow goddess.)
- Let's You And Him Fight: Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing each fight Sun Wukong before discovering that they're on the same side.
- Lost Forever: One page of the scripture gets permanently stuck to a rock when they fall into a river and the pages get wet.
- MacGuffin
- Made Of Iron: Wukong survived being thrown into a godly fire, said to be able to kill immortals and gods, for 49 days!
- Mister Seahorse: Although it was averted before something actually happened, there are multiple chapters later in the book(s) about Sun Wukong going to retrieve a pregnancy antidote because Zhu Bajie and Xuanzang unknowingly drank magical pregnancy inducing river water flowing through a town filled with nothing but women.
- Monster Magnet: Again, Xuanzang, because monsters believe that eating him will gain immortality.
- Munchkin: Sun Wukong's abilities are utterly over the top.
- Not In This For Your Revolution: The other main characters are all bound to Xuanzang.
- Older Than Steam: All tropes here that aren't from a modern adaption.
- Only You Can Repopulate My Race: During a hilarious incident in a kingdom entirely populated by women. Slight subversion: they can reproduce without him via a magic spring, but they understandably want men too. Poor, poor Xuanzang...
- One Man Army: Wukong, Just Wukong.
- How, You ask? When you are able to fight and defeat just about everyfricking' Mook, Elite Mook and the Dragon of the heavens, each fight said to be like fighting God, ...
- Out Of Focus: As one Deviant Art user said, "No one likes you, Yu Lung. Not even your dad."
- Purple Prose: It's not purple prose, it's friggin' purple poetry, but descriptive asides peppering the novel defy any other definition.
- Rage Against The Heavens: Sun Wukong takes on the Celestial Bureaucracy single-handed... and almost wins.
- Almost? Wukong does kick the Celestial Bureaucracy, Jade Emperor included, out of Heaven, and then they ask Buddha (who's above separate from them) to help. Let's face it, if Buddha wasn't, well, Buddha, Wukong'd still be sitting on his monkey-ass in the Jade Emperor's throne.
- Restraining Bolt: Sun Wukong has a circlet around his head which contracts if Xuanzang says the command phrase.
- Spell My Name With An S: Sun Wukong's teacher, Bodhi/Bhuti/Subhuti.
- Take That: Apparently, some scholars believe that the work is one big Take That against the decadent government at the time.
- Not to mention its frequent bashing of indigenous Taoist/Confucian beliefs.
- The Quest: The whole premise and reason for the novel. Xuanzang has to bring the holy books from India, and he needs protection and help on the way, opening the way to a lot of wacky hijinks.
- This Was His True Form: Inverted — Many of the antagonists are wild animals that have learned to mimic human form (the Chinese version of the henge described on the obake page); they revert to their true form when killed.
- Trickster Archetype: Sun Wukong. Who else?
- We Want Our Jerk Back / We Cannot Go On Without You: Happens each time Wukong gets expelled from the group (or quits himself).
- What Measure Is A Non Human: Killing a human is very bad. Killing a monster or wild animal, even one that has demonstrated human levels of intelligence, self-awareness, and emotion, is no problem.
- Values Dissonance: A lot of motivations and justifications for the heroes' behavior look definitely odd to a modern reader.
