A Korean Odyssey, 화유기 (Hwayugi), is a 2017-2018 modern spin-off of Journey to the West, written by The Hong Sisters.
Jin Seon-mi is a young girl who can see ghosts, making her a pariah among her peers. After meeting a seemingly friendly supernatural character, Woo Hwi, she is tricked into releasing Son O-gong from his prison. She doesn't hear from them again until she is an adult, now running a real estate business that specializes in purchasing haunted properties for cheap before chasing out the ghosts. When Seon-mi meets Son O-gong once more, she discovers that she is Samjang, a Chosen One with a great destiny to protect humanity from evil spirits, but she also finds herself starting to fall in love with Son O-gong.
This drama provides examples of:
- A Minor Kidroduction: The series starts with Seon-mi as a child, showing her struggles with ghosts and her first meeting with both Woo Hwi and O-gong, before it skips ahead to when she's an adult.
- Animal Motifs: In keeping with their Journey to the West inspiration. Devil King Woo is a bull, Son O-gong is a monkey, Pal-Kye is a pig, Ms. Ma is a dog, etc. Only Pal-Kye was ever seen as the actual animal, but animal sound effects sometimes play for the appropriate character and they sometimes invoke their Animal Stereotypes (like Ma's Undying Loyalty).
- Adopting the Abused: a Monster of the Week targets abused children in a tragically misguided attempt to give them better lives. When the heroes find out she just killed a little girl with an abusive father, they hurry to protect the girl's surviving brother. Jin Seon-mi's Locked Out of the Loop, Butt-Monkey assistant, Lee Han-ju, rises to the non-supernatural side of the occasion by physically rescuing the boy and adopting him.
- Assassins Are Always Betrayed: Inverted. In the end, Kang Dae-sung's right hand man who helped organize his crimes (that didn't involve Asanyeo) reveals previously unknown loyalties and takes orders from someone else to dispose of Kang Dae-sung.
- Bilingual Dialogue: When Seon-mi discovers that the ghost of the kimono-wearing child belongs to a Korean family loyal to Imperial Japan, the child and her family are speaking Japanese while Seon-mi speaks Korean and no one seems to have trouble understanding each other. Downplayed with Jonathan Lee, who often slips into English during conversations. Some characters seem to understand him while others don't.
- Bittersweet Ending: The world has been saved and Seon-mi and O-gong finally know the truth of their mutual love. However, Seon-mi is dead, forcing O-gong to wait for her to reincarnate. Devil King Woo has finally found his son and starts to bond with him, but still can't reveal the truth. Pal-Kye has lost both Jung Se-ra and Jade Dragon, and with Summer Fairy gone as well, he has Survivor Guilt about a photo of the four of them. Han-ju has lost his boss that he had finally warmed up to, but inherits the business and will have a happy life with his family.
- Bumbling Henchmen Duo: The two henchmen first introduced trying to bury Richie always show up together and vaguely resemble Moe and Curly Howard. However, while their reactions to the Outside-Context Problem they've found themselves dealing with are often comedic, they are shown to be perfectly capable of their deadly job.
- Call on Me: This is the deal O-gong makes with Seon-mi when she's little, before immediately stealing her memory of his name so she cannot actually call him. Once he gives the memory back, her being able to call him becomes a major element of the series (though weirdly gets retconned to be a result of the geumganggo, not the restored deal). Seon-mi later makes the deal in reverse, but this is never actually utilized.
- Celestial Bureaucracy: Downplayed as we don't see most of the workings, but heavily implied. The stipulations of the Spiritual Realm are a backdrop to most characters' motivations or actions, whether to keep in line with them or to defy their binding proclamations.
- Crime After Crime: Kang Dae-sung's first known crime was a legitimate accident he turned into a hit and run. Once Kang Dae-sung recruits Asanyeo she starts killing anyone in his way or who become suspicious of him. While it's implied it took the heroes to tip it over, it eventually becomes a Revealing Cover Up as people notice when a reporter looking into the already mysterious and suspiciously convenient deaths himself turns up dead.
- Continuity Creep: The series starts with an Evil Spirit of the Week format until Asanyeo is introduced, at which point it focuses on Asanyeo's grand designs that span multiple episodes at a time. The only normal evil spirit we see past that point is just used to establish how powerful Samjang has become.
- Deal with the Devil: O-gong's initial deal with Seon-mi is portrayed this way. It seems like a good deal for both of them, but he steals part of her memory to prevent himself from having to make good on his end of the deal.
- Devil King Woo obviously evokes this imagery and has people sign contracts with him as a legitimate part of his business, but in a subversion, since he has made a Heel–Face Turn in the past, the contracts are usually to assist him in doing good deeds.
- Double Standard: Rape, Sci-Fi: Once the geumganggo is placed on O-gong by Seon-mi he is magically compelled to love her. Seon-mi acknowledges the love is only because the geumganggo, and thus resolves to simply never take it off of him. This is never treated as particularly abusive (even when they have sex) and since he eventually discovers he grew to love her without it, the problem is never addressed.
- Exact Words: Son O-gong promised to come if his name was called. Of course, this is entirely reliant on Seon-mi knowing his name. Furthermore is that he tells her that she will "never remember his name", indicating that she can't just be reminded of it, as his memory removal took away the possibility of her remembering it at all.
- Fake Kill Scare: Devil King Woo accidentally kills Ms. Ma while trying to lash out at Master Subori. As it turns out, this was staged so that Subori would feel sympathy for Devil King and finally tell him what he wanted to know.
- Foreshadowing: We're initially told that Seon-mi became Samjang as punishment for freeing O-gong from his prison, before its eventually revealed that she was Samjang since birth. This is actually set up from the very beginning, by the basic fact that Seon-mi being able to see ghosts was already unique and the reason she was recruited to visit O-gong's prison to begin with.
- Forgotten Fallen Friend: After Asanyeo takes over Jung Se-ra's body, only Pal-Kye still seems to care about the fate of Jung Se-ra's soul. Even though O-gong had entered an Unstoppable Rage over Jung Se-ra's murderers shortly before her possession, Asanyeo is only ever treated as a villain to react to rather than someone they should actively pursue to save Jung Se-ra from. Especially notable when Asanyeo temporarily leaves Jung Se-ra's body. Pal-Kye taking care of her is relegated to a background element, and the rest of the heroes are perfectly fine with putting Asanyeo back into the body once they've saved Seon-mi, instead of taking the opportunity to let Jung Se-ra have her body back. When it's been so long that Jung Se-ra's soul is gone for good, it's treated as a Pal-Kye specific thing to mourn.
- Grand Theft Me: Asanyeo beings herself back by taking Richie's body (eventually permanently) and has the goal of taking Seon-mi's body as a major goal.
- Haunted Fetter: The gluttonous evil spirit seems to be more resilient than the spirits they have fought up until that point. They eventually realize it was born from and bound to a scale in the gym that symbolized the Weight Woe of everyone who used it. Once they destroy the scale, it defeats the evil spirit for good.
- Homoerotic Subtext: Despite being in a female body for the majority of his screentime, Jade Dragon is male and seems to legitimately start to fall for Pal-Kye, culminating in sacrificing himself to save Pal-Kye in a scene that comes across strongly like a Dying Declaration of Love.
- Hope Spot: The evil book seller spirit offers victims of child abuse a way into a magical world. As it turns out, it's just an illusion. When the girl leaves through her window to enter the world, she really does just fall and die. Only her soul is kidnapped and taken away.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: When Seon-mi first sees a vision of the future she must prevent, it involves military jets and bombs, not the evil spirits she had been dealing with up until that point. Ultimately it's revealed that the evil she must defeat is a spirit born of the collective evil of humanity brought about by a completely mundane politician.
- Hypocrite: Seon-mi's cousin laments how her father treats Seon-mi, yet she and her husband are just as happy to demand money and blame her for everything because it's convenient. O-gong and Seon-mi eventually tell them both off and not to bother her anymore.
- Hypocritical Humour: While discussing his plan to emotionally torture O-gong by setting up Jin with Jonathan, he talks about and demonstrates how he thinks O-gong would be hiding behind a pillar and gazing on pitifully like in a tv show. A few sentences later, he criticises Ms Ma's suggestion as an indication that she's been watching too many TV dramas.
- Innocuously Important Episode: When Devil King Woo and Seon-mi enter an old film reel, the weight of the event mostly focuses on revealing information on Woo's old lover, with the evil spirit surviving the episode seeming more like a strange loose end. As it turns out, while the evil spirit themselves is never really important again, the secret scandal about a connection to Imperial Japan is a crucial element of the eventual Big Bad's arc.
- It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: Being Samjang allows you to see ghosts unlike normal people, potentially causing you problems with interacting with other people. Evil spirits are also attracted to your blood, making you a danger magnet. Finally, it's revealed that the final fate of Samjang is to sacrifice yourself to save humanity from a great evil spirit.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: After spending most of the series killing anyone who gets in his way and knowingly steering humanity into disaster, but being completely untouchable even with his scandals becoming public, Kang Dae-sung is deemed to have become a liability by his allies and is killed the same way he planned to do away with Jung Se-ra for good: sealed in Asanyeo's coffin and dumped into the sea.
- Knight of Cerebus: The book seller spirit actually defeats Seon-mi for the first time and causes one of the first major present day deaths by killing a child. This is the first hint of the darker tone that soon follows with Asanyeo's freedom.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: The evil book seller spirit traps the souls of children in worlds based on their favorite books.
- Love Triangle: Devil King Woo intentionally sets one up between Seon-mi, O-gong, and Jonathan in order to upset O-gong. It doesn't last very long as Jonathan recognizes the connection between the other two and ultimately respected Seon-mi as a hero, not a love interest.
- Man, I Feel Like a Woman: Invoked as Pal-Kye keeps having to remind Jade Dragon to respect the body that he's possessing.
- Missing Time: When Alice finally gets her body back, she reveals that she doesn't remember anything from the moment she first got possessed and is very confused about what she supposedly got up to during that time.
- Modernized God: All of the monster and deity characters. Woo Hwi runs an entertainment business and is a judge on a popular idol series. Jeo Pal-kye makes a living as one of Woo Hwi's biggest stars. Sa O-jeong is publicly the CEO of a major mobile phone company. General Winter runs an ice cream shop and Summer Fairy runs a cocktail shop. Downplayed with O-gong, as while he is completely adapted to the modern world when it comes to culture and fashion, he has stayed apart from it.
- This is often Played for Laughs when Han-ju is around, as he's not in on the Masquerade and is confused yet pleasantly surprised to have so many rich and famous yet seemingly unrelated people casually come to his workplace.
- Monkey King Lite: Sort of. Son O-gong literally is the Monkey King from Journey to the West.
- My God, What Have I Done?: The evil book seller spirit is convinced they are actually a hero by saving children from abusive families. When it is pointed out that her actions kill them and hold them back from reincarnating, and that if she really wanted to have helped the children she could have addressed the abuse directly, she freaks out and becomes vulnerable to being destroyed.
- My Grandson, Myself: Subverted. A photo of Woo Hwi from the past makes its rounds on the internet. He doesn't even bother claiming it's a relative because he knows that no one will really believe that the old photo depicts the same, unaging person as the CEO of a major modern entertainment company. Addressing the issue of starting a new identity becomes a plot point once he is "fatally" stabbed at a public event.
- No Guy Wants to Be Chased: The target of a mermaid's affection found her too strange and clingy to return her affections. For some reason, he's treated as an example of humanity's evil by everyone for turning down her selfish obsession before it's revealed that he murdered her over it.
- Not Even Human: An "evil" spirit of the week turns out to be the victim of a human. When she reverts to her original, inhuman form, the human feels absolved of his guilt. The heroes don't agree.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: Only a few ghosts in the series are the spirit of dead humans. Most of the evil spirits they encounter are instead spawned as a result of the negative emotions or actions of humans, whether that be Weight Woe, Cyberbullying, Drunk Driving, or Child Abuse. In one notable case, an evil spirit turns out to be the ghost of a still living person, born from their absolute commitment to keeping a Dark Secret.
- Palm Bloodletting: Seon-mi's usual way of drawing her own blood if she needs to get the attention of evil spirits is to slash herself across the palm.
- Perverse Puppet: The first set of evil spirits are a couple of spirits possessing creepy puppets. Unlike most spirits, they cannot be destroyed without their bound object being destroyed.
- Poor Communication Kills: Many of the characters have reasons to not entirely trust or even intentionally mislead each other. Even so, most secrets tend to come out by the end of the episode they're introduced in. The ones that aren't tend to fall into this, however. Some of the biggest include Richie not keeping anyone else informed about the men who seem to want her dead, which leads to essentially every bad outcome from then on, and O-gong and Seon-mi trying to keep each other safe from their destiny, which technically averts their destiny, but still literally gets one of them killed in a way they could have avoided if they were comparing notes.
- Portal Picture: This series has two versions.
- An early evil spirit is a monster that kidnaps people by sucking them into his picture to be his brides.
- Later on, the main characters intentionally turn an old film feel into a portal in order to capture an evil spirit that fled into it.
- Redemption Failure: Played with. Devil King Woo starts the series having already undergone a Heel–Face Turn, but a major character element for him is the temptation to go back. The first major time is when O-gong tricks Woo into drinking some of Samjang's blood, bringing back his Horror Hunger urges. Ultimately Devil King Woo successfully resists each temptation and ends the series even having learned to appreciate his nemesis O-gong.
- Reincarnation: A major element of the series. Most importantly, Samjang is an identity that reincarnates regularly to protect humanity. Woo Hwi's love is doomed to suffer in reincarnation after reincarnation as punishment for a past evil deed.
- Retcon: O-gong is initially foiled in his attempt to eat Samjang because it turns out she's the girl who freed him and he made a deal with, meaning he still has to abide by his vow of protection. He eventually returns her memory, so she becomes able to utilize her end of the deal of actively summoning him for protection as well. However, the geumganggo is placed upon him at the same time, after which the explanation for these things suddenly changes. When curious about whether or not O-gong likes her independent of the geumganggo, she refuses to take it off because it's said that if he didn't like her without it, he would immediately kill her. Multiple characters reinforce this as the truth. Likewise, when other characters try to usurp this benefit, it is treated as a given that the geumganggo is also what allows her to summon him to her side, despite both of these originally being features of their deal. This creates a bit of a Catch-22 Dilemma Plot Hole about how she was able to survive long enough to get the geumganggo on him and activate it if it was the only reason he didn't eat her.
- Sadistic Choice: The evil spirit in the gym tries this against Seon-mi and O-gong, possessing an innocent bystander and forcing them to either let the spirit go or kill the innocent bystander along with the spirit. Seon-mi immediately Takes a Third Option, exploiting her Supernaturally Delicious and Nutritious nature to compel the evil spirit to leave the person's body of its own free will so they can defeat it cleanly.
- Screw Destiny: Played with. Once they realize that what rang for Seon-mi was a death bell and not a love bell, both Seon-mi and O-gong do everything they can to avoid having to kill the other. Ultimately they succeed, but Seon-mi still dies in the process of saving the world.
- Seeing Through Another's Eyes: Asanyeo conspires to link Devil King Woo with a zombie she animated in order to convince him that she has found his son. As a result, he gets visions of the zombie's perspective as it kills.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: Pal-Kye starts the series as a bit of a Butt-Monkey and Richie's amnesia and rotted body make her a bit of a Cloudcuckoolander. The series starts to get serious once Richie's body is hijacked, and while Pal-Kye stays around, the trauma of losing Richie takes his comedic side with her.
- Sliding Scale of Adaptation Modification: A Korean Odyssey sits in a strange place in relation to Journey to the West. The relationships between certain characters (like the lingering animosity between O-gong and Woo, and Woo's past as a villain) imply that the story is a sequel to Journey to the West, but it repeats enough character and story beats to make it either an Adaptation Inspiration with a Setting Update or a Same Plot Sequel.
- Supernaturally Delicious and Nutritious: Samjang's blood is nearly irresistible to supernatural creatures. Evil spirits are constantly after Seon-mi due to it, O-gong initially wants to convince her to die because of it, and Woo Hwi finds himself having to resist the temptation on and off throughout the series.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: When Pal-kye finds out that Asanyeo is helping the man who killed Richie to begin with, even he finally turns on her. She almost says this trope word for word in the translation and starts by attempting to kill Pal-kye. Of course, the only reason everyone was treating her that way was because she had already proven herself untrustworthy, she just decided it was never her fault until that point.
- The Redeemer: Pal-Kye starts out being nice to Asanyeo for the sake of Jung Se-ra. At some point, he apparently realized that Jung Se-ra's spirit had moved on, but kept being nice to Asanyeo. It seemed to be working, too, until he found out she had crossed what he considered a
Moral Event Horizon, in turn triggering her Then Let Me Be Evil moment. Even still, at the end, she came to him in order to find some sort of redemption in death. - Troll: Seon-mi is embarrassed in front of her whole class when she obeys the teacher's instructions, only to realize that the teacher is an evil spirit that only she can see and hear, and seemingly only masqueraded as the teacher just to troll her.
- Two Siblings In One: General Winter and Summer Fairy are eventually revealed to be siblings with Summer Fairy sharing General Winter's body.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The second half of the series quickly stops showing many of the side and background characters, some of which had previously contributed to Running Gags, like Devil King's fellow judges or the parking lot attendant.
- Will They or Won't They?: It doesn't take long for the main drive of the series to be the question of whether or not Seon-mi's feelings for O-gong are mutual.
