Journey to the West - Lost in Adaptation

Gotta find 'em all, the seven magic balls. Gotta find 'em all to have your wish come Truuuueeeeee. Sorry, rewatched Dragonball not to long ago, so the theme song was in my head for most of this. lol

Michael T. Johnson

Nice video! Though, i'm not gonna lie, for some reason I was hoping for a cameo from Overly Sarcastic Productions. Probably because of their recap series on the books.

Matt Baker

Yeaaaa seeing this mentioned on YT but not til Friday made me sub here. Come for the Journey to the West, stay for the ~~~forbidden Howl's Moving Castle Video~~~ (I've read all 3 of the howls books) Dang and this was out Sunday?!? Patreon seems worth it

Juli No Fooly

I remember during the promotional stuff for Legend of Monkey the woman who played Sandy mentioned in an interview that she read the entirety of Journey to the West in preparation and quickly realised she’d basically wasted her time

It’sCamille

That has to be the most amazing power move I’ve seen all year, I am DYING.

MatthiasTheWanderer

I hope there is an honorable mention for Dragon Ball Edit: and I was right lol

DK Jones

That’s the version I was thinking of too. Been so long since I watched it, but when I got into OSP’s Journey to the West series, it made me realize: “Hey, wait a minute. . .” And now Shinzo’s one of the first things I think of when it comes to Journey adaptions.

Andrew P

Not going to lie, but my favorite version is currently Lego Monkie Kid. It's both like a next generation, but they got the characters spot on. (They got Goku's english VA to voice Wukong) and they got a blue Sandy, and a very frightening version of Lady Bone Demon. Whole thing is just fun!

J. MacGillivray

there was another sci-fi-ish anime reimagining- the dub is called Shinzo, I think the original was called Mushrambo. It's kind of terrible, the dub was very Child Friendly, and it can't even be called in name only because it doesn't use the name, but I have a soft spot for it as one of the first anime I saw.

A slight correction to the Buddhist theology: there aren't really any true immortals in Buddhism, except those who reach enlightenment and become Buddhas. All the gods are really mortal, just extremely long lived. And the Jade Emperor and his Heaven are relatively low in the cosmic totem pole, they're just the highest beings (barring the actual Buddhas) who have anything to do with the mortal realms. But an fun look at the adaptations of the classical tale. I'm a bit sad that OSP didn't get a honourable mention, but can't have it all. It's too bad that all the attempts to make an accurate adaptation of the story occurred decades ago, and nowadays it's all just reimaginings and alternate settings.

Iago24

I looked up the theme song to the 1978 show on YouTube. I find it super strange how long it is, I couldn't tell what most of the lyrics were, and I kinda wanna watch the show now despite not knowing the first thing about this book before I saw this video.

Anthony (ThePkmnYPerson)

My favorite adaptation is OSP's . And I'd be willing to bet that Red's sketches have a higher budget than a couple of these. Seriously though, fantastic job getting through all this. I'm currently reading the 4 volume translation myself, but because it's so episodic I'm doing it in fits and starts, just reading a few chapters whenever the mood takes me, because it's a lot of book. Well done not only reading two versions, but consuming so many adaptations as well.

LupinThe8th

So glad I'm not the only one who felt uncontrollable rage at the white one on Netflix.

Rachel Winship

“Monkey and Pigsy are odd couple roommates-“ Me: Say no more, I’m going to stream it right now

Rachael W

Same, I felt it was more live action anime feel than fanficiness

Rachael W

That troll, tho!

Varentill

You really did a lot here! And I am sad you didn't like "The new legends of Monkey", it is bad, but I found it very entertaining ^^

Odayin Gold

MONKEY!!

Skemono

I was so happy that Saiyuki was mentioned C:

Manda Panda

I NOW UNDERSTAND WHY YOU'RE GOING TO BE ON OSP. I am weirdly excited for this one!