This is GTV!
Pure Magic!
In this episode, I will tell you a story.
A rather amazing story, one that had far reaching effects on the pop culture in Japan and America.
Affecting the worlds of literature, anime, music, television and gaming.
It's a long journey there, but stick around for the ride and you’ll come away amazed.
So Let’s Go!
OPEN
Our story begins long ago in 7th century China when a Buddhist monk named Xuanzang, left
China for India to study with scholars and holy men to produce better Chinese language
versions of Buddhist scripture.
Xuanzang left against the orders of the Emperor Taizong, who forbade his subjects travel to
other lands.
Xuanzang travelled for 13 years across the whole of ancient India, visiting holy sites
and studying historic texts.
When he returned to his homeland in China, The Emperor Taizong welcomed him warmly for
his efforts, even though he had violated his edicts.
Xuanzang was given financial support and with it built monasteries for study and reproduced
his translations of sacred Buddhists texts.
As well he chronicled his journeys with the help of his disciple, Bianji.
The texts are known in English as the Great Tang Records on the Western Regions.
The book is a vital record of the economy, agriculture, climate, geography, people and
daily life in the regions in which Xuanzang travelled.
The book has survived since the 7th century and is still in print today.
Xuanzang died in the year 664 and would be remembered and revered in ancient Chinese
culture for centuries afterward.
Though he had written his own chronicle of the journey, in the years following the life
of Xuanzang folk tales and legends began to appear about his life.
Around the year 1000 the folk tale had coalesced into a standard tale of a monkey who travels
westward seeking knowledge.
In the 16th century the oral histories of this tale that had been passing around for
almost 1,000 years were put to print, knowing in Chinese as Xiyou Ji.
In English this means literally West-Wandering Chronicle) though the proper title in the
modern day is Journey to the West.
The book was published anonymously, but is generally accredited to poet Wu Cheng’en.
The Dynasties of ancient China held great power then, and its sphere of influence spread
across Asia.
Writings, philosophies and technology flowed from China to Japan, Korea, Vietnam and other
regions outside of the Dynasty.
Though the order of the world is quite different today, Ancient China is still help up in high
regard, similar to how European Culture looks back on Roman and Greek influence
Journey to the West would make its way to Japan, along with the other works that comprise
the “Four Great Classic Novels”, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin and Dream
of the Red Chamber.
As time progressed to Modern Times, Japan rose as a powerful nation in its own right,
but retained many of the ancient Chinese influences it received.
As a result, Journey to the West, known as Sai-Yuu-Ki in Japanese went on to be a treasured
work for the Japanese as well, being taught in schools for centuries.
From the time Journey to the West was published until the mid 20th Century, the book was unknown
in the Western World, but did receive a an abridged English translation by Arthur Waley
in 1942.
For centuries though, the novel was the only version of the story that existed.
But that all changed in 1978, when Journey to the West would be reborn and live on in
pop culture around the world ever since.
I’m 1978 a song released by rock band Go-die-go gave a funky 70s retelling of the Journey,
with a song called Monkey Magic.
Go-Die-Go were comprised of Japanese and American musicians.
The group had the standard 70s hard rock sound blended with a little funk and a mixture of
English and Japanese vocals.
With lyrics like “Born from egg on a mountain top, The punkiest Monkey that ever popped.”
Monkey Magic was a unique take on the classic tale.
In fact, it had never been done before, standing out as a big surprise when the single was
released.
It also put a well known work that by 1978 was essentially homework in high school, and
gave it a makeover putting Journey to the West in the pop culture spotlight.
Monkey Magic was a massive hit in Japan, despite the whole song being English.
The song peaked at #2 on the Japanese Oricon music charts, was released internationally
and went on to become the most well known song by Go-Die-Go
Monkey Magic was then included in as the opening theme song for an TV series based on Journey
to the West which ran for 2 seasons.
The show was known in Japan as Sai-Yuu-Ki.
The show would later receive an English language dub and aired in the United Kingdom as “Monkey”
in 1979.
As well as Australia in 1981.
The soundtrack from the show featuring songs by Go-Die-go would a #1 album for 8 straight
weeks in Japan and the best selling album of 1979.
Thanks to the song and the show, Journey to the West was a very hot property, and from
this, a wave of inspiration followed that would be derived from, influenced by or simply
name-checked the book, tv show and song.
In 1979 Nintendo would release an arcade game with the title Monkey Magic, cashing in on
the popularity of the song.
The game imitated Atari’s breakout where the player smashes blocks with a bouncing
ball.
The field of blocks in Monkey Magic is a monkey’s face, wearing a bandana just like that worn
by Sun Goku aka Monkey in the Monkey TV show.
From there the influence of Journey to the West led to the creation of a long running
Manga and Anime series, Dragon Ball!
Though altered in certain ways to make Dragon Ball its own story and to keep its own story
exciting, it is an unmistakable homage to classic book.
Dragon Ball became its own empire and has had multiple video games released over the
years on all kinds of hardware ranging from the Epoch Super Cassette Vision to Playstation
4.
One of the first, but NOT THE FIRST was Sheng Long no Nazo for the Family Computer.
When the game was localized for America, references to Dragon Ball were taken out and Goku was
changed back to Monkey and the story rewritten back into Journey to the West!!
Dragon Ball elements were retained for that game’s French version as an aside.
But there were other Journey to the West games released around this time.
Monkey Magic was released for the Commodore 64 in 1984 in the United Kingdom and Europe.
The game tries its best to fit as much from the TV show Monkey into the game as it could
across 4 stages!
There was also a version for the lesser C16 machine with only the first level of the game.
1984 also saw the game Son Son be released arcades with the main character Son Son names
after Sun Wokong and the game involves Son Son traveling to reach the Statue of Buddha
There was yet another game and it's surely the most popular.
Sega developed Alex Kidd and his series of games with Saiyuuki in mind.
Probably to keep the character original, and because Goku was just recently taken by Dragon
Ball, Sega gave him the rather western Name of Alex, but the mythology of Alex Kidd is
similar to that of Monkey, as he was born from a mountain and lived there alone for
years practicing his Kung Fu techniques until the time came where he was called to embark
on his quest.
Sure the whole rock paper scissors thing was pretty out there but the clearest connection
to Saiyuuki is that Alex Kidd wears a nearly identical outfit to that of Monkey from the
TV Show!!!
As well various games often called Saiyuuki or Monkey Magic appeared over the years.
Throughout the 80s the revival of Journey to the West continued.
The songs, the show, the games and Dragon Ball helped turn an ancient novel into something
cool.
By the mid 90s, the tributes to the classic work had died down with mostly Dragon Ball
being the most popular.
(show saiyuuki for FC)
As a wise man once said, the nature of Monkey is irrepressible and in the 21st Century a
new generation of Monkey tributes were born.
In the year 2000 a new anime series aired in Japan called Monkey Magic!
Of course the story keeps the usual familiar ties to Journey to the West but tells a somewhat
original version of the classic tale.
When a meteor strike the earth a young monkey named Kongo is born from it, though the “stone
monkey” as he is called is not accepted by the others monkeys until he deposes the
king of the tribe to become their new leader.
Over the course of the show, Kongo travels the world to seek strength and knowledge to
defeat his rival Nata and the celestial forces of the heavens, led by the Jade Emperor.
Monkey Magic the anime was localized for America and aired on UPN, making it the first true
variant of Journey to the West released there without major changes made to the original.
Monkey Magic also had its own game, for the Sony Playstation released in conjunction with
the TV show, only in Japan!
All of these media, tv shows, games, manga, were born from a single song!
Naturally the music world felt the effects of the original hit song, as it had been covered
by a number of different singers and groups since 1978.
But in 2004, the long trail that Go-Die-Go began had come full circle when a rock band
Monkey Majik debuted in Japan.
Much like Go-Die-Go, Monkey Majik were comprised of Japanese and Foreign members.
The name of the group was inspired by original drummer, Tom Prichard, who was British and
grew up watching Monkey as a child, paying homage to the opening theme song.
They would later cover the song themselves in 2007.
The popularity of Monkey Majik the band, bought Go-Die-Go to light for a younger generation
and to relive the glory days with the older, prompting them to reunite permanently.
That’s pretty amazing but the influence of Go-Die-Go doesn’t end there.
Though the group was inactive from 1985 to 2006, a few members composed video game music
during that time, a few you may have heard years ago and never knew it from them.
Singer Yukihide Takekawa composed the soundtrack to SoulBlazer for the Super Famicom.
And Lead guitarist Takama Asano was a composer for Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor for
the Nintendo DS
It may have been the show Monkey, Dragon Ball, the Rock Band Monkey Majik or something else
entirely that you may have encountered at some point in your life, maybe it was all
of these!
But they all derived from on man and his quest for knowledge.
You could say, in a way, his journey never ended.