Loved the Jin Mori Reveal in God of Highschool? Here are 4 more Amazing Series to Watch If You Love The Monkey King Lore
Episode 12 of God of Highschool brought us an epic reveal. Our beloved MC Jin Mori is none other than the Heaven’s Equal Great Sage: The Handsome Monkey King!!
If you think it was epic how he manifested the epic headring, summoned the nimbus to rain thunder on his enemies and used his telescopic staff to soar in the skies and beat up giants.
Some of you may already know about The Monkey King, Sun Wukong, who is regarded as the main character of the very first and original work he appears in, the 16th century novel “Journey To The West“. He is the “god” or the legendary figure that Jin Mori used to be according to the lore of God Of Highschool.
But the anime has ended and while the webtoon is there with a lot of content for you to explore, we here at Renai Otaku anticipate the new fans of the Handsome Monkey King want to know more about him and various other media his story, Journey To The West, has been adapted to. So without further ado we bring you 3 other animated series and 1 Video game to check out if you’re into the lore of the Monkey King!
1. Journey To The West: Legends of The Monkey King
What better way to explore the lore of the Monkey King than to dive in to the adaptation of the original novel. Originally aired in June 4 of 2000 , Journey To The West – Legends of the Monkey King is regarded as a Chinese classic when it comes to animation.
It comes with a 75 minute prequel movie that covers the origin and subsequent fall of The Monkey King and the 26 episodes of the series cover his adventures on his way to India to recover scriptures! Apart from being as faithful to the original as possible within the number of episodes they had, it has beautiful music, animation and all of it’s episodes are on YouTube!!!! So Go check it out right now!
2. Dragon Ball
Funfact: Did you know the Japanese name for Sun Wukong is literally Son Goku?
This might be surprising to many of you and obvious to some but did you know Son Goku and the original cast of Dragon Ball, which included Bulma,Yamcha, Oolong, Puar, Tenshinhan, Chichi, Ox King are all based on the Journey To The West characters. To name a few, Bulma is the Dragon Ball counterpart of Xuanzang the monk, Oolong being of Zhu Bajie, Tenshinhan being of Erlang Shen etc. There are so many more obvious and subtle references in the original Dragon Ball series that will make you giddy as you notice them!
3. Saiyuuki
Saiyuuki is a manga written by Kazuya Minekura and published by Enix in 1997 which has been adapted to several anime series, anime movies and OVAs. Unlike Dragon Ball, it is more close to the original with its characters however it deviates a lot when it comes to the main plot. In Saiyuki, four punk-like heroes ; the monk Genjyo Sanzo, the monkey king Son Goku,the half-demon Sha Gojyo, and the man who turned into a demon Cho Hakkai travel to the west to stop the resurrection of the Ox Demon King. It isn’t widely discussed these days but remains in the memory of many fans as a solid series and has also gathered actual success in all media from manga, anime to video games and musicals.
4. Black Myth: Wukong
Our fourth installment on this list is not an animated series but the upcoming game “Black Myth: Wukong“. When Game Science, the developers of the game released their gameplay trailer, the internet went crazy at how good the game looked and how interesting the gameplay seemed. While there isn’t much info on the release dates of it, the 13 minute trailer is nothing but jaw dropping.
Staff martial Arts, Nimbus riding, dragons and ogres and beautiful landscapes. The game is very promising and needs to be kept an eye out for if you wish to enter the Monkey King mania through this wonderful game.
Honorable Mentions:
Original “Journey To The West”
If you’re willing to spend a bit more time into reading then the original novel is easily the best way to dig into The Monkey King lore.
Journey To The West: Conquering the Demons (2013) (Movie)
Directed by Stephen Chow (known for Kung fu Hustle) it is another retelling of the classic tale in a very comedic way with extravagant action and is a very fun movie to watch.
Havoc in Heaven (animated movie, 1964)
It is another classic Chinese animation and it shows the various antics and skirmishes of The Monkey King during his time in heaven and the subsequent revolution that follows.
