#jttw 86

[starborstborst]

DYING over these billibilli edits... the comments r SO funny

"空空是我的白月光" swk is my white moonlight (a pure and unobtainable crush) HILARIOUS because this edit implies that swk and zbj got it on when they were both in heaven LMAO

"八戒看朕为你打下的江山可好呀" OMG SJSHDJSN "bajie, is the kingdom i (a pronoun used only by the king) built for you good?" LOL this is when swk is showing zbj around flower fruit mountain

"刘牌子，赐香囊" "leave his plaque, grant a perfume satchet" in usually qing dynasty harem dramas when the emperor picks women from the lineup, leaving the plaque and granting the satchet means the candidate has been chosen into the harem LMAOSKFNDJHD

"空空一袅楚宫腰" A CLASSICAL POEM BY CAI SHEN DESCRIBING HOW THIN THE WAISTS OF THE CONCUBINES IN THE CHU KING'S HAREM WERE... ITS USED HERE TO DESCRIBE SWK....

MORE RAVING OVER SWK'S WAIST LOLOLOL liu laoshi's waist truly was a beautiful thing

[ryin-silverfish]

Chapter 18: What a Swine!

-A few pages into the chapter, and I found the first hook to go on a giant tangent: according to Gao Cai, Gao Village is located in the Kingdom of Qoco. I have no idea why Yu translated it as such, since the original Chinese name——Wusi Zang(乌斯藏, a transliteration of dbus gtsang) sounds nothing like that, but in short, it's the Ming dynasty name for Tibet.

-However, a quick glance at this map would show you that the real Xuanzang didn't cross Tibet during his journey; rather, he went the long way around the Himalayas, travelling on the Central Asian Silk Road. In the Ming dynasty, if you wanna go to India, you could actually take the route through the Himalayas and Nepal, but it wasn't there in the Tang dynasty (because there were a couple of hostile kingdoms in the way; Tuyuhun, Tubo, etc.)

-Sidenote, I absolutely love how JTTW '86 adapted this chapter, with SWK getting his flirt on and the legendary "Pigsy Carrying His Bride" sequence that had made its way into many subsequence adaptations.

-JTTW Research had written pretty comprehensively about Pigsy's origins, from the Daoist deity Marshal Canopy to his ties with Marici, an import deity with a boar mount who's also associated with the Dipper Constellation. As such, I only had one tidbit to add about possible inspirations for his character in folklore that predated the above.

-The earliest tale about a lusty pig demon could be found in the Tang dynasty Xuan Guai Lu(玄怪录). Guo Yuanzhen, a historical general during the reign of Gaozong and Wu Zetian, came across a mansion in his youth during travel. The whole place was lavishly decorated, as if preparing for a wedding banquet, but eeriely empty save for one crying woman.

-Turned out, she was the unwitting soon-to-be bride of a god called "General Wu"(乌将军), who demanded a beauty as his wife every year from the locals, and because they would pay a hefty sum to "buy" said bride, her own father sold her out to be this year's sacrifice. Furious, Guo disguised himself as a guest, pretended to offer General Wu some venison, then cut off his hand with the meat knife.

-Wounded, the General fled, and his severed limb turned into a pig's hoof once the sun came out. Soon, the bride's family and village elders came to the manor, ready to collect her body for the funeral, and were so freaked out by what Guo did that they were ready to sacrifice him to General Wu too, since the "god" was known to summon storm and hails whenever he didn't get his bride.

-Guo scolded them for being so damn guillible because no real gods would demand human sacrifices or, y'know, have pig hooves as hands, before gathering the young men of the villages and following the trail of blood to the pig demon's abode, where they proceeded to smoke it out and kill it with an assortment of arrows and farming tools.

-The woman, after calling out her terrible parents, pledged herself to Guo and became one of his wives, and all was well.

-Honestly, Pigsy's evolution from his folklore origins to JTTW Zaju to JTTW novel seemed to be one in which he became increasingly sympathetic; from basically being a more lusty version of Guanyin's goldfish, to an opportunistic kidnapper who took advantage of a pair of star-crossed lovers' family feud, to an ex-deity turned reformed demon who kinda got screwed over by his in-laws.

-Final note: Pigsy bragged that even if they could get the "Monster-Routing Patriarch" to come down from the Nine Heaven and exorcise him, he could still claim to be an old buddy of the guy. Which…wasn't wrong, considering that "Monster-Routing Patriarch" was the title of Emperor Zhenwu, Lord of the North, who was worshipped alongside Marshal Canopy as one of the Four Saints of the North Pole.

@journeythroughjourneytothewest

[journeytothewestresearch]

12th-Century Sun Wukong

I was happy to learn that the Monkey Pilgrim (Hou xingzhe, 猴行者), Sun Wukong's antecedent, appears among a large set of late-12th-century ritual scrolls portraying the famed 500 Arhats. [1] He is depicted as a monkey-headed, black robe-wearing figure with the lower half of his body obscured by clouds, making him hard to see unless you zoom in on the image. He holds what appears to be the head of a staff in his left hand (fig. 1). Our hero is located just behind Tripitaka, who is riding a white horse led by a spirit-soldier(?) or perhaps Sha Wujing’s antecedent (fig. 2). The full scroll shows this scene happening above the heads of four arhats (fig. 3), indicating that the Tang Monk is considered to be one of these Buddhist sages.

I actually found the simian immortal by accident while researching an article about Tripitaka’s Buddha title. Dr. Meir Shahar tells me that this depiction of Monkey doesn’t appear to have been mentioned in previous JTTW scholarship (personal communication, June 3, 2023). [2] Therefore, I’m so very happy that I can share this discovery with my readers!

For more ancient depictions of Sun Wukong, please see my past article:

Fig. 1 – A detail of the Monkey Pilgrim (larger version). From Lin Tinggui and Zhou Jichang, Images of the 500 Arhats (Wubai Luohan tu, 五百羅漢圖, 1178-1188 CE). Hanging scroll, ink and color on silk. Image from Nara kuniritsu hakubutsukan, Tōkyō bunkazai kenkyūjo, 2014, p. 86. Courtesy of Dr. Liu Shufen, a research fellow at the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica.

Fig. 2 – A detail of Xuanzang on his his horse (larger version).

Fig. 3 – The full scroll (larger version).

Notes:

1) To learn more about these paintings, see Zhou (2021).

2) Dr. Benjamin Brose tells me that the painting appears in a Japanese source, but the Monkey Pilgrim is only listed as an “ape-like figure” (personal communication, June 3, 2023). See Nara kuniritsu hakubutsukan, Tōkyō bunkazai kenkyūjo henshū, 2014, p. 86.

Sources:

Nara kuniritsu hakubutsukan, Tōkyō bunkazai kenkyūjo henshū [Nara University Tōkyō Research Institute for Cultural Properties (Ed.)]. (2014). Daitokuji denrai gohyaku rakan zu [Daitoku Temple’s Tradition of the 500 Arhats Paintings]. Kyōto: Shitau bungaku.

Zhou, Y. (2021). The Daitokuji Five Hundred Arhats Paintings and Their Beholders [Master’s dissertation, University of Alberta]. Education and Research Archive. https://era.library.ualberta.ca/items/f0bf436c-f6e5-46a2-920a-91c8b9dd5ba9

[megashadowdragon]

judge's similarities to peng from journey to the west and the possibility that his science involved in the goroseis defeat

I've already mentioned Judge's similarities to Peng before: But could Queen and Caesar be the Elephant and Lion in JTTW? Together the demon lords were some of Wukong and the groups greatest adversary's, but Peng in particular had to be defeated by Buddha. Luffy beat Caesar, Sanji beat Queen. But Judge has not been actually 'defeated,' according to the story. Just put into life debt. Peng/Garuda in the story, carries a JI/Spear and a flask that can trap and kill even immortals. Would that mean Germa may have the key later to defeating the Gorosei?

In fact, the way Peng/Garuda is defeated according to this, falls in line with Judge not being really defeated but put into debt. Peng was forced to agree to become a protector and submit.

Yeah. It's just looking it over it fits. Peng got tricked with meet/bait by Buddha and pacified/made to become an ally and put to work rather than defeated like the Azure Lion Elephant. Judge was given bait (the marriage and alliance) and put to life-debt and pacified, instead of properly defeated like Caesar and Queen.

Another parallel to Sanji like the others. Since; ""2. In Journey to the West, Garuda has a counterpart named Peng. Golden eagle demon who is haughty, stands beside a throne, and uses a ji(chinese spear) as a weapon, ahem: JajJI, ichiJI, niJI, sanJI, yonJI. Also, spears. Judge uses spears, Sanji has been compared to a spear by Zeff. --Chapter 86, Chivalry vs Fishman Anger. 86 in Goroawase is yari, yari is spear."" -Quoting myself from a forum. So then for parallels that leaves us.... Both Princes, who were later adopted by non-royalty. Both come to serve a future Pirate King. Both rival a future WSS. Both (hopefully for Shanks) despise their birth families. Spear references. Look alike. Fire based abilities. Judge = Flamelike sun hair. Garling = Moon hair Judge and Garling = Not good people. Judge and Garling = Spear references. The parallels keep growing.

The name, Garling, derives from the Old English and Germanic word, 'geri,' meaning a spear. The suffix of 'ing' is added to mean, 'kin' or 'person' Garling's name basically means Spearman. Interestingly, a 'shank' is also part of a spear.

Sanji's TRUE POWER is The Key to DEFEATING the GOROSEI: One Piece Theory

judge was originally called st germain a famous alchemist and here is a theory that the gorosei are connected to alchemy

@pernanegra @monkeydluffy19920

[digitalagepulao]

🥔 Which adaptation was your first impression of JTTW?

mmmm not sure if it can properly be called an adaptation, but my very first proper taste of JttW was with Monkey King: Hero is Back (2015)!

i watched it a few years after i dug up some gifs from when the trailer first hit, watched it and fell in love with it! ended up hyperfocusing on Nezha stuff for a while, then I went over to watch the '86 drama on youtube.

i still rewatch it from time to time uwu

jttw emoji ask game!!

[detectivehole]

[antidotefortheawkward-art]

go grandpas

[earl-of-221b]

86 Jttw also has Sun Wukong fight Erlang Shen 1v1 with weapons, via transformations, on cloud and water etc etc etc and they’re more or less equal, Wukong is a step ahead, but then Erlang sets his german shepherd on him, and there’s a full scene of Wukong running for his damned life away from this dog, and then a scene of him rolling around getting mauled by the dog. If you watch this you can only come to the conclusion Xiao Tian Quan, the howling sky dog, is stronger than Erlang Shen. That’s my two cents on the ‘who is stronger’ discourse. 

[mysticchessecake]

100 headcanons in LMK

1. Mk dosent get that scared in horror movies

2. Mei had purple and pink highlights at some point

3. Demon aging is a weird (Like how Redson is like 400, meanwhile Pigsy is 40)

5. Demon can live up to 200 years old.

6. Tang, Pigsy, Sandy, are somehow reincarnations of JTTW

7. Sandy and Pigsy are self proclaim brothers

8. Free noodles

9. Mk got his jacket with his 1st paycheck

10. Mei and Mk have been friends since kids

11. Mei and Mk are self proclaimed siblings

12. Redson drinks hot sauce sometimes

13. DBK once tried to make a cake for PIF as an anniversary present.

14. Nezha is banished temporarily in the celestial realm because of the fight with Wukong

15. Wukong likes drinking peach tea

16. Macaque smells like plums

17. Macaque has a part time job as an artist.

18. Sandy has a cat named Bajie

19. Mk has burn marks from that time PIF send threw him near lava. (Some accidentally got on him)

20. Mk's powers allow him to live up to 150 years.

21. Mk is lava resistant. It still hurts tho

22. Mk uses glamour

23. Wukong's lazer vision hurts his eyes like crazy.

24. Mk's clones turn evil is foreshadowing

25. Redson has black painted nails

26. Mei has green nails

27. Porty Mk has Rainbow painted nails

28. Pigsy has a small garden

29. PIF has a robot to order her Pigsy noodles.

30. Wukong spies on Mk regularly as a fly

31. Tang dosent drink coffee

32. Mei regularly gets her nails painted

33. Pigsy has a secret sweet obsession

34. Macaque has his nails painted black

35. Redson secretly sleeps with plushies

36. Pigsy is fluffy

37. Mk is half demon

38. All demons have secret horns

39. All demons teeth are either naturally sharp or gets sharp when becoming more unhinged

40. Mk's clones have demon ears

41. Artist clone is somehow the most strongest clone in terms in physical strength

42. Porty clone has earrings and dyed bits of hair

43. Porty clone is the smartest clone. But also one of the weaker ones

44. Evil clone's red eyes are result of Mk's bottled up emotions

45. Mk's demon half is monkie

46. Mk's clones are extremely amplified versions of Mk's bad traits.

47. Macaque wears eyeshadow

48. Mei is top of her class in high school

49. Wukong only eats hair and fruits

50. Delivery clone has the best defenses. Also he's an amazing chef (Like Pigsy levels)

51. Redson has a birth mark that looks like a burn mark.

52. Mei has multiple plushies of dragons

53. Porty clone doesn't sleep

54. All Clones tells alot of Mk's mental state

55. Sun Wukong's fur is soft

56. Porty clone is Mk's abandonment issues

57. Artist clone is Mk's perfection issues

58. Mk can handle spicy foods

59. Tang has extreme defense.

60. Tang and Pigsy are Mk's adoptive parents

61. Mk is buff now

62. Mei is a streamer

63. Redson secretly likes mango ice-cream

64. Mk has a terrible sleep schedule

65. Bai has a cat and frog obsession

66. LBD is somehow still aliv- err- here

67. DBK has alot of Chang'e merch

68. Chang'e is top 1 at moon cake

69. Tang is a horrible chef

70. Jin and Yin regularly puts drawings of bad reviews on Pigsy's, hoping that it will damage them. It dosent work.

71. Mk can't be trusted with a ball of jellybeans

72. Mei once drank like 5 bottles of soda

73. Sandy swears once in a purple moon

74. Spider people dead

75. Bai has 3 cats

76. Macaque has eyeshadow

77. Redson got out of school early

78. Mk is an art major

79. Mei calls Redson "Redbull" sometimes

80. Porty clone is Disco boy

81. Nezha is good at ice skating and normal skating

81. Nezha call rollarskates "wheelies" and or skates

82. Nezha and Mk are now siblings

83. Mei and Mk are called the Avocado duo

84. Bai didn't get LBD's full power when she got possessed

85. Chang'e is mega smart

86. Syntax was captured by spider queen

87. Yin and Jin often fight if silver or gold should be first

88. Mk is like 5'7

89. Mk is 21

90. Tang met Pigsy in highschool

91. Nezha is surprisingly good at the claw machine

92. Mei once destroyed a claw machine to get a prize

93. Mk got stuck in a claw machine

94. Mei dosent know how to play chess but shes surprisingly good at it

95. Tang gets cold easily

96. Pigsy is a ping pong champion

97. Sandy has a bread box that's shaped like a cat

98. Sandy teaches painting stuff

99. Mk is a heavy sleeper

100. Redson dosent know what Redbull is.

[dorkshadows]

JTTW Series Masterpost

While we suffer from JTTW absence (can you guys believe we haven’t had a new adaptation in over 6 months?? terrible!), I’ve decided to compile some masterposts for adaptation links! Here’s the first one, dedicated to our new friends in the jttw tag ;) For anyone looking for adaptations to start with, here’s a master list of the Big JTTW TV serials, limited to live action adaptations. I’ll do a separate post for films and animation (there are at least 3 donghua series that adapt jttw) in the future.

CCTV Journey to the West (starring Liu Xiao Ling Tong):

ALL Seasons (official dual Eng/Chinese subs)

*notes: Eps. 1-25 are season 1 (originally broadcast 1986); 26-40 are season 2, with (mostly) the same main cast but broadcast 2001; this is the most accurate to the book and the most monkeyish Wukong

40 Episodes

TVB Journey to the West:

1996 Season 1 (Dicky Cheung) Cantonese, ENG sub 

1998 Season 2 (Benny Chan) Cantonese, ENG sub

S1 Cantonese link (Chinese subs only)

S2 Cantonese link (Chinese subs only)

S1 Mandarin dub

S2 Mandarin dub

Youtube playlist: S1 + S2 Mandarin dub (No Subs)

**notes: S2 is basically crack fanfiction, but if you enjoyed S1, it’s fun to watch at least once; be wary that the Eng. subs are not great

S1: 30 Eps  S2: 42 Eps

TVB The Monkey King: Quest for the Sutra (2002):

Full Season ENG sub (Mandarin dub)

Full Season ENG sub (Cantonese)

40 Episodes

**notes: Technically, this is a reboot of the TVB series, but it’s extremely different from it and veers from the original plot even more; on the plus side, it stars Dicky Cheung again

Zhejiang New Journey to the West (2010):

Full Season with Chinese subs and Eng. captions

Full Season (Chinese subs only)

**notes: this one calls itself “Pilgrimage to the West” and tends to... wildly veer from the plot

51 Episodes

CCTV Journey to the West reboot (2011):

Full Season with Chinese subs and Eng. captions

HD Full Season (Chinese subs only)

66 Episodes

Innocent Troupe 天真派西游记 Journey to the West (2019):

Full Season 16 Eps (Chinese subs only)

Youtube playlist link (CH subs only)

**notes: originally streamed online, this one isn’t meant to be taken too seriously; it stars children in every single role and takes cues from the 86 version

NOTE: I’ll update this with every new series that comes out (or just new links I can find)!

[ryin-silverfish]

(sorry if this is misspelled, I'm helping myself with a translator).

I recently read an article explaining why wukong preferred to be called “外公” and not “爷爷”. As I understand (I may be wrong) : “外公” is your mother's father and “爷爷” is your father's father. One of the explanations that caught my attention had to do with the author's reasons, he said that many details in the story “Journey to the West” are not only a metaphor for the historical status quo at that time, but also contain the author's own thoughts and experiences. The same goes for Wukong likes to call himself “grandfather.” Wu Chengen did not have his paternal grandfather and his father died when he was young, so his son did not have a grandfather either. i guess he could not have grandchildren on his son's side either? This made Wu Chengen not very familiar with using “爷爷” but “外公” on his maternal grandfather's side. (I may have miscounted it because the article was in Chinese). How accepted is this interpretation?

Hmm. I wouldn't say SWK prefers other people to call him 外公 instead of 爷爷. Pigsy called him and others 爷爷 a lot, and plenty of his monkeys call him "Granpa Great Sage" (大圣爷爷) too, as well as very scared humans, who call him "Granpa Thunder God" (雷公爷爷).

And when a random imp called him 大圣爷爷 in Chapter 86, he was flattered too, enough to stop Bajie from killing the imp and listen to what it had to say.

You are right that he liked to call himself 孙外公 more, though, even if he does refer to himself using 孙爷爷 during the Bibo Lake Arc and Yellow Brow Demon Arc.

As for your question...oh, that involves the topic I found the least interesting in JTTW studies, yet people would not stop arguing over: "Is JTTW's author really Wu Cheng'en?"

And because I found it the least interesting, I'm just gonna sum it up with a "It's hotly debated" and move on to two specific scholarly articles.

The explanation you mentioned in your ask came from an essay called 《西游记》中孙悟空对妖精自称“外公”试析, by Su Xing. And another essay by Du Guichen, 《西游记》写孙悟空对妖怪习称“外公”说之辩误与新解, was specifically arguing against the former's points.

Namely, there was too much arbitary imagining of the author's psychological processes, familiarity doesn't always translate to using something more frequently in fiction, and Su Xing's entire argument was based on the author actually being Wu Cheng'en when the topic was, y'know, hotly debated.

Du Guichen's theory for why SWK liked to call himself 外公 in front of various demons is 1) It's unusual and uncommon, as far as sassing people goes, and thus leaves a stronger impact on readers, and 2) under the traditional patriarchy, your maternal grandfathers and uncles had a stronger disciplinary authority over their juniors, yet were also more distant and mysterious.

And I agree with Du's points: it's mostly just SWK being cheeky in a way that makes him stand out and gain more verbal advantage over whoever he's mocking.

[ryin-silverfish]

You said that the execution of S4 failed, so how should it have been or what were the steps that should be followed? Genuine interest. Might help anyone who is writing about Jttw.

Basically: Extraordinary twist requires extraordinarily good explanations, and the big honcho of the Celestial Realm getting killed by a Bodhisattva's cat is one such twists. Yet it isn't explained properly other than JE's vague statement that "his time is up".

(Is this an attempt at alluding to the concept of "Peril" (劫), something even immortals and celestials must endure in order to continue existing, and the Buddhist idea that beings of the Path of Heaven are still not free from the cycle of life and death, however near-infinite their lifespan is?)

(If so, then SAY IT.)

But my biggest issue is the huge Show-not-Tell problem regarding the corruption of the Celestial Realm.

Like, due to the influence of 1961 Havoc in Heaven and the "SWK as peasant rebel" reading that became the dominant narrative during the Maoist era, the Celestial Realm ("feudal" regime), as well as the Buddha and the Buddhist pantheon (religion), get demonized a lot in Chinese JTTW media.

Through that lens, Havoc in Heaven is the story of a grassroot hero fighting against a huge, ancient, corrupt institution, and either winning or losing, and even when he loses, it's the crushing of a revolutionary martyr by the old reactionaries: tragic, but the nobleness and righetousness of his goal is never in doubt.

(I dislike the "class warfare" reading too. A lot, in fact. But that's a story for another day.)

Which is what LMK S4 seems to be going for…and where it flounders.

Like, a Chinese viewer has that context, because most of our popular JTTW adapations dial up the Celestial Realm's prejudice against SWK and its corruption to some extent, as a justification for Havoc in Heaven.

A western viewer who hasn't watched the '61 film, or the '86 TV show, or the '99 cartoon, doesn't have that context, and LMK's oddly empty Celestial Realm that seemed to be populated entirely by Nezha, JE and nameless NPC soldiers doesn't help in the slighest.

(As a JTTW novel liker, my personal opinion is that book!Celestial Realm, even though it is not cartoonishly evil, still sucks ass, and the JE is a typical, mediocre dynastic ruler who's good at upholding the status quo, but extremely petty and vicious to subjects who have personally offended him, like Sha Wujing or the governor of Fengxian Prefecture.)

(They did show more leniency to SWK pre-Havoc in the book than in most modern adaptations, however, despite their fuck-ups.)

And that's how you get fans claiming "SWK never wants the Havoc in Heaven!"

After all, we haven't seen the Celestial Realm being assholes, or, y'know, subjecting a prefecture to an eternal-in-all-but-name drought until people sold their children for three bushels of grains and were driven to cannibalism, because the governor spilled JE's offerings and fed them to the dogs (novel canon, btw), and Nezha seems like a nice guy! How bad could the regime be, really?

Like, you can absolutely show a rebellion falling apart, becoming corrupted from the inside, causing just as much damage to the commoners as the regime they are fighting, and rebels who are far from heroic.

Or how popular rebellions like these were against the corrupt officials and laws, but seldom the emperor himself, and even those that did aim at deposing an emperor were about putting their guy of choice on the dragon chair, instead of dealing away with the dynastic system itself.

Yet the grievances behind those rebellions were also 100% real. The corruption, the abuse of power, the massive human sufferings that led to armed uprisings thoroughout Chinese history, many of which failed while others became the last straw that toppled a dynasty.

And that part, I feel, is neither shown well nor explored properly.

[digitalagepulao]

✋

mmmm funny anecdotes? lemme see...

it might just be funny to me, but my first real taste of JttW was when i watched the '86 drama on YT, cus the size of the novels kind of scared me from reading them at first. problem is, i was watching them in bed before sleep, so i'd often fall asleep to it still going on my phone.

more than once i'd have recurring dreams with Wukong's laughter in the background, and i'd spend half the dream looking for the damn monkey so i could pay attention to the actual dream ajdhjahbdjhabe

jttw emoji ask game!!

[detectivehole]

80s special effects are everything to me

[detectivehole]

i been ive iive been watching a lot of jttw 86 recently,

[detectivehole]