Overly Sarcastic Productions Presents: Journey to the West

Wanna hear the origin story of basically all anime ever?

So this was suggested to me by my Discord and it is, sort of a movie. Overly Sarcastic Productions(OSP) is a youtube channel that does videos about mythology, legends, and classical stories. And they have a whole video series dedicated to Journey to the West, a Chinese classic that explains a lot Eastern story telling.

Overview: Buddha wrote super holy scrolls, and needs to get them to the people of the East. But he needs someone super pure of heart and mind to get them there. So they choose the monk Tripitaka to fetch the scrolls for him. With his magical and powerful companions Monkey, Pigsy, and Sandy, (those are in fact their ancient chinese names) they embark on their Journey to the West.

I have got to say, I’ve heard of this story before, but this is the first time I actually understood what the title actually meant.

This is a little harder to tackle compared to the other movies because this isn’t exactly a movie. The book is so long that OSP are only going over the more important parts, and even then it is told more episodically so it feels more like a series than an actual movie. So basically, my review is going to be a mix of the story as well as OSP’s retelling of it. It’s only fair.

The Story

So when I said that this was the origin of basically every anime ever, I wasn’t joking. OSP also pointed it out. The story centers around our protagonist gaining allies, traveling, fighting enemies that turn to allies, then keep traveling with the hero until they accomplish their goal.

Sound familiar? Like, every shonen jump ever?

Hell, it was even mention that Goku was spot on for the Monkey King in design, skills, and behavior, as well as Dragon Ball being another retelling of Journey to the West.

Oddly enough while watching, this series actually reminded me of Inuyasha, which also had this feudal japan “monster of the week” feel to it.

In the actual story we have the kind and pure Tripitaka, the brash and impulsive Monkey, the braggart yet scared Pigsy, and the loyal but dedicated Sandy. As well has a dragon horse who is basically always a horse and never a dragon.

Personally, my favorite of the four are Monkey and Sandy. What can I say, I love the loud brash characters with only slight impulse control, and Monkey fits that bill to a tee.

And also, his golden headband that is activated by a spell to cause pain? Very Similar to the password activated magic necklace Inuyasha wears.

Sandy is a pretty chill dude. Sort of like the straight man of the group, trying to manage everyone and keep them in line.

There is also a lot of humor into this. The beginning of the story is more like a prologue than anything else, talking about Monkey’s history that the main character Tripitaka. He became immortal 5 times in different ways, basically compounding his immortality to cover the conditions of the other immortality. One ways was just getting stupidly drunk and ransacking a god’s science lab and drinking his immortality potions.

I love how Heaven is a bureaucracy, where gods can work there or just push out complaints. Like if someone was the God of Rain you don’t expect them to have a desk job.

But that’s what makes this story very interesting. The characters still feel very human. They get angry, act impulsively, become sad, or drunk, or play pranks like peeing in someone’s food. It was written 400 years ago, and it still feels very relatable.

The Narrator

I really do like OSP’s style of storytelling. Yes they are a summary/overview of what the story/fable/lore/whatever is, but it still has heart to it. Kind of like telling the plot of the movie to a friend, you won’t get to everything, but you will definitely cover the important parts with your own touch of flair.

The art is stupidly cute. Like, god look at this!

Adorable. Absolutely adorable.

But not only is it adorable, the art adds more to the story. While the narrator is speaking over, the art gives out more of the personality to the characters. Not just in body movements, but they’ll also write in lines for the characters that OPS won’t say, but it builds up the story and make you more passionate about it. Hell I’m pretty sure you can turn off the audio and you can still understand what’s going on from the visuals alone.

They’ll also throw in a lot of commentary to the story, providing some pretty cool context to the time period the story was written in, or the motifs and themes that the story has. This is pretty cool because I have no idea what 16th century china was like. I haven’t read the book. So it is nice to gain as much insight as I can without actually doing the work.

Overall, I recommend this series whole heartedly. The art is cute, the story is charming and makes me seriously want to read the entire thing on my own. The only downside is that because OSP is releasing it in parts the story isn’t finished yet. But that means you can check out their other lore videos and learn more about these amazing stories ^u^