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Journey To The West!
	Topic by: jross3 Posted: October 14, 2004 - 5:12 PM PDT Last Reply: December 15, 2004 - 3:49 PM PST

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author	topic: Journey To The West!
hamano	post #21  on October 17, 2004 - 9:55 PM PDT   Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle Charlie: Buddha: Sage voice of wisdom, seems to know everything that's going on. The Angels work for him to rid the world of evil. Bosley: Sanzo Houshi: He's really only an instrument of Charlie's will... he works to rid the world of evil, but he's content to let the Angels do most of the fighting. Alex (Lucy Liu): Son Goku: "the classy but hard-as-nails one"... used to ruling a bunch of monkeys, including Matt LeBlanc who ironically played Sanzo in Friends... Dylan (Drew Barrymore): Cho Hakkai: "the tough but fun-loving one"... can snort and belch with the best of 'em. A girl of large appetites, she's a reformed delinquent with a heart of gold. Natalie (Cameron Diaz): Sa Gojyo: "the smart but silly one"... Sandy haired beauty can shake her booty like she's got grunions in her knickers. She never lets seriousness cloud her judgement as she works to fight evil. In this film the Angels journey west to Mongolia to rescue US Marshall Ray Carter. There they set a barely coherent story in motion involving a scroll containing the names of everyone in the Witness Protection Program... or something...
jross3	post #22  on October 19, 2004 - 12:44 PM PDT   Winner: SHAKY!! Also winner: HAMANO!! Final scores: Single: Shaky: 8 Hamano: 7 Jross3: 5 Combined: Hamano: 30 Shaky: 19 Jross3: 16 In keeping with the original premise, Shaky managed to present the most creative and interesting connection between an animated title, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and the Saiyuki legend. Justifying a connection between this bizarre title and an ancient legend is no small feat, netting him the high score, eight points! Hamano also contributed a number of quality titles, and managed to get two scores of 7, for The Beatles and Charlie's Angels. His efforts put him a full head above the other competitor (for once!) with his combined score of thirty points! And now... the wonderful prizes! Each of our champions will recieve thanks on This list!! Wow! These two are certainly well down the road to worldwide fame now!! Congradulations to you both!!
hamano	post #23  on October 19, 2004 - 1:34 PM PDT   Hey, what about getting a panel of Chinese Judges? No way my FRIENDS Journey to the West wasn't worth at least 9 points!
jross3	post #24  on October 19, 2004 - 4:06 PM PDT   > On October 19, 2004 - 1:34 PM PDT hamano wrote: > --------------------------------- > Hey, what about getting a panel of Chinese Judges? No way my FRIENDS Journey to the West wasn't worth at least 9 points! > --------------------------------- OK, I admit the scoring system kind of sucked, and was really inconsistant! It was all just a trick to get you to help build a list anyway! hahahaha! Anyway, Friends was a good one! you did get six points - that means "hah! really good one!" but it wasn't better than the Beatles. Your characters were more plot-connected than with actual characterization, which was good in some cases but overall, rather weak (but you did get some bonus for "goddess of 'mercy, she's a total flake'"), and it did link to relatively narrow portions of the series. However, it was very original and creative, and the overall I found it to be rather entertaining, yet not quite on the level of The Beatles, which got a 7 (not animated, with a slightly weaker "to the west" aspect). Thus, a 6 - a very good score for that point in the game. At least, I think it was a six. I was keeping track on the list, but I deleted all the scores..... and I didn't make a backup, so it's a six now and maybe one of your other titles lost a point because you argued with the Voices, the all-knowing judges of the game! so you still have 30 overall, be proud of that.
hamano	post #25  on October 19, 2004 - 4:14 PM PDT   Hey, I was just kidding! (Friends wasn't animated, so I concede my defeat.) But I still want the Olympics Gymnastics Judges to rescore this!
Shaky	post #26  on November 6, 2004 - 4:15 PM PST   Well, I received my books and started reading, and I thought that now that I've almost made it through the first volume of this translation of Journey to the West, I'd make a few more comments. The way the story is told in Saiyuki is more warped from the original than you might realize. First off, all of Sanzang's followers are criminals, but they're also immortals. They have all been cast out of Heaven and sentenced to banishment, imprisonment or death when the Bodhisattva Guanyin, AKA the Goddess of Mercy, comes across them during her Journey to the East to find the man who will undertake the Journey to the West. She converts each one from Taoism to Buddhism, tells them to stop their evil ways and wait for Sanzang, then help him in his journey. Who were they, and what did they do? Well, Sun Wukong, also called Monkey and known as Goku in the Japanese version, is the biggest criminal of all. The majority of the first volume is about him, and he's really the hero of the story despite the fact that it's miserable Sanzang's journey. Monkey became immortal and learned to fly on a cloud through Taoist practice, then went to the underworld and crossed his own name off the register of life and death. Heaven considered him a threat after that, spawning a series of alternating battles and attempts to appease him. On the last attempt to have peace with him, they put him in charge of the immortal peach orchard. These peaches bestowed immortality on those who ate them, so he ate almost all of them and ruined the Peach Banquet. When he realized how much trouble he would have for doing that, he snuck into the Peach Banquet, stole a bunch of immortal food and immortal wine and became really drunk. Then he stumbled into Lao Tzu's house, ate all his immortality pills and escaped back to Earth. After a bunch of battles in which Monkey defeated just about everyone sent from Heaven to fight him, the Little Sage Erlang was finally able to subdue him and take him back. But having attained immortality in so many ways, when they tried to kill him nothing would work. They couldn't harm him with blades or fire. Lao Tzu offered to put him in his alchemist's furnace to refine out all the divine elixir in his body, so that the rest would burn away. It didn't work, and when they opened the furnace after 49 days of cooking, Monkey jumped out really pissed and went raging. Finally the Jade Emperor called for Tathagata, the Buddha, to come to his aid. Tathagata tricked Monkey into jumping up into his hand, which he flipped over and turned into a mountain, trapping Monkey underneath. But not before Monkey pissed all over his middle finger. That's where Sanzang found him, sticking his head out from under the mountain. Sanzang freed him by tearing off the seal that held him there. Guanyin had told Monkey earlier that he should make himself Sanzang's disciple and help him in his journey. However, Monkey was not grateful to Sanzang the way it's portrayed in the anime. The first time they came across some trouble, Monkey killed a bunch of bandits that were trying to rob them. Sanzang scolded him for taking life, so Monkey told him to find his own way West and left. Then he remembered his promise to Guanyin and returned, but by that time Guanyin had given Sanzang a hat with a golden band in it. Sanzang tricked Monkey into putting the hat on, then said a spell to tighten the band. Monkey was so pissed off that he actually tried to kill Sanzang with his cudgel, but the pain in his head was so bad he couldn't. He also threatened to kill Guanyin, but she in turn threatened to say the spell until his head split open. He only submitted because he had no other choice. The others also have interesting stories. The Dragon Horse (the Jeep in the anime) was originally a Dragon Prince, son of a Dragon King, who was sentenced to death for burning some divine jewels. Guanyin found him awaiting execution and saved him, converting him to Buddhism and instructing him to wait in a valley for Sanzang's arrival and to follow peaceful ways. Instead, he started eating travelers. When Sanzang and Monkey showed up, he rushed out and ate Sanzang's horse, then battled Monkey. It wasn't until Guanyin intervened that he was turned into the Dragon Horse and joined the party. Pig, AKA Hakkai in the Japanese version, was a marshall in Heaven. But when he went to one of the Peach Banquets, he stole some wine, got drunk and horny and tried to rape a moon maiden. The Jade Emperor had him beaten with hammers and exiled to the mortal world, but his soul ended up in a pig's womb. When he was born, he ate his mother and became a pig monster who ate travelers until Guanyin found him, converted him and instructed him to assist Sanzang when he arrived. When Monkey and Sanzang found him, however, he had married a girl who he kept locked in a room to continually rape. The girl's father had actually asked them to drive him off, but he became part of their traveling party instead. Even after he joined their party and committed to Sanzang, he was gluttonous and lecherous. In fact, that's something that bothers me in the anime. In it, Goku is always hungry. But in the original, it was Pig who was always hungry. In fact, Monkey contrasted his own appetite with that of Pig, reminding him that he didn't need to eat since he went 500 years with nothing but iron pellets and molten copper for nourishment. Then there's Friar Sand, AKA Gojyo in the Japanese version, who was a general in Heaven who got drunk and smashed up some crockery, thus disrupting the Peach Banquet. As punishment, he was turned into an ogre and banished to the River of Flowing Sands. When Guanyin found him, he also was eating human travelers, jumping out of the river to surprise them. She did her thing and made him wait to help Sanzang and company across the river; but when Sanzang arrived, he jumped out and tried to eat him, too. Pig did most of the fighting this time, but once again Guanyin had to intervene. Think those guys are nasty? I actually prefer them to Sanzang. The Sanzang of the original was something of a pussy, for lack of a better word. He was always cowering in fear and whining when things didn't go his way. Sure, he was a righteous, pious fellow, but sometimes he was every bit as annoying as Shinji in Evangelion. Monkey was always saving his dumb ass and on several occasions had to tell him to shut up and pull himself together. There were times when he just sat down, gave up and cried (literally, with tears streaming) until Monkey saved him. Never mind that he was actually an earthly incarnation of the Golden Cicada, son of Tathagata; he's still annoying. Still, so far it's a great story and easy read, and I've raced through 560 pages in a week and a half. Despite a few typos, the translation is good, preserving the little commentary poems that were used in the original to describe scenery, characters and battles. Those poems are evidently missing from some translations, and that seems as though it would be a great loss. I would highly recommend buying it and reading it, if for no other reason just to get a better understanding of the cultural references. For example, in Monkey's story alone I'm seeing story devices that show up almost exactly in other anime. Naruto, for instance, MUST be based to some extent on Monkey. Also, if you want to buy it, I would suggest checking the "used & new" link on Amazon instead of buying it from Amazon directly. In the "new" section, there's a guy named "zhihongx" who sells the full sets for $16 instead of Amazon's $31. The catch? The box has a little shelf wear or is dented on one corner. But the words are all still in there. I bought Journey to the West, Outlaws of the Marsh and Three Kingdoms all from him for much cheaper than Amazon sells the exact same editions.
jross3	post #27  on November 6, 2004 - 5:23 PM PST   neat! thanks for the tip, shaky. I may have to grab this soon....
hamano	post #28  on November 6, 2004 - 6:50 PM PST   One of the funny things about R.O.D. was the appearance of Sanzo as one of the evil Ijin... for some reason he had SonGoku's powers/weapons... the telescoping cudgel and flying on a cloud. He was a very bad boy, but he was in good company...
jross3	post #29  on November 6, 2004 - 7:23 PM PST   > On November 6, 2004 - 6:50 PM PST hamano wrote: > --------------------------------- > One of the funny things about R.O.D. was the appearance of Sanzo as one of the evil Ijin... for some reason he had SonGoku's powers/weapons... the telescoping cudgel and flying on a cloud. He was a very bad boy, but he was in good company... > --------------------------------- He also had fire-breath, which they said belonged to Cho Hakkai - but I've never heard any indication of this elsewhere; similarly, Cho Hakkai's bad traits get split between Goku and Gojyo in the recent Saiyuki (Gluttony goes to Goku, lechery to Gojyo). Somehow this seems interesting, as if they might be connected, but I don't know how. Interesting thought, though!
Shaky	post #30  on November 6, 2004 - 10:22 PM PST   Pig didn't have fire breath in the original, or at least not in the first volume. He did, however, have a nine-toothed rake he used as a weapon, which had been presented to him upon being named Field Marshal of the Milky Way when he was incarnated as Tien Ping in Heaven. The rake was made of ice-iron forged by Lao Tzu, with jade teeth and decorations that signified his rank. This was a weapon almost equal in stature to Monkey's As-You-Will Cudgel. But when Monkey found him, he was using it for farming to raise food for his captive bride and her family. By the way, the names of these guys are interesting as well. Sun Wukong means "Monkey Awakened to Emptiness." He also has the title "Great Sage Equal to Heaven," often shortened to "Great Sage," and he is occasionally called "Keeper of the Horses" after his first official post in Heaven. Sanzang simply calls him Brother Monkey. Friar Sand is called Sha Wujing, or "Sand Awakened to Purity." He is also the Great Curtain Raising General. Sanzang gave him the name Friar Sand. Pig's name is Zhu Wuneng, or "Pig Awakened to Power." When Sanzang accepts Pig into the traveling group, he gives him the additional name of Zhu Bajie, or "Eight Prohibitions Pig," to remind him of the Eight Prohibitions a Buddhist monk is supposed to observe. It doesn't work too well. His name in Heaven was Field Marshal Tien Ping, but everyone just calls him Pig. Sanzang himself has a half dozen names. First off, he's an earthly incarnation of Golden Cicada, and is occasionally referred to by that name. His mother had to give him up at birth to save his life, so she tied him to a board and floated him down a river. He floated up next to a monastery, where he was found by a monk who named him Jiangliu, or "River Current." When Jiangliu reached age seventeen, he became a monk and was given the Buddhist name Xuanzang. When he found his mother and avenged his father's murder, he took his family name, Chen, and became Chen Xuanzang. Later, when the Bodhisattva Guanyin arrived with the task to fetch the scriptures and chose Xuanzang for the job, the Emperor Tang Taizong made him his brother by imperial decree. For his new "courtesy name" as a member of the imperial family, Taizong chose the name Sanzang, which means "Three Stores," as in the three stores of scriptures he was supposed to retrieve. Thus, he became Tang Sanzang, while still remaining Chen Xuanzang, while still remaining Golden Cicada. This sounds like a total mess, but the progression is natural enough in the story that it's really not that confusing. The reason I brought all this up is that I have a question that I hope either Hamano or someone else with some Japanese language skill can answer. As each of the names has some meaning, I wonder how much of that meaning made it into their Japanese names. Does "Songoku" mean "monkey awakened to emptiness?" Did any of their other alternate names make it into the Japanese counterparts? Or have the meanings been lost in translation, and the names changed or corrupted as the legend was incorporated into Japanese culture?
hamano	post #31  on November 7, 2004 - 10:20 AM PST   > On November 6, 2004 - 10:22 PM PST Shaky wrote: > --------------------------------- > Did any of their other alternate names make it into the Japanese counterparts? Or have the meanings been lost in translation, and the names changed or corrupted as the legend was incorporated into Japanese culture? That has a quick and easy answer... the Japanese names are just the phonetic Japanese pronunciations of the same Chinese Kanji characters. Chinese --> Japanese San-zang --> San-zo Sun Wu-kong --> Son Go-kuu Sha Wu-jing --> Sa Go-jyo Zhu Ba-jie --> Cho Ha-kkai Note: Sanzo is the Japanese pronunciation of the "three baskets" nickname of Sanzang, not the Chinese homophonic characters for his real name. I don't know if you can see the Kanji characters for the names anywhere, but the Japanese "Go" character in Gokuu and Gojyo is pronounced "Wu" in Chinese, giving you Wukong and Wujing. The "Ba" character in Zhu Bajie is the character for the number eight, and is pronounced "Ha-" in Japanese. Since the Kanji characters are pretty much exactly the same between classical Chinese and classical Japanese, the meanings of the names are also the same. Of course, they're names, and whether you think of "Monkey Awakened to Emptiness" every time you see Son Gokuu or Sun Wukong depends on whether you imagine a hammer and anvil each time you see "Mr. Smith" or if you hear the chimes of Big Ben each time you see "Mr. London". The names have meanings which are significant and symbolic, but you're not meant to think of them most of the time. All of the significant characters' names are written in Kanji in the Japanese translations of Sai-yu-ki (which is Xi-You-Ji or Hsi-Yu-Chi in Chinese). The bodhisattva Guan Yin or Kwan-yin is Kann-on in Japanese, written with the same Kanji.
hamano	post #32  on November 7, 2004 - 11:05 AM PST   Shaky, virtually ALL Japanese character names (and place names) in anime have Kanji characters associated with them, and the names are usually somewhat meaningful. Whether you "get" them or not depends on if you are the type of fan who does background research like that, or whether you have access to fansubbers who make the effort to include footnotes on these kinds of things. A lot of the names are just regular Japanese names, and the specific Kanji used are just incidental. However, some of the names are deliberately used in a way to convey or have a meaning appropriate to the character (or a joke or play on words, too). Names like Ito, Tanaka, Suzuki and Yamada are common Japanese names. Ta-naka means "middle of a rice paddy" and Yama-da means "rice paddy by mountain"... however, you associate people with these common names to rice paddies about as frequently as you would associate Oliver North with a compass direction, or Chris Columbus with a dove. But Japanese authors can make poetic or symbolic use of names, and associated Kanji characters, just as American authors might give the name Chris to a character who has Christ-like personality traits. The name Sakaki (Azumanga Daioh) means "sacred Shinto tree"... the big trees you often see near shrines that have white rope and paper charms strung around them. Obviously the character was meant to have associations of strength and purity. The last names of the girls who become Sailor Scouts in Sailor Moon are Aino, Mizuno, Hino, Kino and Tsukino. In all the names the -no is the character for "field" which is commonly used in names. However, in this case it is being used to invoke the hiragana -no, meaning "of". Ai-no: "of love" Sailor Venus (Venus is the Roman Goddess of Love) Mizu-no: "of water" Sailor Mercury (Mercury is Sui-sei or Water Planet in Japanese... Sailor Mercury uses water attacks) Hi-no: "of fire" (Mars is Ka-sei or Fire Planet, Mars uses fire attacks) Ki-no: "of wood" (Jupiter is Moku-sei or Wood Planet as well as Jupiter/Zeus, Sailor Jupiter uses both wood/plant attacks as well as thunder/lightning attacks... the character for "wood" has both moku and ki pronunciations) Tsuki-no: "of moon" (Sailor Moon is the Princess of the Moon. Also her first name, Usagi, means rabbit, and Japanese folk tales say a rabbit lives on the moon)
Shaky	post #33  on November 7, 2004 - 1:30 PM PST   > On November 7, 2004 - 10:20 AM PST hamano wrote: > the Japanese names are just the phonetic Japanese pronunciations of the same Chinese Kanji characters. > Chinese --> Japanese > San-zang --> San-zo > Sun Wu-kong --> Son Go-kuu > Sha Wu-jing --> Sa Go-jyo > Zhu Ba-jie --> Cho Ha-kkai Thanks for that. I figured that their Japanese names would come from the Japanese reading of the Chinese characters of the original, but I didn't know whether the meanings were actually preserved in the reading in the different language. While I understand your point about Japanese names having meanings that aren't usually observed, it would seem to me that in these particular cases the meanings of the names are important. Guanyin gave them each their Buddhist names for a reason. Their other names also come to them for specific reasons. Perhaps those meanings are a little esoteric, but they do add something to the original. For example, what I mean is that if you write a story and just throw in a character named Tristan with no specific explanation of the name, the meaning of the name may be irrelevant. But if part of your story depicts Tristan's birth, during which his mother dies and everyone predicts this child will be doomed to a life of sadness, and thus he is named Tristan after the Latin tristis, for sorrow, then the name does have significance and should be preserved in the name and in the character in other versions. You wouldn't then retell the story in another language and change the Tristan character to be a happy-go-lucky fellow whose life is charmed and who always has good luck. In watching Saiyuki, I didn't get the sense that the significance of the names had really been preserved. Especially when they change the characters as significantly as they have, giving one character another's traits, there seems to be something in the anime that is dishonest, not true to the original. Not that it really makes the anime a bad effort. It's just that they seem to have taken a layer of depth out of it.
hamano	post #34  on November 7, 2004 - 4:16 PM PST   > On November 7, 2004 - 1:30 PM PST Shaky wrote: > --------------------------------- > Thanks for that. I figured that their Japanese names would come from the Japanese reading of the Chinese characters of the original, but I didn't know whether the meanings were actually preserved in the reading in the different language. The "meanings" are largely inherent in the kanji characters, which are symbolic ideograms/pictograms, and NOT in the pronunciation per se. There are at least 4 major spoken dialects in China, and they are very different to the ear (Cantonese, Mandarin, etc.) However, they all share the same writing system using kanji characters, so written communication is at least common among all Chinese. Classical Japanese was also entirely written using kanji characters adopted from the Chinese, as was classical Korean I believe. Therefore, the "meanings" behind names written in Kanji characters are preserved whether you are pronouncing it in Japanese or one of the Chinese dialects. (This is why a Chinese film printed for domestic distribution with a Mandarin language audio track often includes Chinese subtitles... a Cantonese speaker in the audience then can still follow the dialogue.) Take the characters for Sai-yu-ki, for example. The first character is for "west"... the second character is for "play" or "wander"... the third character is for "record" or "history". These meanings are attached to the characters themselves. Perhaps you can think of them like Arabic numerals in the West. "1" represents the number one. It doesn't matter whether you call it "one" or "un" or "uno" or "ichi". In fact, I know the meanings associated with enough kanji characters that I can get the gist of a story in a Chinese newspaper article. So could you, if you just memorized the English meanings attached to the most common Chinese characters, without learning to actually SPEAK a single utterance in Chinese. Think of how you would communicate the idea for "one hundred and fifty trees" to a Russian man who doesn't know any English. It's easy. You can't do it verbally but you would just write the Arabic numerals "150" and draw a tree. This is how kanji characters work across language barriers in Eastern Asia. > For example, what I mean is that if you write a story and just throw in a character named Tristan with no specific explanation of the name, the meaning of the name may be irrelevant. But if part of your story depicts Tristan's birth, during which his mother dies and everyone predicts this child will be doomed to a life of sadness, and thus he is named Tristan after the Latin tristis, for sorrow, then the name does have significance and should be preserved in the name and in the character in other versions. This is a major factor in translating foreign text, whether the term foreign applies to the language, the culture, or both. This is what I was referring to when I was talking about the footnoted fansubs... to me the way to get around this problem is to use extensive footnotes... it's awkward but how else would you get a thorough understanding of the richness of the original text? Let's look at the Sailor Moon example I gave earlier... When DiC made the English dub version, they pretty much ignored the characters' last names except for Sailor Mars, and gave the girls approximations of their Japanese names. Ami (Sailor Mercury) is Amy Rei (Sailor Mars), Raye Makoto (Sailor Jupiter), Lita Minako (Sailor Venus), Mina Mamoru Chiba, Darien The associations that go with the kanji characters for their names are totally ignored... at least the translators went for phonetic similarities.... In the case of Darien, there is no indication that phonetically "Ma-mo-ru" means "to protect" which is Tuxedo Mask's role, to protect Sailor Moon. I guess they COULD have tried to preserve the meanings of their last names in the English version... What would you have then? Amy Waters Raye Sparks Lita Forrest and Mina Love? I guess some critics would be happy with that solution. I think it would be hard to find a solution that would please everyone. > In watching Saiyuki, I didn't get the sense that the significance of the names had really been preserved. Especially when they change the characters as significantly as they have, giving one character another's traits, there seems to be something in the anime that is dishonest, not true to the original. Not that it really makes the anime a bad effort. It's just that they seem to have taken a layer of depth out of it. What you are missing is the spirit of the manga/anime Saiyuki... I'm not a fan of the show, but my guess is that they are going for a bit of irreverence and irony here, in the face of an almost universally well-known old story. The big clue is in the title. Look at the characters very carefully. The original title uses characters that mean "west - wander - record" as I said before. Now look at the anime logo. Do you see the difference? The first character has been changed from Sai (West) to Sai (Extreme, Ultimate). So now the title's meaning has been changed from "Record of a Journey Westward" to "Story of Extreme Fun" or "Tale of Ultimate Play". When the English version kept the phonetic pronunciation for the title, Saiyuki, they basically threw this irreverently punny new name right out the window. In the process, some of the playful intent of the anime creators and manga author regarding the original classic tale is completely lost.
Shaky	post #35  on December 15, 2004 - 9:33 AM PST   Well, I finally finished Journey to the West, all 2300+ pages of it. It's very episodic in nature, with variations on the same formula again and again: -Sanzang gets captured by a demon who wants to a)eat him, if the demon is male, or b)have sex with him, if the demon is female -Monkey attempts to save Sanzang and fails at first -Monkey then either gets a great idea to save Sanzang or goes up to Heaven to get divine assistance -Demon is either destroyed or subdued and convinced to serve either Heaven or Buddha. It starts to sound like itself after a while, but there's enough variation to keep it interesting. By the time it's over Monkey has asked for help from probably just about everyone in Heaven, and the monsters do have a bit of variety. This thread began as a discussion of sorts of the influence of the story on Asian entertainment. If you read the book, you will recognize story elements that appear in other forms in plenty of modern anime, beyond just the structure of four characters seeking something. For example, there's an episode in which a village chooses two children each year as sacrifices to a monster that lives in a river. The monster comes to the village, takes the children and eats them. Monkey, Pig and Friar Sand end up fighting the monster to save the children. As I was reading it, I immediately recognized the premise of The Melody of Oblivion, currently out on fansubs, in which chosen warriors with special weapons battle demonic "Monsters" who take human children away to eat them. The Melody of Oblivion even has a play on the dragon horse in the Aiba machines. When Guanyin changed the dragon into the horse in Journey to the West, it was said that she removed his horns. When Toune removes the horn from the head of her human-shaped Aiba machine in Oblivion, he turns into a flying horse-cycle. I doubt there was a conscious decision to base the newer story on the older one, but the similarities at least suggest an influence. On another note, earlier I mentioned that the distortion of the characters for Saiyuki bothered me. Having read more about the origin and evolution of the story, I don't really find it problematic any more. The Wu Cheng'en version of the story was itself a retelling of many other stories about Sanzang's journey, some of which did not have Pig, Friar Sand or the dragon horse. I guess it would be unfair to hold Saiyuki to an absolute faithfulness to the Wu text, when the Wu text wasn't faithful to its predecessors either. This seems to be a story that has evolved in such a way that it's natural for an author to take liberties with it to make it his own. And for that reason, I was able to watch The Lost Empire with a much less critical eye and accept it as just one of many silly tie-ins to this story. While this show had its stupid elements, they were really no more stupid that some of the stuff that's found in the Saiyuki anime. The visual effects are unfortunately really bad, and there are some really strange Westernizations mixed into the story; but otherwise I found it mildly entertaining. To top all this off, one of the guys with whom I work bought everyone in the field office little inexpensive Christmas gifts. He saw a strange sheet of playing cards, which you're supposed to cut up yourself to make a deck, which was all in Chinese with pictures of funny costumed Chinese characters. He had no idea what they were; he just knew I had an interest in things Asian and picked it up. When I opened it, I immediately recognized Monkey and Pig from the Monkey Chinese live-action television show. There are other characters and a number of demons, but I haven't figured out who they all are yet. This guy had seen me reading Journey to the West and had even asked me what it was about, but he had no idea he was buying another tie-in product for that book. Now I need to start a new book. Should I read The Three Kingdoms or Outlaws of the Marsh next?
hamano	post #36  on December 15, 2004 - 3:49 PM PST   > On December 15, 2004 - 9:33 AM PST Shaky wrote: > --------------------------------- > To top all this off, one of the guys with whom I work bought everyone in the field office little inexpensive Christmas gifts. He saw a strange sheet of playing cards, which you're supposed to cut up yourself to make a deck, which was all in Chinese with pictures of funny costumed Chinese characters. It's a Japanese show, I tell you! The Chinese just dubbed it! Also, are you sure the cards are in Chinese and not Japanese? It sounds like a karuta set.... KARUTA is a game played traditionally on New Years and based on Hyaku-nin-isshu... basically a matching game. In the kids' version, there's a card with a piece of dialogue or description on it. One kid reads from this, and the other kids try to find a picture card with the first character from the reader's card printed on it. The cards are scattered face up on the floor, concentration-style. The word karuta comes from the Portuguese (or Dutch) word for cards, I think. Japanese stores sell many versions of Karuta sets for kids in the toy section, especially around December. Many of these of course feature characters from popular TV shows. Ranma characters playing karuta. > Now I need to start a new book. Should I read The Three Kingdoms or Outlaws of the Marsh next? Hmmm... Romance of the Three Kingdoms or Tales of the Water Margin? Both are equally popular in Japan, if that's any help. Both have anime versions (and game versions) as well. One looks like a faithful adaptation while the other is like the Saiyuki anime... I think TokyoPop has a Fantasy Suikoden manga that's like a Swords & Sorcery RPG game....

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