So back to normal blogging if there is such a thing.
Netflix has a pop up for a “new” show. It is from 2006 but it’s new to Netflix. I had never seen a Japanese version of Journey to the West and this was my chance!
If you are not a fan of Japanese anime, then you won’t necessarily grasp the similarity. The actor who portrays Sun Wukong aka Son Goku, Shingo Katori,香取慎吾 yells a lot. I am not a HUGE fan of anime, but I do watch it so seeing a human actor imitating an anime performance isn’t all that shocking. To some, it’s blasphemy.
Episode one is about the bull demon. EVERYONE in Journey to the West wants to either eat or have sex with the Tang monk. Eating him – or in the Japanese version HER, grants immortality and super powers. Sex with Tripitaka strips the Buddhist practitioner of his/her powers and it’s kinky – and complicated and well it’s kinky.
As I watched the scene where Tripitaka’s teacher (sensei) turns out to be a back stabbing traitor, I couldn’t stop trying to remember WHICH version of Journey to the West I had seen the same scene. I swore it was the 2011 version and I SWORE my heart throb Feng Shaofeng 绍峰, known as William Feng star of Ice Fantasy and Monkey King and several other great tv series and movies had stared in the 2011 version. He did not.
So I searched all the various versions on YouTube and Daily Motion and sites I had never heard of before – some with Vietnamese subitltes, some with Arabic, some with none, and some with Thai until instead of finding the same Bull Demon scene I came across a scene that I had long since given up hope of EVER watching again! One I was spell bound by when I saw it for the first time in the 1986 version. Please click on the screenshot and let me know if you think this is as magical I do and if doesn’t transport you to the realm of nature spirits!
READ MORE ABOUT IT:
https://blog.lemonshortbread.com/2015/02/journey-to-the-west-1986-review.html
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/JourneyToTheWestDemons
Librarian's Guide to the Multiverse! 