Monkey King Vol. #01

By Jarred Pine     October 26, 2005
Release Date: September 01, 2005



Creative Talent
Writer/Artist:Katsuya Terada
Translated by:Toshifumi Yoshida
Adapted by:

What They Say
Based on the 16th-century, Chinese fantasy adventure classic, Journey To The West (also the inspiration for Dragon Ball!) Katsuya Terada's take on the legend of the Monkey King is a savage, lusty saga.

He raised holy hell as the baddest ape in Ancient China until the Lord Buddha himself dropped a mountain on him! Now the Monkey King will get his parole with one condition - he must escort a Buddhist nun through the demon-haunted wastes of the Silk Road on an impossible quest: reach India and bring back a collection of sacred scrolls!

The Review
Packaging:
Dark Horse went all out to create a stunning product here with this release. There are book flaps that when opened up create an entire image that spreads across the back cover to the front, with Goku gracing most of the front cover. The English title and some other kanji text are gold inlay lettering that compliments the cover nicely. The entire volume is full color and it looks gorgeous on the high quality paper. Extras include a 5 page afterword (which reads like a great history lesson) from the editor, Carl Horn. There are also color ads for Terada’s “Cover Girls” illustrations, also available from Dark Horse. This is an amazing looking product from a production standpoint.

Art:
For some, as myself, Terada’s Monkey King is really nothing more than an art book, and it is a fantastic looking one at that. To describe the artwork, imagine if Lovecraft wrote the concept with Giger coming up with some of the demonic designs and the whole thing illustrated by Moebius. It’s definitely not your standard manga style, with a much more European or Heavy Metal influence. There is a good amount of detailed nudity, but this most definitely is not a hentai level title. The panels feature mostly a lot of close up perspectives with not a lot of backgrounds, with a few exceptions, but I was really to distracted by the gorgeous painted illustrations to care.

Text/SFX:
Some SFX have English overlays, while others are left alone with translations in the wordy glossary in the back of the book accompanied by a nice 2 page explanation of the approach. Some of the kanji has a more visual or complex meaning that just couldn’t be represented properly with overlays. I thought this approach was perfect for this title.

The translation is quite solid, as I’ve come to expect from adaptations done by Carl Horn. There is not a lot of dialogue in this title, but what’s there has this nice, little archaic style to it that really makes this title feel like the old legend (and in this case mythological) that it is. The exception is that Goku’s lines sometimes have a much more modern attitude, which I also thought was appropriate. A hell-raisin’ monkey has got to have some attitude.

Contents (Watch out spoilers ahead):
Be warned. This is not your parents’ or grandparents’ version of Journey to the West. Terada-sensei’s take on one of the most recognizable tales in Asian literature is filled with blood, nudity, sex, and a grotesqueness that is not of this world. Sun Wukong, known here as Son Goku, is not the simple mischievous little monkey that you may be familiar with, but rather is a large fearsome ape that isn’t afraid to raise a little hell and get his hands dirty with blood or other sexual substances. This is a title that definitely earns it’s shrinkwrapping and explicit content stickers.

One thing to note with this version of the well-told tale is that it is assumed that the intended audience is already quite familiar with this title, most likely with more than a couple adaptations as well. The chapters jump around in a non-linear style, telling bits and pieces of the original story that knowledgeable readers should already recognize. I, not being that familiar, found it a little difficult to follow along with the scattered pace and vignette style of storytelling. In fact, it took me a couple reads and some assistance from the wonderful editor’s note and online resources to help put the pieces together. The story is all about Goku, from his birth to his concealment by Buddha in a mountain to his liberation by Sanzo. The events just don’t follow that exact order in this volume.

However, even though I was perplexed at times with the events in the story, the disturbing and fantastic imagery is something to behold. The world that is created is definitely nowhere near the human realm, taking place in some land in the heavens (or hell, your pick) filled with supernatural beings and grotesque demons. The story is elevated into more of a mythological feel with gods and mythical creatures, battling out with power that is incomprehensible to us mere mortals. One of the more interesting twists on this tale is the portrayal of the monk Xuanzang, known in Japanese and here as Genjo Sanzo. This isn’t your pretty boy bishounen from Saiyuki, but rather Sanzo is the soul of a monk implanted in the body of a nun whose arms and senses are bounded by leather and revealing, tattered rags with a gag in her mouth in order to keep her from speaking her binding sutras. She rides blind on top of a horse (well, what a horse would look like in this world) that is carrying the decapitated head of Sagojo (Sha Wujing) and is accompanied by the always criticizing ugly pig Hakkai (Zhu Wuneng), who yes here is actually a pig. The twists and spins visually on the story are definitely interesting.

Comments
So far I am finding Terada-sensei’s blood-soaked and nudity-filled adaptation to appeal to me much more as a wonderful artbook than a solid story that I can get into. I am not that familiar with the Xuanzang legend, so the scattered pacing really threw me for a loop. The artwork however is quite gorgeous, and the whole package is very well put together by Dark Horse. There are some interesting twists and spins on the old legend visually that I did appreciate, as well as the mythological approach to the story. This was an interesting title to experience as even though the content not did grab my attention, the artwork did.