Monkey magic, Monkey magic. Ooh!

February 18, 2006 1:20 AM

The punkiest Monkey that ever popped from an egg on a mountain top, the one and only Monkey from cult Japanese TV series Monkey Magic, is finally coming back to our TV screens after a 30 year absence. Monkey will be played in the new series by Shingo Katori and even with blonde hair, in the role of Monkey he will no doubt tease the Gods and everyone and, presumably, have some fun while he's at it.
posted by Effigy2000 (28 comments total)

Ah, Pigsy!
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:41 AM on February 18, 2006

Also, UK fans of the original series can catch the reruns at 6.00pm every Thursday and Friday on ITV4
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:47 AM on February 18, 2006

Monkey is one of the few childhood TV shows that I can still watch without cringing. The whole thing had a sort a crazy energy about it that I still find very appealing.
It also has one of the all time classic theme songs, which manages to rock despite the triple handicaps of:

• not rhyming properly
• not scanning properly
• not making any sense whatsoever

Our friends at TV Cream have an extended version available for download here.
posted by AndrewStephens at 2:09 AM on February 18, 2006

I saw at least one other remake when I was staying in Japan, about 13 years ago. There have been others.
posted by Sparx at 2:43 AM on February 18, 2006

pete , you are officially THE MAN.


*summons cloud*
posted by sgt.serenity at 3:58 AM on February 18, 2006

Monkey was one of my favourite TV series ever screened. So many great episodes, but if I had to identify the one that sticks in the mind, it's the one where they all get swallowed by a fish monster.

Inside the monster's belly, Monkey and Sandy meet a fairy, who is complaining that earlier on she met a pig in there, who she ditched because he was trying to molest her. When they ask the fairy if there's a way out, she tells them that they can probably make it out via the rectum, but they aren't so keen on that proposition, so she does the obvious thing that we'd all do in those circumstances. and throws a party where they all get drunk, feast on food that the fish has eaten, and disco dance to the Monkey Magic theme tune.

For those not familiar with the series, it's a (fairly accurate, in many ways) retelling of the 16th century Chinese story of the Monkey King, who is expelled from heaven for eating the emperor's peaches of immortality. As a punishment, he's buried under a mountain for an eternity, and in order to redeem himself, has to accompany the priest, Tripitaka, on his journey to India to collect the Buddhist scriptures.

I loved the book, but this is one of those rare instances where I enjoyed the abridged TV version as much as the original.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 4:28 AM on February 18, 2006

The other great 1970's Japanese adaptation of Chinese classic literature is The Water Margin, which is adapted from the Outlaws of the Marsh.
I'm a great fan of both the book and the TV series. The book is arguably more readable than Journey to the West, the collection from which Monkey is adapted.
posted by johnny novak at 4:56 AM on February 18, 2006

And yet another (distant) adaptation of it is Dragonball.
posted by Bugbread at 5:52 AM on February 18, 2006

Huh. I just read Monkey and enjoyed it very much. Had no idea it was ever a TV show, though I had heard it was the distant source of Dragonball Z.
posted by Dr. Wu at 5:59 AM on February 18, 2006

I never understood the huge affection people have for this programme, thinking you had to see it first as a little kid to like it, but PeterMcDermott's synopsis makes it sound like I've been missing out. (I thought it was just people with sideburns gurning, shouting and running about dead fast for ages.)
posted by jack_mo at 6:10 AM on February 18, 2006

And yet another (distant) adaptation of it is Dragonball.

And still another is called just plain Saiyuki.
posted by May Kasahara at 6:32 AM on February 18, 2006

Yes. This TV show would come on after we got home from school. Afterwards we would run outside and fight each other with broom handles and garden implements (Pigsy fought with a rake. Sandy fought with a weird shovel-like thing).

I don't know if I'll bother catching the remakes, though.
posted by Ritchie at 7:09 AM on February 18, 2006

Piiiiiigsaaaaaay!! (I just had to say that)
posted by Mr Bluesky at 7:59 AM on February 18, 2006

Wow, I had no idea so many people were aware of this show - I'm 34 now and this ran when I was maybe 8 years old and living in the UK. I absolutely loved it (but then, I was only 8 years old so I'm not sure if it was great or I was easily amused or some combination of both).
posted by jonson at 8:39 AM on February 18, 2006

You mean this Shingo Katori? Awesome!!!
posted by Dr-Baa at 9:22 AM on February 18, 2006

I watched this with a kid. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

But now you tell me that it actually had a plot arc? And was based on serious mythology? I just thought it was the stupid fighting show! Agggh!
posted by lalochezia at 10:17 AM on February 18, 2006

Shingo-san is a pretty funny guy so the new series may be well worth checking out. I was wondering why he's been blonde for several months now. I don't know if anything he does can ever top Shingo Mama.
posted by acetonic at 10:33 AM on February 18, 2006

i wish they had shown it here...are there torrents of the old one?
posted by amberglow at 10:56 AM on February 18, 2006

The four worlds formed again, and yet again.
I am vaguely sure that the guy who got the re-issues of the original series done was some kind of website fanboy.
Episode guides.
They need girls playing boys and dragons playing horses to capture the original flavour. Remember Monkey falls in love with Tripitaka (the character is a boy, played by Masako Natsume).
Everything was up for grabs in the original series. Series two was a bit played out with the replacement Pigsy and the timid horse (dragon) man.
Let's hope they can reproduce a little of the manic energy of the original.
posted by asok at 12:38 PM on February 18, 2006

Here in Australia, Monkey was one of the fixtures of many kids' afternoons, because it was repeated many times on the ABC.

(A mildly censored version of the BBC series of The Goodies achieved similar popularity here - it was never really meant to be a kid's show, but was shown as one here. Tim, Bill and Graeme remain much more popular here than they ever were in the UK, and had a sell-out tour last year.)

Dunno whether any hives of scum and villainy have Monkey torrents available, but you can get most of the episodes on DVD anywhere (Amazon has 'em).

Sandy's strange "water staff" is actually a real kung fu weapon, though not a very practical one owing to its tremendous weight (when not made out of silver-painted wood like every weapon on Monkey; the WHA-CHINNGGGG! sound effects failed to conceal this) and dreadful polar moment of inertia. I can't remember what it's called, but one shows up in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon when Michelle Yeoh's going through all those different weapons in her attempt to defeat Pei-pei Cheng and her entirely unfair Green Destiny sword. Michelle hauls the staff-club off the rack on the wall, one end of it slams very finally onto the ground, and Pei-pei gives her a break and lets her pick something you can swing without needing the strength of a man-eating water spirit in human form.

It should also be noted that it was the thoroughly patrician looking David Collings who did the voice of Monkey, duplicating the demented Masaaki Sakai's tone spookily well.

The lip sync issue confused the heck out of me as a kid. In Australia, it is a dinner-party cliche to reflect that this, along with the deep crypto-Freudian issues created by the playing of a young male priest by a sexy woman, no doubt account for most of what's wrong with our Generation Y today.
posted by dansdata at 12:58 PM on February 18, 2006

Duh. Ziyi Zhang, not Pei-Pei.
posted by dansdata at 12:58 PM on February 18, 2006

And more duh. Amazon in the USA has some animated Monkey version, not the 1978 live-action one. Amazon.co.uk has the '78 version, and it's easy to find in .au; eBay's got plenty of sellers who ship to the USA.
posted by dansdata at 1:01 PM on February 18, 2006

I love Monkey. I also love peaches. Monkey taught me to love peaches. My heart taught me to love Monkey.
posted by The Monkey at 4:50 PM on February 18, 2006

In China. This story, its legends, and its remakes. Are everywhere. EVERYWHERE. In the West, we have Star Wars and Star Trek. Here, it's Journey to the West. Never see another remake of this too soon et al.

The book was good though.
posted by saysthis at 2:01 AM on February 19, 2006

Series two was a bit played out with the replacement Pigsy and the timid horse (dragon) man.

The replacement Pigsy sucked. He lacked the genuinely lustful piggish nature of the original.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 10:55 AM on February 19, 2006

My son loves the new series airing right now, but he's only eight years old and doesn't know any better. : )
PeterMcDermott, if you think the replacement Pigsy (Chohakkai is his Japanese name) sucked, you should see the current one! He's Densha Otoko!
I used to watch the original series starring Masaaki Sakai, like every other Japanese kid my age, but I didn't know it was so well-known outside Japan. From what I've seen of the current series, the episodes aren't so terribly bad, but personally I think everyone but Eri Fukatsu playing Sanzoh Hohshi (Tripitaka) is miscast. No offense to the fans out there, but frankly, Shingo Katori looks more like a gorilla than a monkey...
posted by misozaki at 6:32 PM on February 19, 2006

My friends and I are currently loving Saiyuuki (though not as much as Kuitan), including Shingo's overacting. And the opening cameo just about killed us all. We're not all that fond of Fukatsu Eri, though really we're blaming her for our dislike of Sanzoh.
posted by emmling at 10:01 PM on February 19, 2006

Monkey was the reason I stopped being a cub scout. Given the choice of fiddling with my woggle for an hour and trying to avoid earning any badges or watching a bunch of mad Chinese people hit each other with ridiculous implements it was an easy decision.

Incidentally, as dansdata says above - the staff weapon with the spade on the end is a real weapon and you too can learn it's secrets with the help of this video.

*snicker*
posted by longbaugh at 6:49 AM on February 20, 2006