October 07, 2025

Journey to the West 1986 (S4E16)

47 minutes

What makes the 1986 adaptation of Journey to the West so endearing?

Welcome to Final Forum's Dragon Ball-oween Spooktacular!

In this episode, Jelli and Bekinney break down the 1986 Chinese television event, Journey to the West. It's part of our October/Halloween Festivities where we're taking a break from breaking down Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime phenomenon and delving into times our franchise's creators have "put on a costume" and worked on other shows and movies. In this case, it's a little bit different, as we talk about Wu Cheng'en and the inspiration behind the Dragon Ball franchise.

In this episode:

Jelli and Bekinney say hello to Halloween

We discuss why we chose to look at Journey to the West

The life of Wu Cheng'en, novelist, poet, and politician who is the most likely author of Journey to the West

Why the authorship of Journey to the West is up for debate and assertion from Anthony Christopher Yu, scholar, theologian, sinologist, and professor who translated JTTW that Cheng'en did in fact write the novel originally

The production history of the show and how that ties into Mao Zedong, the Cultural Revolution, and China's moves towards embracing its traditions

The struggles that Yang Jie, director, showrunner, producer, writer, editor, location scouter, casting director, and budget overseer had while making the show, including a single camera and accusations of theft

The cast being largely derived from Peking Opera backgrounds

Liu Xiao Ling Tong's performance as Sun Wukong

The dangers of the show

The reception of the show and its legacy

Plans to continue breaking down the show in the future

...and more, including some general pop culture, trivia, and editorializing, as usual

Join us as we continue to uncover the cultural meanings, publication facts, inspirations and more behind the wildly popular Dragon Ball franchise....or in this case, the Halo trans-media franchise....for our special Dragon Ball-o-Ween event!

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