VERY GOOD SERIES, I MISS IT

viduenas

This particular gem of the late 90s is one of the more obscure series out there. Based on the the ancient Chinese legend "Journey to West" (the same one Dragon Ball borrows heavily from) the series portrays the adventures of the popular Monkey King known to Chinese and Japanese folk culture, in this series named Kongo for the English dub. I remember this would come on at odd hours Sunday on the now-defunct UPN so catching all episodes was next to impossible in a time before streaming online. The show portrays the Monkey King's rambunctious, confrontational, and over confident personality well. This is contrasted with the celestial beings he is often in conflict with who are more or less portrayed as more stoic, biding, and enigmatic.

The English dub is rather quirky and the dialogue doesn't seem to be studied well enough to appropriately translate as is the case with other anime dubbed around this time (Tenchi Muyo, Universe come to mind). The animation mixed cell animation with computer CGI for large landscapes and some large creatures and characters. The CGI is actually impressive for the time and blends well with the animation, not leaving a jarringly cheap aesthetic like other motion pictures at the time (looking at you Spawn movie).
The series seems to serve as a vehicle for the original PlayStation game which is a considered a cult classic in its own right.

It's unfortunate that it ended so early its time on air as it would have been interesting to see how the series would have progressed and adapted from the original ancient novel. As of now I can't seem to find any mention of a DVD release which is very unfortunate as this show probably had and COULD have a larger fan base than the industry would give it credit for. Evidence of merch are scant other than a few mentions of promo material from Japanese catalogers.

It seems as though this series couldn't compete with other emerging animes and action packed series at the time, namely the Dragon Ball successor, DBZ,which was also concurrently on American airwaves for the first time. Hopefully the series finds its way to a streaming network someday soon so audiences old and new can enjoy this interesting take on an old story.

score 10/10

viduenas 17 August 2020

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6003226/