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| Goku, a character based off of Sun Wukong from the Manga and Anime Dragonball and Dragonball Z |
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| Sun Wukong as portrayed in the video game Smite |
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| Sun Wukong as portrayed in the video game Warriors Orochi |
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| Wukong as he appears in League of Legends |
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| Sonson, a female version of Sun Wukong who appears in Marvel vs Capcom 2 |
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| Jet Li as The Monkey King in the film The Forbidden Kingdom |
It was interesting to me reading
Tripmaster Monkey to see how the character Wittman Ah Sing identifies himself with the legendary Monkey King Sun Wukong from
Journey to the West. Growing up, I have seen this character portrayed in many different series and forms of media, primarily through video games but also through film. In all of his variations, Wukong is portrayed as a trickster, someone who fights in a way that defies the laws of physics and toys rather playfully with his opponents. Despite not knowing a lot about Chinese culture, this is a character I was raised with and rather familiar with before reading about him in this book.
So what is it about Sun Wukong that resonates with cultures outside of China? As we see with
The Forbidden Kingdom, League of Legends, and
Smite, the character has massive appeal in the United States.
Marvel vs Capcom 2 and
Warriors Orochi are games produced in Japan, and
Dragonball is a Japanese manga and anime, meaning that the character has some sort of influence there as well. What exactly is it about Sun Wukong that translates so well with multiple cultures, even ones that could be completely oblivious to Chinese mythology?
This was a really interesting post. The popular media representation of Sun Wukong I am most familiar with is the character by the exact same name in the internet series RWBY (a Rooster Teeth production). In that series he is something called a "faunus" which is the name used for people who also display physical traits of animals. He has the same lack of attention to authority, fun-loving trickster attitude of the Sun Wukong of "Journey to the West." His weapon is based on Monkey's weapon as well, a "collapsible staff that separates into two pairs of nunchucks made of guns" and these guns are named after Monkey's, "Ruyi Jingu Bang." Having read the original "Journey to the West", it's interesting to see how different artists are inspired by this Monkey character and play around with the Chinese mythology behind him. It seems very similar to the way game designers, authors, etc. use the gods/goddesses of Greek mythology for their characters all the time. It teaches a large audience broad traits of these religious figures almost subconsciously. Religion inspires art, art inspires art, and so on until the Sun Wukong of history becomes the Sun Wukong of the modern people.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize there were so many incarnations of Sun Wukong in popular culture. I guess I'm just not on the up and up with video games (never watched Dragonball as a kid either).
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I think Holly said it very eloquently: people draw inspiration from mythology/religion and these figures permeate through art because of it. I'm reminded of the Norse God Loki who was also infamous for being a trickster. Marvel comics took him as well as Thor and turned them into popular comic book characters and, now, film icons.
It's interesting to see the progression of characters' representations in different mediums. Look at how Sun Wukong has transformed over the years and through the different mediums in which he appears.