Journey to the West is one of the oldest action adventure tales as well as one of the oldest examples of the five man band trope (yes, the horse counts) but this incarnation of the tale still holds up as a highly original work in a landscape saturated with action-adventure shows inspired from it. The most prominent of these is Dragon Ball Z, and I'm just going to come out and say it: Xi You Ji walks all over Dragon Ball Z even when I remove my nostalgia glasses. Yes, it's still mainly an action-adventure series aimed at kids so there won't be much intellectualsubstance, long, complex story arcs, deep characters, nor emotional drama. It doesn't reach for these things either, as its tone, visuals, and music indicate that it's an honest attempt to tell fun, episodic adventures, and its plentiful charm allows it to succeed in this. Whereas Dragon Ball Z's 2 episode long constipating contests, poorly handled power creep, and corny hero-villain dialogue make it inaccessible to viewers who didn't grow up with it, Xi You Ji's charm holds up for both kids and adults just like Tom and Jerry's childish slapstick comedy is timeless.

(Edit: To say that Xi You Ji has nothing to say of substance would be inaccurate. The Journey to the West is about the individual's journey to cultivate the self. Wukong represents the mind, Tripitaka represents the heart, Pigsy represents our base instincts, and Sandy represents our common sense. We need to balance all these aspects of the self and in order to do so, we must go through numerous tribulations. Tripitaka's compassion and spirituality leads him to be too trusting towards demons and lands him in trouble and that's why he needs Wukong's cunning intellect, practicality, and ability to do what needs to be done. Wukong on the other hand, suffers from lack of self-restraint and spirituality. Compassion and spirituality must be tempered by logic and practicality. When Wukong decides to leave Flower Fruit Mountain and continue his journey, his monkey subjects beg him not to leave. They tell him that if he goes, he will suffer numerous hardships whereas if he stays, he can enjoy being king and having everything at his disposal. Wukong replies that he must go, because going through the 82 tribulations is honing his soul and his character. )

Most of this charm comes from the mandarin voice acting itself (which is fantastic, especially in the delivery of the comedic moments) and Son Wukong's personality. Mischievous, clever, persistent, and rebellious, Son Wukong stands up for what he believes is right, with a particular disdain for pompous authority figures. Moreover, he can back it up. His journey from a monkey born out of a giant rock to Monkey King, to Great Sage Equal to Heaven, is equal parts empowering in the way he takes on all of Heaven and wins.

Endearingly humorous, he answers trickery and connivery with clever wit and even greater trickery stemming from his monkey mischievousness. Here is what separates Xi You Ji from most other action-adventure series/shounen. The action conflicts are not simply bouts of who is more powerful or who is more intelligent; yes, Wukong is more powerful than his enemies most of the time, but he prefers to use his ability to transform into anything and deception to play with his enemies (monkeying around, if you will), making for some really fun sequences. As a result, it doesn't have to rely on power levels to get viewers invested in the fights, and each fight is unique and creative.

It's really hard to describe (and that's a good thing) so it's best you look up clips on Youtube to see what I mean. For now, I'll give an example. In one episode, it seems Wukong has finally met his match in Erlang Shen. In most series where two rivals fight, they try to hype it up with insane feats of power from both characters (Oh my god, they're both moving so fast we can't see them! Woah, he's so strong! Wow, I can't believe how he predicted that move!). Here, Wukong and Erlang Shen do compete to see who can grow the biggest, but then they both reach their limits and they start arguing about who should grow smaller first. Later, Wukong tries to flee so he turns into a sparrow, so Erlang Shen turns into a raven to chase him. In turn, Wukong turns into a hawk and chases Erlang Shen, who then turns into a condor, etc, etc.

In general, the villains are also charmingly villainous. Most of the time, they'll just be demons doing demon things, saying "We'll eat Tripitaka and gain immortality!" and they'll sound cute and diabolical at the same time. Objectively, many of the villains are repetitive, just like how in this 52 episode series some of the episodes may start to feel boring and drag due to the lack of much of an overarching plot and sparse character development. Still, the decent stories and villains are well distributed throughout the series. The fact that each of the villains are defeated in a different way, often requiring Wukong to come up with a creative solution, especially helps reduce the wear from the episodic story structure. However, it is also clear that Wukong is too overpowered for the story's good and some episodes will depower him to create conflict and use deus ex machinas to defeat the villain. Another thing to note is that though this series is supposedly for children, there is an ample amount of violence. Wukong has no problem killing his enemies with a big thump of his Ruyi Jingu Bang (and the show makes it clear people are dead), in case you're worried the action is too childish.

Even though I did say that there aren't any deep characters, Sun Wukong is still a great lead character unlike any other whose charisma keeps him interesting all 52 episodes. Zhu Bajie (Piggsy) is one of the best comedic characters out there, whose lovable lust, gluttony, and selfishness rivals Sun Wukong's lovable mischievousness, cleverness, and rebelliousness. Sandy's just there most of the time to play the straight man and is pretty weak in a battle unless it's in the sea. Tripitaka is the damsel in most of the episodes and often comes off as pious and self-righteous, making Sun Wukong's devotion to him somewhat unbelievable. And yet, the bond between teacher and student does provide for some emotional moments throughout the show, bolstered by the great soundtrack.

From a technical standpoint, Xi You Ji might not be anything special compared to anime from the same time period, but it should be noted that the Chinese animation industry was crippled for decades by communist censorship and what Xi You Ji has achieved in spite of that should be given high praise. The backgrounds are beautifully drawn and the art is shows a unique Chinese touch without leaning on the style of the much more mature anime industry. As I said, the music is exceptional as well. The opening song tells of the legend of Wukong with powerful dignity, conveyed by a vigorous male voice that puts most generic rock OP's to utter shame, while the ending is a catchy children's choir song.

Not only is Xi You Ji a significant cultural work drawing on the last remaining vestiges of Chinese civilization that have escaped communist depravity, but it is the best kind of children's story- the kind that will make you rediscover and cherish our youthful monkey nature.