Director Toshi Aoki, Jun Fukuda, Kazuo Ikehiro, Yusuke Watanabe & Daisuke Yamazaki
Starring Masaaki Sakai, Masako Natsume, Shunji Fujimura
Rated M
Score 6/6

Monkey (Journey to the West) is the story by Wu Ch’êng-ên based on the ancient Chinese legend tracing the origins of Buddhism. It follows the adventures of Tripitaka and disciples Pigsy, Sandy and of course Monkey, on their journey from China to India to fetch the large vehicle holy scriptures which will save the world.

Okay, considering that at some point this year The New Legends of Monkey is going to be released, reading up on The New Legends of Monkey it seems that there might be a small amount of controversy surrounding the casting choices, all I am going to say to the cast and crew please remember that your deeply in don’t screw it up territory. I thought that it was only right to look back to the Television series that ran from 1978 to 1980. Monkey is one of those television series that holds a nostalgic appeal especially in Australia given how many times that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has broadcast the BBC-dubbed Monkey. At the point of writing the review I’ve only watched 3 of the 52 episodes. I honestly don’t remember why this series is so well loved (for the record in my more formative years this series was on my television watching schedule) but also have to say that Monkey is one of those series that is just ….. good and everything just seems to work. Despite what might be wrong with it and looking back on the series 38 years after it was first broadcast it’s pretty clear that the series did not age well, but even still while watching this I found that the series was able to reach inside me and make me feel warm and happy.