CHAD MONKEY | Overly Sarcastic Productions: The Monkey King, Journey To The West Part 1 Reaction 

Wukong didn't accidentally blackmail the dragons by being annoying. He scared the shit out of them by casually lifting up a 9-ton pillar and saying he'd use it as a staff when the dragons just thought of it as a support beam. Understandably, somebody picking up part of your palace-sized house and using it as a weapon is rather disturbing, and if you were not inclined to deal with the monkey with the 9-ton ear-piercing, you would gladly hand him all the clothes he wants and promptly start moving once he's out the door.

Ah yes the yearly series.

7:40 remember, this isn't a normal monkey, but a magical monkey made of stone. Of COURSE his lifespan is already weird. How many types of immortality does Sun Wukong need? All of them. All the types. You invent more types, he needs them.

Airier: "HOW MANY IMMORALITIES DOES HE NEED?" me and Son Wukong: "yes"

Whats scary is that the 72 transformations thing is not how that technique works. It allows for BONUDLESS transformations as long as you don't try to become omnipotent... The 72 is actually the extra lives you get thanks to the power. To put into perspective how broken the power is, if monkey met someone stronger he can become a different form capable of matching the opponent. Which he DID in his war with heaven.

TECHNICALLY, the peaches, wine, and pills just increase lifespan by 10,000 years EACH, the messing with the ledgers means they can't collect his soul, he is made of stone as they are want to forget, and as long as one continues practicing the Tao they will continuously reset their aging, so he's less outright immortal after all the stacking and moreso unbelievably close to it. Edit: fixed comma

For those wondering how Immortal Wukong is, he technically has 79 layers of immortality or an 8-fold immortal 1) 72 Earthly Transformations (72 Bain) - Every transformation gives Wukong an extra life 2) Ledger(s) of the Dead - Erasing his name means his soul can not be taken to Hell, therefore immortal 3) Peaches of Immortality - Grants him immortality (the peaches also makes his body lighter and stronger, gives the ability to fly, etc.) 4) Heavenly Wine 5) Laozi's Pills of Longevity/Immortality 6) Braiser of Eight Trigrams - Extracts the impurities of mortality granting him even more immortality (also grants him the ability to recognize evil) *7) Ginseng Fruit - consuming one of theses fruits grants you 47,000 years of life (more powerful then the Peaches of Immortality) *8) Buddha Food - When reaching Buddha's temple the pilgrims were given Buddhist equivalents of the stuff listed above *Has not appeared in the OSP series as of the writing of this comment

It's not so much that Sun Wukong can swim, being a stone monkey he just sinks to the bottom, but because he's immortal he can't really drown. This becomes important later in the story where he outright admits to having disadvantages fighting underwater and asks Sha Wujing (Aka Sandy the sand river demon) to dive down to help the monk after he's captured by swimming demons.

The great Monk, Xuan Zang, is the OG Damsel in Distress. Also the chinese Version of Immortality is a Bit complicated. You have like 3 diffirent versions. One where you dont die of old Age, one where you cant die of sickness and the probably most known is the heavenly Immortality where all of the causes are off the Table. Last one needs to be recharged every once in a while with either of the Heavens Fruits, Wine or Medicine.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms is the dramatized version of the Records of the Three Kingdoms which is a more grounded historic text. As the name indicates it covers the Three Kingdoms period of China, 220AD to 280AD (thought both books start from 180s). (Also regarding Goku, "Son Goku" is literally how you read the Chinese characters for "Sun Wukong" in Japanese (since Kanji is basically Hanzi, aka Chinese characters. They also often have multiple readings in Japanese).)

I've heard of some mischievous monkeys, but this is ridiculous. The sheer level of immortality SunWukong develops is insane, and your reactions to his antics and badassery are priceless. Red and Blue do such great work, and I will forever love their content and this annual series. Thank you for finally checking it out. ❤

I recomend Hades and Persephone by Red, she analysis in it the background of Hades from cultural stand point and it is super interesting. (She also does this to few other deities.) From Blue: either Pope Fights, or some architectural/city history analysis, he but a lot of passion into those those

I think the reason the monkey king can duplicate himself is simple. Since it involves his hair, and he has perfect control over his shape-shifting, I believe what he does is he shape shifts each strand of hair into a perfect copy of himself.

A thing to note that OSP and many others leave out is that Journey to the West is also very much a type of religious fiction and you should keep in mind the many religious beliefs throughout China when considering the story and symbolism

You're definitely right about that thing with Goku and fighting. Me and my friend watched Cooler's Revenge a few weeks ago. And part of the opening of that film is literally his wife thinking he's got brain damage because as he's caring about something other than fighting.

Fun fact: just like how cheese is a loaf of milk, vodka is potato tea.

Fun Fact: Dream of the Red Chamber, one of the other Chinese great classical novels, is 120 chapters, and one translation runs over two and half thousand pages long.

The elixir doesn’t make you always sober, it just sobered him up upon eating

Well, if you are curious to see more from OSP, then these would be the ones I would recommend from the them: From Red, I would recommend the videos on Dionysus, Aphrodite, Hermes, and Hades and Persephone(in order), together with the rest of their summary of Journey to the West. Other ones I would recommend would be her videos on Cu Chulainn, on the Epic of Mwindo, on the Journey of Ra, her video on Quetzalcoatl and the one on the Five Suns. From Blue, his videos on Renaissance Hijinks, on Minoan Greece, on Mycenaean Greece, on the Bronze age Mesopotamia, on Women who made History, and his new video on Great Zimbabwe are great ones.

Airier: How many kinds of immortality does he need? Me and Wukong: ALL OF THEM!

Honestly, anything by OSP is good stuff. Pick a direction and run with it!!

One of the best things about OSP are the jokes and in-jokes they put in their drawings, like the Jade Emperor reading Dragonball Z

You should definitely watch Lego monkie kid! It's based off jttw and has an amazing plot with a new take on the monkey kings story! With new characters but with familiar tales and background! It has such a lovely grasp on re-creating the same vibe that jttw gives off :DDD

I highly recommend watching the rest of OSP's Journey to the West series. You can really see Red's writing and drawing improve over time.

You, my man, chose a great series to react to. Red gets this elephantine series down pat while basically emphasizing the seriously goofy parts of the story.

The 'first empower of China' you're thinking of is actually the Yellow Emperor, whom, if memory serves was the first, fifth, or sixth but I don't remember which

This is a great series, you’ll enjoy the rest

You've got quite a lot of irons in the fire right now. Might want to finish a few reviews before starting more at this point. Edit: That said... this was a really good pick to go with!

He didn't accidentally blackmail them by being annoying. He accidentally threatened them by being oblivious to his own op status.

Oh, there was nothing _accidental_ about his blackmailing of the dragon kings 😌😂 Sun Wukong is a menace. And a king who is very used to (and proficient at) giving orders. The fact that the gods are scared enough to bow and obey his every word without a peep should tell you all you need to know about just how terrifying the Monkey King really is. xD

I am so glad we've gotten you addicted to this channel. :)

Ah, the Senzu Beans originated as immortality pills.

romance of the three kingdoms is the plot of dynasty warriors

Quick fact for what you said at 3:46 Xuan Zang actually doesn't appear till chapter 9 in the book, the first 7 chapters are about Sun Wukong, While chapter 8 is about Guanyin flying over to see if the journey was possible and finding the future disciples of the journey, then in chapter 9 is when we learn of Xuan Zang and his parents.

All of Red's and Blue's work is super fun. I tune in every Saturday to see what is next. One recommendation I have is Red's three episodes on Dante's Divine Comedy. I like them so much, I go back and watch them every once in a while.😄😄

Check out the Trope Talk series from OSP they do a good job of analyzing popular writing trends

You might like their take on the Ptolemies and their dynastic shenanagines.

Also, there are reasonable people in bureaucracies but the rules keep them from doing anything useful.

Might as well go through the full series of this. After that? I personally love the Trope Talk series. That said, the stories of Cú Chulainn and Fionn Mac Cumhaill are fun.

I am currently listening to the Audiobook and oh my god I can understand why Red didn’t want to explain it in it’s entirety.

*And this is how Lego monkie kid was born.* Lol

Just wait until Airer gets to the history videos, *POPE FIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!!!*

It's funny how the Monkey King would have won the bet, had just gone a little bit further.

@Airier Hey Airier, they have playlists of their content. Including every video done under a particular presenter (Red or Blue). Just pick one and start playing them. Maybe do one over the other every other week.

I like the Miscellaneous Myths videos the most, where I would recommend The Theogony (basically the greek creation myth), but Red herself said that a good starting point would also be The Trojan War (for obvious reasons).

13:51 actually no, not accidentally. What happens is that Monkey threatens to test out his new staff on the dragon. So not accidental blackmail. It was basically mugging.

Oh, so you did decide to go for Journey to the West... well, buckle in, because it's gonna take a while... and it's not finished yet. Also, I can't remember if you were already playing FGO at the time of Sanzangs event, or if you played the rerun, but Sanzangs event also referenced lots of the iconic, mostly the early parts of the Journey to the West, so some stuff in the first few parts will probably seem familiar from that as well, aside from how generally, the Journey to the West just had a huge influence on a lot of stories in that cultural sphere even until today (including, as I just recently learned, a lego animated series that seems actually really cool). Romance of the Three Kingdoms, from what I recall, is semi-historical. Pretty sure it's where characters like Lu Bu are from, and what the Dynasty Warrior-games are based on. Speaking of based on games, I remember hearing that the Suikoden-games are heavily based on Water Margin. (Also going for another FGO-reference, it's also the work that the Assassin of Shinjuku, Yan Qing is from, he's part of the group of 108 that serves as main characters of the story from what I recall. Also, it also has some basis in history from what I remember hearing). On that note, the 2nd guy Wukong fights is Nezha, also present in FGO (chinese lancer girl with the flame wheel shoes, those are kinda Nezhas trademark item).

To be fair, fear leaves an impression so it is technically still impressive.

The heavenly court are idiots, Sun Wukong was a king and you don't just appoint a king to the lowest position possible and expect them to be happy about it even if they weren't a super powerful demon, that was clearly going to backfire on them at some point.

Just get an OSP random button, skip anything that has a "Part X" number higher than you've seen. They're pretty much all gold. Otherwise, I'd recommend Pope Fights. Because Fights are always better when the pontifex maximus... pontifices maximi (had to go look up the plural, latin is definitely not my thing)... is/are involved.

Hey, I couldn't help but notice that you have autoplay on. I don't know if you intentionally have that on, but it's the play sign on a bar below the red line when the video is paused. You can turn that off, and your video won't automatically skip to the next video.

Watch EVERYTHING osp puts out nothing is bad, but if you it narrowed down, Red generally does fiction and Blue does history both awesome

fun fact: sun wukong's iron pillar was actually built to measure the depths of the ocean

To be fare this story is realy old It might be the origin of the cave behind the waterfall 🤷🏻

22:03 answer: seven including achieving status as a Buddha by the end of the story. Wu Kong is the universe's most prolific accidental contingency plan creator.

The Demon Kings weren't really in an 'alliance' with Sun Wukong, it was more of a non-aggression pact to keep their own kingdoms (and themselves) alive.

If you like astronomy stuff, Red has done a bunch of star myths. The most resent one was Ursa Major. They've released an enamel pin of it. You can't order it any more, but they bring back all their pin designs every year for Black Friday. You know, if you're interested in spending money of cool stuff. There's also Sun Wukong vinyls.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS Oh god I love this series of OSP! And now you're reacting to it \o/ (I haven't even clicked the play button on the video yet =D That's how hyped I am for this

The book of journey to the west is actually abreflection of the government during that time. Sun wukong went up to the celestial courts and beatbup everyone till he ran into the buddha. Once he got into the journey to the west, he was getting beat up from left to rights. The enemies that gave him the most trouble are actually the servants and animals who escaped from the celeatial courts. The writer spent decades in trying to get a job with the royal courts. He is basically saying the real talents are the servants and second class officials while the first class officials are basically corrupt and keeping the talents emerge

YES! I was hoping you would react to OSP's Journey to the West! :D I hope you continue with the other videos of the series! :3

Some early recommendations: all of the Journey to the West videos, the videos talking about the origins of Greek gods(Hermes, Aphrodite, Dionysus, Hades/Persephone), and my personal favorite is the myth of Medea.

16:38 You're impression of Randy Savage is a Texan accent? You're talking about the wrestler, right?

Make this a series, all of the videos about the journey of the west are gold!!!

You’re a Brandon Sanderson fan? Sweeeeeet what’s your favorite book? Mines the storm light archive series I think the first book as it introduced me to Sanderson.

9:31 Yeah, you’re actually mixing up Chinese mythology with history there. The Jade emperor is a kind of Zues equivalent for the bureaucracy of heaven. 16:11 Nope it just means their souls can not be collected. 19:35 And that was Blue 22:10 The 72 Transformations fit the lives terminology while immortality in Chinese mythology tends to be skewed between long life or being spiritually immortal, which really depends on context. 23:20 You mean aye, as in “aye aye sir” 32:23 I’d say part 2, because it’s pretty much self-contained.

Regarding Overly Sarcastic Productions, I would like to suggest, time permitting, watching the story of M'Windo. It's an african story which also features an extraordinary being with amazing (and sometimes wacky) powers interacting with gods and having adventures. It isn't as well known or referenced as other myths and legends, and it would be nice to give it a little more clout.

Thinking of the OSP Lovecraft special you did, they have other Halloween specials that you might want to check out. Red does something close to what Dominic Noble does on his channel with Lost In Adaptation, but for Halloween in years previous to the Lovecraft special, she did lost in adaptation style comparisons of both Bram Stoker's "Dracula" & Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" versus movie/pop-cultural interpretations of those works. Both are pretty far from any film adaptation to date & she delivers it in her great, sarcastic style the channel is named for.

I'm dying of laughter, "the monkey king" I think is one of the most delusional but beautiful stories that have ever existed (I love Chinese mythology). I got to know this beautiful world, thanks to a lego cartoon that came out in 2021 (if I'm not mistaken) and that I absolutely suggest you see as soon as you finish with monkei king, aka "Lego Monkei Kid". it's a separate story set in the future, but that relates to monkei king and there are hundreds of references to the original story and hundreds of references to other tv series. The animations are fantastic and I, despite being 16 years old, died laughing in some episodes. I think it's a nice and peaceful thing to see and I think it's a good product.

I read this certain comment on one of the videos red made and they gave a pretty good idea make Wukong teach people in the heavenly army instead of putting him in charge of the peachs it is time comsuming and might help him mature plus it can be not boring

With the names being a mouthful thing, I believe in the original Chinese, most of the words are one or two syllables, so the names are a lot shorter. They only become a mouthful when you translate them into other languages where the same words have more syllables.

You should see the Lego animated series: Monkie Kid. It's actually a great series.

15:45, yes, this is the original Death Note, the Underworld have a note that contained name of every human beings and their dates of death, the King of the Underworld just crosses their name out when their time come. In some version, this note is held by a god on heaven who is also the Southern Cross stars

"How many types of immortality does he need?" Yes

The peaches, pills, and wine all lengthen life by many thousands of years. They aren't normally an: 'eat one and live forever', type deal.

I also recommend looking at overly sarcastic Productions other Halloween videos. always fun

14:25 that looks like the earth demon from jackie chan adventures.

I could be wrong but I did hear that the long grandiose names of places in sounds different in Chinese as each word in English would be one syllable in Chinese.

He should react to osp aphrodite, hermes, loki, dionysus/bacchus, persephone and hades

Please do more overly sarcastic especially their miscellaneous myths and trope talk

If you ever find a audio book of this text with a good translation, do tel me were because i don't know were to find one.

Didn't the smoke from the brazier give him the ability to see demons or something? I might be misremembering

3:33 This is true! After watching Red’s first 3 videos on this, I decided to get a copy of The Journey to the West and read all 2500 pages. Sun does take up the first 7 chapters BEFORE Tripitaka even shows up as a baby!

Watch all of the extant Journey to the West, it is GLORIOUS.

ok FYI Airier she hasnt finish the journey to the west its still an on going project @Airier

If ya wanna look into Blues stuff, I think you'll enjoy Pope Wars

Just putting this here. most tropes you're about to see were created by the journey to the west.

14:14 ngl, i always think that bird is Duolingo owl, since its a meme about being "haunted" by this "demon" owl to study language but thats just me lol

Hey, Airier. You can move forward and backward frame by frame on a RU-vid video by pressing . and , respectively

100% MAXIMUM NO CHILL!!!!!!

the 72 earthly transformation allows one to transform into anything they want. the 72 represent the 72 lifes that its user has so you have to kill sun wukong who has hundreds of thousands of layers of immortaility (each immortality pill=one layer) 72 times and a version of him self that is as powerful as his enemy (doesn't work on buddha and the jade emperor).

btw, bodhi is not a monk, he is a Taoism hermit

6:45 I feel like this might be the origin of the treasure behind the waterfall trope. Glad your seeing this though, I hope you enjoy the rest of the series.

You should definitely check out the show Monkie Kid if you love Sun Wukong and the concepts surrounding it!

son wokong is a stone monkey basically a living statue

You should check out Lego Monkie Kid it’s a continuation spoof of the Journey to the West. The story is comedic but engaging, It’s animation is bad-ass and the characters are voiced by the most popular anime voice actors in the world. Including Sean Schemmel himself

9:25 The Jade emperor isn't the first emperor of China, he is the first emperor, PERIOD. As in he has been ruling for the equivalent of hundreds of millions of years up to that point with the power position of Zeus. Also, the duplication thing is by pulling off some of his hair, blowing on it, and casting a spell; from here on out, if you see the Monkey King making objects, animals or people appear out of thin air, it's his hair.

Please watch Blues Pope Fight video

Nice rock😏

I hope you plan on reacting to the whole journey to the west series from this creator. Its one of my favorite stories that I never read.

Hi sir, do you know sir Lego monkie kid episode ?