Concept
Saiyūki is the Japanese name for Journey to the West, or Xīyóujì (西遊記 "Record of the Journey to the West") in Chinese. While Saiyūki is normally written "西遊記", or "Journey to the West", Kazuya Minekura writes the title as "最遊記", or "Journey to the Extreme". This is her pun, as both are pronounced saiyūki.
Saiyūki is not the first anime to adapt the story of Journey to the West, with the more famous Dragon Ball series being a primary example.
Minekura's Sanzō-Ikkō bears only a superficial similarity to the original four in the Chinese novel. Their names are the same as the names of the characters in the Chinese novel, but given Japanese pronunciations:
- Genjyo Sanzo (玄奘三蔵) is Xuánzàng (玄奘) or Táng-Sānzàng (唐三藏, Tang's three scriptures).
- Son Gokū is Sūn Wùkōng (孫悟空), or the Monkey King.
- Cho Hakkai is Zhū Bājiè (豬八戒), a pig monster. His original name, Cho Gonou is actually Zhū Wùnéng (豬悟能), the Buddhist name given to Zhu Bajie by Guan Yin when they first met in the original novel.
- Sha Gojyō is Shā Wùjìng (沙悟淨), a water demon, classified as a kappa in some translations.
- Gyūmaōh is Niumowáng (牛魔王) Ox King
Read more about this topic: Saiyuki (manga)
Famous quotes containing the word concept:
“Behind the concept of woman’s strangeness is the idea that a woman may do anything: she is below society, not bound by its law, unpredictable; an attribute given to every member of the league of the unfortunate.”
—Christina Stead (1902–1983)
“To find the length of an object, we have to perform certain
physical operations. The concept of length is therefore fixed when the operations by which length is measured are fixed: that is, the concept of length involves as much as and nothing more than the set of operations by which length is determined.”
—Percy W. Bridgman (1882–1961)