Dragon Ball (1984–1995)
Goku is Sun Wukong, right up until he isn’t.
Take the monkey, the cloud, the staff and the pig, let the story wander off into its own galaxy, and see what survives the trip.
You want to watch a myth travel, and you would like to see the exact page where it stops being the myth.
What it keeps and what it changes
Keeps: the character sketch — a childlike immortal with a staff, a cloud and no impulse control — and, early on, a road trip with a pig and a shapeshifter.
Changes: the destination. Within a few volumes this is martial-arts tournament fiction, and by the end it has nothing to do with any pilgrimage.
Whose story is it?
Goku’s, and the further it goes the less it is anyone from the novel’s.
How much time does it ask?
The 3-in-1 omnibus collects three volumes at a time: 576 pages. Toei Animation’s 1986 anime of the same story is on Prime Video, sold by the episode; it is linked under the other ways to get it.
VIZ, Shonen Jump imprint, 3-in-1 edition, 576 pages.
Where to find it
Buy the paperback — Bookshop.org
Other ways to get it: Paperback — Amazon · Ebook — Kobo · Kindle — Amazon · The 1986 anime, by the episode — Prime Video
Borrow it free: Borrow on Libby · Find at your library — WorldCat
Common questions
Is Goku the Monkey King?
Goku starts as a direct riff on Sun Wukong — the tail, the extending staff, the flying cloud, the pig and the shapeshifter on the road with him — and the name is the Japanese reading of Wukong. Within a few volumes the series leaves the pilgrimage behind entirely and becomes its own thing.
More ways west: The Anthony C. Yu Translation, revised (2012) · Julia Lovell’s Monkey King (2021) · Arthur Waley’s Monkey (Grove Press, 1958)