Monkey

, also known by its English title Monkey Magic, is a Japanese television drama based on the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en. Filmed in Northwest China and Inner Mongolia, the show was produced by Nippon TV and and broadcast from 1978 to 1980 on Nippon TV. Plot summary , the title character, is described in the theme song as being "born from an egg on a mountain top", a stone egg, and thus he is a stone monkey, a skilled fighter who becomes a brash king of a monkey tribe, who, the song goes on to claim, was "the punkiest monkey that ever popped". He achieved a little enlightenment, and proclaimed himself "Great Sage, Equal of Heaven". After demanding the "gift" of a magical staff from a powerful dragon king, and to quiet the din of his rough antics on Earth, Monkey is approached by Heaven to join their host, first in the lowly position of Master of the Stable (manure disposal), and then—after his riotous complaints—as "Keeper of the Peach Garden of Immortality". Monkey eats many of the peaches, which have taken millennia to ripen, becomes immortal and runs amok. Having earned the ire of Heaven and being beaten in a challenge by an omniscient, mighty, but benevolent, cloud-dwelling , Monkey is imprisoned for 500 years under a mountain in order to learn patience. Eventually, Monkey is released by the monk , who has been tasked by the to undertake a pilgrimage from China to India to fetch holy scriptures (implied to be the region of Gandhāra in the song over the closing credits). The pair soon recruit two former members of the Heavenly Host who were cast out and turned from angels to "monsters" as a result of Monkey's transgressions: , the water monster and ex-cannibal, expelled from Heaven after his interference caused Heaven's precious jade cup to be broken (his birthname is also later revealed to be Shao Chin, having been abducted as a child, but meets his long-lost father, in "The Beginning of Wisdom"), and , a pig monster consumed with lust and gluttony, who was expelled from Heaven after harassing the Star Princess Vega—the Jade Emperor's mistress—for a kiss.