DB30YEARS: Special Dragon Ball 30th Anniversary Magazine

by Michael LaBrie

heads off with thirty minions, but only ends up capturing Zhu Bajie after twenty rounds of fighting. Fifty minions are then sent out. Silver Horn eventually goes out in disguise as an injured monk to lead them back to their home cave. Xuanzang tells Wukong to carry him, which he does...but he can tell the injured monk is a monster. Silver Horn eventually uses magic to pin Wukong down, grabs the priest, and heads home. The brothers send out Sly Devil and Wily Worm with two of their treasures—the red gourd of purple gold and the pure mutton-jade vase—to help capture Wukong. With these items, if they call out his name and he answers, he will immediately get sucked in and they can trap him with some magic words; after an hour and three quarters, he will be reduced to pus.

  Wukong disguises himself as they come looking for him. He says he hates that monkey guy, too, and has them tell him all about what they’re up to and what these two treasures do. He turns a piece of his hair into a gourd of his own, which he says can hold heaven! Theirs can only hold up to two people, so they should trade, but only if he can prove his gourd can actually contain heaven. After some secret talkings with deities, the Jade Emperor arranges for the sky to be blackened out, which the brothers take to mean heaven is now inside the gourd. They make a trade, and vow to be struck with a plague should they ever regret their decision.

  When Wukong disappears, the minions realize they’ve been swindled and head back to the brothers. They’ve lost two treasures, but still have the Seven Star Sword and the palm-leaf fan. Their mom has the other treasure (the yellow-gold rope), so they send another two minions (Hill-Pawning Tiger and Sea-Lolling Dragon) off to get her and the treasure. Wukong follows and interrupts them saying he’s a member of their clan, which they don’t believe until he tells them exactly what they’re doing, and that he was sent to tell them to hurry up since they’re probably just going to goof off and take too long. They get there, he knocks them out, takes a hair out, and disguises himself and his hair into the two minions sent to get the mom. He eventually gets going with the mom and some of her minions, but kills them all along the way before they get back to the brothers, and assumes her form.

  Zhu Bajie can tell it’s Wukong since he saw his tail; Wukong (as the mom) says he’s not too keen on eating the priest, but the ears of that pig dude sound tasty. Zhu Bajie lets it slip who’s who at this point. Wukong is then attacked by the brothers with the Seven Star Sword, but it’s all fun and games to him; with his rod, this fight is a piece of cake. Golden Horn wants to give up, but Silver Horn at least wants to fight a few rounds and tosses on his armor. Wukong knows the gourd won’t work (since Silver Horn simply won’t answer to his name), so he lassos his head with the rope. Silver Horn knows spells against his own treasure, however, and ends up capturing Wukong. He drags him back, but Wukong just ends up escaping and disguising himself again as a minion. He swaps the rope for a fake one and transforms himself into a made-up fake brother of himself. He has the evil brothers call out this fake name, and wonders for a bit...if he responds to his fake name, will he get sucked in? Yep. He does. Trapped inside, he thinks about pissing or spitting for them to swish around and make it sound like he’s dissolving, but he just starts calling out “Oh no! My such and such is gone!” instead. He takes out a hair and transforms it into a half-dissolved version of himself, and flies out when they check inside and see the fake body. He disguises himself yet again as a minion, watching the brothers drink and drink and drink in celebration of their victory. When they’re good and drunk, he swaps the gourd for a fake one, keeping the real one for good.

  Wukong says he’s ANOTHER brother of his with a different name and with a gourd much like their own. He tricks Silver Horn into explaining the history of the gourd and matches the story himself. They decide to call out and answer each other’s names—Silver Horn still thinks he has the real one, so he ends up getting sucked inside the one Wukong stole earlier. Golden Horn asks which treasures are left; the vase is now useless and passed on to Wukong, but he still has the Seven Star Sword and the fan. He calls up 300 minions and heads off to fight. After twenty or so rounds the minions just gang up on Wukong. They actually get more ferocious as they fight, so Wukong is forced to pluck out some hairs and duplicate himself. They tear apart the competition until it’s just Golden Horn left standing. He swipes the fan facing south to produce fire, which Wukong simply jumps over; he heads to the cave to rescue everyone...but ends up just grabbing the vase and leaving. Golden Horn is left by himself surrounded by corpses, so he falls into a deep sleep. Wukong goes back again to rescue everyone, but tip-toes in and tries to steal the weapons off of Golden Horn. He grabs the fan, but gently brushes Golden Horn’s neck with it, waking him up. He’s attacked again with the Seven Star Sword, but Wukong wins and Golden Horn takes off. Wukong unties everyone, and they hole up there for the night with a nice vegetarian dinner.

  Golden Horn takes off to his mom’s place and tells all the female minions what happened. His uncle (Great King Fox Number Seven) shows up, and they go back to the cave in search of revenge. The fox ends up getting killed when even Sha Wujing joins in on the fight, and Zhu Bajie delivers the final blow with his rake. Golden Horn goes after him for this, but with all three disciples involved in the fight now, it’s too much for him and he takes off. Wukong follows him and calls out his name. Thinking it’s one of his own minions, Golden Horn answers...and is sucked inside the vase. Wukong grabs the Seven Star Sword for himself!

  After all this, a blind person shows up and demands his treasures back. The mysterious person is actually Lao Tzu (who tends to the elixir of life); it turns out the two demon brothers were sent as a test for Wukong’s dedication to protecting the priest and those are his treasures, so Wukong ultimately hands over the weapons.

  The Dragon Ball Filler Story

  Kinkaku (“Golden Horn”) and Ginkaku (“Silver Horn”) are brothers wreaking havoc on a town. They have found that they love the vegetables there, and come once a month to eat all they want, drink all they want, and basically just be terrible guys. A little girl named Chao is off in search of a strong guy to come stop them. She finds a tiger dude, but he just wants to eat her. Goku ends up coming to her rescue and agrees to come beat up the bad guys since he’s training, anyway.

  What really strikes fear in the villagers is that the brothers have a magical gourd; they do “roll call” (randomly calling of names of the villagers), and if the villager named doesn’t answer them right away, they are sucked into the gourd and eventually dissolved into sake. Everyone is worried since Chao isn’t back yet, but she gets there just in time (with Goku in tow). The brothers notice a little baby, and ask what its name is. They eventually get the name out of the mother, but before they can speak it aloud (to a baby who obviously can’t answer back yet, since it’s only two weeks old...), Goku jumps in and starts beating them up. Kinkaku jumps in with a sword, and eventually Goku’s name is called out. He doesn’t respond, so he gets sucked into the gourd.

  Goku is saved from being dissolved by stretching out Nyoi-Bo near the top, but he can’t break out (even with a Kamehameha). Goku randomly decides that he needs to pee, so he just does so down to the bottom of the gourd. Since there’s swishing all around (due to the pee...), it sounds as if their captive has been dissolved, so the brothers open the gourd back up...only to have Goku jump back out and grab the gourd from them. He calls out their names in random order and an obnoxious number of times; they think they’ve answered the correct amount of times, but they’re actually one off, and are subsequently sucked inside. Goku makes them promise not to do bad things anymore, so he lets them out. The villagers keep the hoodlums under watch as they till the fields to make up for all the crops they ate, randomly calling out one of their names to make sure they’re paying attention.

  Journey Onward, Readers!

  If it has not become apparent from this quick look at one tiny story, Journey to the West is filled with humor, fighting, and all sorts of shenanigans...so basically, if you like Dragon Ball, you’ll love Journey
to the West.

  There have been numerous translations over the years, not to mention abridged versions versus complete translations of the entire 100 chapters. A popular edition has always been Arthur Waley’s 1942 abridged translation (published under the simple title of “Monkey”). It is a fine translation indeed, but fans looking for the whole story might feel a bit short-changed by how abridged it truly is; in fact, virtually none of the monster-of-the-week stories, so to speak, are represented at all. Most of the tales of Xuanzang helping out villages with their own internal problems and conflicts are told, and while they are as heart-warming as any Dragon Quest vignette, there is a great deal more to Journey to the West.

  Fans looking for the real deal are encouraged to check out Anthony C. Yu’s 1982 (with a 2012 revision), four-volume, unabridged translation. All of the poetry is kept intact, all of the stories are kept intact, and all of the random peeing and bleeding and other juvenile antics are kept intact.

  Admittedly, I had a difficult time penetrating the dense text my first time through. The poetry in