Sun Wukong

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Sun Wukong
孫悟空 (Son Gokū)
Personal Data
Aliases	Great Sage, Equal to Heaven

The monkey king Sun Wukong is one of the main characters from the 16th century Chinese novel Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en, and serves as the underlying basis for the character that ultimately became Son Goku, the main protagonist of Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball franchise.

Though he shares a history of development tracking back to Journey to the West, Son Goku from Dragon Ball is a distinct character from Sun Wukong.

Biography

TBD

Name

Initially known as the "stone monkey" (石猴 Shí Hóu) and later as the "handsome monkey king" (美猴王 Měi Hóuwáng), "Sun Wukong" (孫悟空 Sūn Wùkōng) is one of the monkey king's various titles, given to him by his first master, the Taoist monk Subodhi:

The Patriarch laughed and said, "Though your features are not the most attractive, you do resemble a monkey (hu-sun) that feeds on pine seeds. This gives me the idea of deriving your surname from your appearance. I intended to call you by the name 'Hu.' Now, when the accompanying animal radical is dropped from this word, what's left is a compound made up of the two characters, ku and yüeh. Ku means aged and yüeh means female, but an aged female cannot reproduce. Therefore, it is better to give you the surname of 'Sun'. When the accompanying radical is dropped from this word, we have the compound of tzŭ and hsi. Tzŭ means a boy and hsi means a baby, so that the name exactly accords with the Doctrine of the Baby. So your surname will be 'Sun'." When the Monkey King heard this, he was filled with delight. "Splendid! Splendid!" he cried, kowtowing. "At least I know my surname. May the Master be even more gracious! Since I have receive the surname, let me be given also a personal name, so that it may facilitate your calling and commanding me." The Patriarch said, "Within my tradition are twelve characters which have been used to name the pupils according to their divisions. You are one who belongs to the tenth generation." "Which twelve characters are they?" asked the Monkey King. The Patriarch said, "They are: wide (kuang), great (ta), wise (chih), intelligence (hui), true (chên), conforming (ju), nature (hsing), sea (hai), sharp (ying), wake-to (wu), complete (yüan), and awakening (chüeh). Your rank falls precisely on the word 'wake-to' (wu). You will hence be given the religious name 'Wake-to-Vacuity' (wu-k'ung). All right?" "Splendid! Splendid!" said the Monkey King, laughing: "henceforth I shall be called Sun Wu-k'ung."
— The Journey to the West Volume 1, Translated and Edited by Anthony C. Yu (page #)

Subsequent adventures and shenanigans result in the empty and degrading title/position of Bìmǎwēn in the heavenly horse stables, followed by Wukong's own self-proclaimed title of "Great Sage, Equal to Heaven" (齊天大聖 Qítiān Dàshèng).

The same Chinese characters of 孫悟空 pronounced as 'Sūn Wùkōng in Chinese are pronounced as Son Gokū in Japanese. Because the name is taken directly from its source material, various other "Son Goku" (or simply "Goku") characters exist throughout other — even sometimes contemporary — manga and anime series that likewise take inspiration from or otherwise adapt Journey to the West. Some of these include, but are not limited to:

• Goku Furinji (Buichi Terasawa's Midnight Eye Goku)
• Son Goku (Kazuya Minekura's Saiyuki)
• Goku (Jōji Arimori and Romu Aoi's Asobotto Senki Gokū)

Dragon Ball Production

Origin in Journey to the West

Like several elements within early Dragon Ball, Son Goku finds his inspiration in Journey to the West, a classical Chinese folk novel published in the 16th century by Wu Cheng'en.

Pre-Dragon Ball

Adapted Tripitaka, Sun Wukong, and Zhu Bajie characters by Akira Toriyama in his first draft along the road to developing Dragon Ball; other than Tripitaka being changed into a western-looking girl, the other two are still very much heavily inspired by their original Journey to the West versions at this point.

Near-final, recognizable Dragon Ball characters by Akira Toriyama in his third draft along the road to developing Dragon Ball.

Between the Dragon Boy and The Adventure of Tongpoo prototype publications in 1983 and Dragon Ball's first publication in November 1984, Akira Toriyama developed drafts of the Dragon Ball stories with his editor Kazuhiko Torishima. The early drafts elaborated on the original Dragon Boy concept, incorporating elements from Journey to the West. Having decided on a young female companion (no doubt shaped by both Dragon Boy and specifically The Adventure of Tongpoo), a western-style girl took the role of Tripitaka. Toriyama's design of Son Goku was literally that of the Monkey King himself, complete with the head decoration and staff. Zhu Bajie came over mostly intact as well, complete with his trademark rake. In these early stages, it was indeed still a somewhat-faithful adaptation of Journey to the West, and was in fact rejected for being so faithful.

In Toriyama's third pass — which moved through both pilot and final manuscripts — story details began to take form, as well as the names for other supporting characters. At this point, only Son Goku retains his original name from Journey to the West.

Dragon Ball

Son Goku was retained into the final version of the manga. While Dragon Ball's Son Goku is similar to the original Sun Wukong in some ways (most notably Kinto'un, Nyoi-Bō, and the Great Ape transformation likely being an allusion to Wukong's ability to transform), by and large the characters are completely unrelated.

Additional Akira Toriyama Usage

A side-by-side drawing of "the original Son Goku" (元祖孫悟空 Ganzo Son Gokū) and Son Goku from Dragon Ball was included on an interstitial page in the sixth collected volume of the Dragon Ball manga in 1986. This drawing was featured as the Dragon Ball Official Site's 153rd entry in its The Nearly Complete Works of Akira Toriyama ongoing weekday column in August 2018.

In 2014, Stephen Chow's own fandom of Dragon Ball led to Akira Toriyama drawing Sun Wukong for poster artwork for Chow's film Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons. This drawing was featured as the 153rd entry in The Nearly Complete Works of Akira Toriyama in May 2018.