Variations Of Journey To The West In Japanese Cartoon

Cartoon, with high consumption all over the world year after year, now has become a front spectacle of visual culture. Japanese, dubbed "Cartoon Hollywood" has had its own mature creation idea and commercial operation pattern at present in this field. Japanese cartoon, deeply influenced by Chinese traditional culture, has adapted several Chinese ancient masterpieces into animated films, and its sensational effects are more unprecedented. Journey to the West, one of the four Chinese ancient masterpieces, is a mythology whose basic thought is to explain Taoism by Confucianism, and whose theme is to sing a high praise for the power of wisdom and the courage to struggle. And it is popular with people around the world, old or young, in ancient times or in modem times. So, the story has become the adaptation focus of various visual arts, and the Japanese cartoon version is a most attractive one. It also obtained great business success.Study of Journey to the West has always been a hot topic in the study of Chinese ancient literature, but it usually stress the empirical study, text study and study on the adaptation of domestic cinema and television works. So, that the variations of Journey to the West in foreign cinema and television works has been paid little attention, which leads to the overlook of its influences on foreign cultures and its spreading situation in Japan and people of various countries' new understandings about the book, including China.Through analyzing Journey to the West's spreading in Japan and its influences on Japanese literature and arts, this paper analyzes the intrinsic characteristic of the classical work, Japan's national culture characteristic, as well as its variation in Japanese cartoon and the causes to this phenomenon. Together with the comparison of the content essence of the book and Japanese cartoon version, this paper lay out the enormous influence of Journey to the West to the Japanese cartoon and the Japanese cartoon version's influence and inspiration to Chinese cinema and television.Studies in the variations of Journey to the West in Japanese cartoon, not only help people of different nations have a better understanding of culture differences and promote their unity and cooperation, but also help people to know the necessity and significance of representing the ancient work in a brand new way today when we see things from different angles.