History Series / JourneyToTheWest1996

** Wukong has a habit of boastfully bragging, "What's there to be scared of?"

* KnightTemplar: Sun Wukong. Interestingly, this adaptation does focus on this aspect of his character throughout the first season, especially the Spider Demonesses' saga.

** Bajie attempted suicide after he accidentally killed Wujing. He felt just as bad when the Dragon Horse revealed to him that the Black Bear who Bajie beaten up and tried to kill [[BalefulPolymorph was actually his own master]].

* UnstoppableRage: this is what triggers the Six-Eared Macaque to transform into a Great Ape Demon in second season. In first season, there's also Bajie who does this to a black bear whom he mistook eating Sanzang. Said black bear IS actually Sanzang being [[BalefulPolymorph polymorphed]] by White Bone Demoness.

* BalefulPolymorph: Happens to Sanzang into a black bear, courtesy of White Bone Demoness.

* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Ginsengfruit Demon Siblings really care for each other. There are also Long Armed Ape Monkey and Python Demon Queen who undergo UnholyMatrimony.

*** The 3 Demon Priests in the Kingdom of Chechi

* ImposterExposingTest: When an absurdly powerful Centipede Demon takes on the form of Sanzang, resulting in having two identical Sanzangs much to the confusion of his disciples, Wukong, Bajie and Wujing. After Wukong's X-Ray visions failed to expose the fake Sanzang from the real one (a trick which worked 99 out of 100 times in the past - the Centipede Demon is just ''that good'' of a shapeshifter) the trio decides to quiz the two Sanzangs on their past adventures, leading to a nice ContinuityCavalcade that {{Call Back}}s on the previous chapters, with questions like, "Who is my (Wukong) brother-in-arms in my training days?" [[note]] '''Answer''': The Bull Demon. [[/note]] "Where did we first met when I (Bajie) pretended to be a rich nobleman?" [[note]] '''Answer''': The Ko's Residence [[/note]] "What did you write in the palm of my (Wujing) hands in the bottom of the River of Sands?" [[note]] '''Answer''': The word "Buddha" [[/note]] "Who defeated me (Wukong) in battle and reverted me back to monkey form?" [[note]] '''Answer''': The Red Boy [[/note]] "In which country did I (Bajie) become a prince?" [[note]] '''Answer''': The Kingdom of the Sacred Elephant [[/note]] "What is my (Wujing) occupation in my previous life, a hundred years ago, before my exile from heaven?" [[note]] '''Answer''': The Jade General [[/note]] … to the horror of Wukong, Bajie and Wujing, BOTH Sanzangs answered all twenty or so of their questions ''correctly'', making them realize the Centipede Demon is likely a mind reader and far more powerful enemy than they've previously faced.

* OverarchingVillain: The Python Demoness in Season 2 is the only major antagonist that appear across multiple arcs. Quite unlike the novel, where each story arc is more or less self-contained with the BigBad of the day subdued or killed by the end of the story.

* NonNaziSwastika: Buddha first makes his appearance in this form.

* AdaptationInspiration: Like its [[Series/MonkeyKingQuestForTheSutra remake]], the second season have quite a few stories that completely deviated from the novel with next to no homages paid to the original events.
** Notably, as the Long Armed Ape saga drags on, it no longer has anything to do with the original Fake Leiyin Temple plot other than the Yellow Brows Great King character who is a mere grunt in this adaptation.
** The Real/Fake Sun Wukong saga had absolutely nothing to do with any impersonator of Sun Wukong, the closest it gets are brief misunderstandings at the beginning due to Sanzang's prophetic nightmares (Sanzang dreamt that a Giant Ape demon that resembles Wukong will kill him). The "Fake Sun Wukong" was Six Eared Macaque, who didn't even impersonate anyone in this adaptation.
** The final saga for the protagonists in the second season isn't even part of the novel at all, they are merely lifting story ideas from various sources such as The Monkey's Paw and Stephen Chow's Journey to the West movie (The 1990s version).

** The story arcs across the two seasons hover between PragmaticAdaptation, RecognizableAdaptation, and InNameOnly. The PragmaticAdaptation arcs often amalgamated two or three stories in the original novel with the [[CompositeCharacter corresponding composite characters]] too, and some further expansion on their characters or personalities. The most faithful adaptation is actually the 1st season's BreatherEpisode's Kingdom of Chechi arc where Sanzang and his team faces off against the Three Demon Taoist Priests - other than the insertion of comedy and the interchangeable antagonists, most of the scenes are reproduced from the same story in the novel. The RecognizableAdaptation often removed most of the plot from the original novel and write their own preferred plot in place of it, the Spider Demonesses and also the Fake Leiyin Temple story arcs being two very good examples. The InNameOnly adaptation doesn't adapt anything from the novel besides the usage of the characters, 2nd season's first and final story arcs being the two offenders.

* BigEater: SUPPOSED to be Bajie's defining trait but downplayed for this adaptation. While occasional references are made to Bajie's big appetite, this adaptation focuses more on his CasanovaWannabe personality.

* CanonForeigner: There are some characters who are not taken from the novel. Namely Dream Demon, Crow Demon, Snow Demon, etc.

* InNameOnly: While not as horrible compared to its [[Series/MonkeyKingQuestForTheSutra remake]], the second season have many stories that completely deviated from the novel with next to no homages paid to the original events.
** Notably, as the Long Armed Ape saga drags on, it no longer has anything to do with the original Fake Leiyin Temple plot other than the Yellow Brows Great King character who is a mere grunt in this adaptation.
** The Real/Fake Sun Wukong saga had absolutely nothing to do with any impersonator of Sun Wukong, the closest it gets are brief misunderstandings at the beginning due to Sanzang's prophetic nightmares (Sanzang dreamt that a Giant Ape demon that resembles Wukong will kill him). The "Fake Sun Wukong" was Six Eared Macaque, who didn't even impersonate anyone in this adaptation.
** The final saga for the protagonists in the second season isn't even part of the novel at all, they are merely lifting story ideas from various sources such as The Monkey's Paw and Stephen Chow's Journey to the West movie (The 1990s version).

** Long Armed Ape had a one-on-one match with Sun Wukong three times. He lost the first two but succeeded beating Wukong in the third attempt.

*** Technically though, there was also a fourth and final battle, where Sun Wukong with his latent powers regained finally succeeded killing the Long Armed Ape by exploiting a weakness of his digested victim.

** The character of Bajie never seemed to get any CharacterDevelopment despite one crisis after another targeting his nature. By the end of the White Bone Demoness arc he cheerfully abandoned his lover and vowed not to be lecherous again. But in the future story arcs it was apparent he regressed back to his CasanovaWannabe nature. To his credit though, Bajie never left the team again like he did in the White Bone Demoness arc.

* ButtMonkey: Earth Deity is repeatedly abused for laughs. It's only until Long Armed Ape Monkey starts abusing him as well that it stops being funny.

** The Three Kings of Lion Camel Cave. Their goals, motivations, and the general plot were completely altered. In the original novel, they are crafty villains seeking to eat Tang Sanzang, whom Wukong can't defeat by himself. In the 1998 Hong Kong TVB Adaptation, they are a trio of cowardly [[JerkAss jerkasses]] who merely seek power and wealth and are barely a match for Bajie even when fighting together.

** Zhu Bajie himself. In the novel, he can at least put up a fight against many demons and is even able to defeat a few of them too. In fact, Sun Wukong teamed up with Bajie more than once to fight their opponents. In this adaptation, Bajie became close to a complete pushover the likes of Wujing. Outside of his original Tianpeng incarnation, Bajie only had ONE notably good fight in the entire series, and that was his first encounter with Wukong (and he still lost anyway).

%%** In the novel, the Python Demon can stalemate BOTH Sun Wukong and Zhu Bajie by herself. In this adaptation, while she's the Queen of Demons she isn't quite Wukong's equal and needed an external artefact to defeat Wukong.

** Some (but not all) of the antagonists who seek to eat Sanzang had their original motivations changed to something much less darker. The Spider Demonesses are the earliest example in this series, where not all of them are evil, and even the ones that are evil don't eat humans but steal the youth from young men who were successfully lured into having sex with them. Also later on, the Three Kings of Lion Camel Cave applies too, who were reduced into incompetent glory hounds from their novel version of man-eating crafty demons.

* LadyLand: The Woman Country. Interestingly, most of them seem to be {{asexual|ity}} (and if one, such as Flying Tiger General, falls in love with a man, it's portrayed to be an unusual case, although not necessarily forbidden) and they can procreate by drinking water from a magical well to be a TrulySingleParent.

** The Bull Demon King was shown doing this more than once, first time to capture his son Red Boy to discipline him, and second time to restrain Long Armed Ape Monkey.

* AdaptationalDumbass: Sha Wujing. The core role of Wujing is retained in this version (the novel Wujing provides unity/cohesion within the team), but notably he's portrayed as an idiot at his worst and naive at his best.

** The best examples of this trope is Bull Demon King and Princess Iron Fan. In this adaptation they are a bickering married couple with good intentions who merely spoiled their child Honghaier. They also seem to be changed into demigods instead of a demon (Bull Demon King) and a Rakshasa (Princess Iron Fan). They also worship Buddha.

** Zhu Bajie himself. In the novel, he can at least put up a fight against many of the powerful demons and is even able to defeat a few of them too. In fact, Sun Wukong teamed up with Bajie more than once to fight their opponents. In this adaptation, Bajie became close to a complete pushover the likes of Wujing. Outside of his original Tianpeng incarnation, Bajie only had ONE notably good fight (where he lost badly anyway) in the entire series, and that was his first encounter with Wukong.
** In the novel, the Bull Demon King is more or less Sun Wukong's equal and is capable of keeping up with or even match Wukong's own game of impersonation trickery. In this adaptation, Wukong defeats him handily.
** In the novel, the Python Demon can stalemate BOTH Sun Wukong and Zhu Bajie by herself. In this adaptation, while she's the Queen of Demons she isn't quite Wukong's equal and needed an external artefact to defeat Wukong.

** In the novel, the Python Demon can stalemate BOTH Wukong and Bajie by herself. In this adaptation, while she's the Queen of Demons she isn't quite Wukong's equal. She needs an external artefact to defeat Wukong: The magical stone of Seven Emotions and Six Desires.

* OverarchingVillain: Each story arc in the novel is more or less self-contained, with the BigBad of the day subdued or killed by the end of the story. In this series, the Python Demoness in Season 2 is the only major antagonist that appear across multiple arcs.

*** Ginsengfruit arc with Golden and Silver Horned Kings arc

* AdaptationExpansion:
** Contains several arcs and enemies which are not present in the novel. Notably the 1998's adaptation of Long Armed Ape Monkey, who was merely mentioned in the original novel.
** Guanyin is shown to have had far more influence on Wukong's life than in other adaptations, to the point where she could be considered to be Wukong's surrogate mother throughout his childhood.
** In the novel, Long Armed Ape Monkey was just a name listed out by Buddha as one of the four Spiritual Primates, of which Sun Wukong and the Six Ear Macaque are part of. In this series, he made an actual appearance and is the main antagonist of a particularly long story arc in Season 2.

* DarkestHour: The White Bone Demoness story arc is the only arc where things deteriorated to this stage. Wukong was sent away by Sanzang. Bajie also left the team in favour of settling down and marrying a princess. Sanzang was soon forcibly transformed into a Black Bear, imprisoned and tortured by the White Bone Demoness. Wujing was accidentally killed by Bajie. At this stage, the Dragon Horse was forced to re-appear in human form to assist Bajie to storm the palace to rescue their master. The rescue ended up a failure, with the Dragon Horse sacrificing his own life to buy time for Bajie to run away. Bajie's final resort was to ask Wukong for help on a 2nd rescue attempt, but it seemed that even Wukong was killed in that attempt[[note]]As if the writers would really do that[[/note]], leaving Bajie alone......