Brought to you by Sun Wukong the... flying... monkey...
The ability of someone to fly around by standing or sitting on a cloud. Usually justified by the cloud being magic and largely implemented due to Rule of Cool.
In East Asian fiction, this is commonly associated with a Monkey King Lite.
Compare Sky Surfing and Magic Carpet. See also Fluffy Cloud Heaven, Ride the Rainbow and Solid Clouds.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo parodies Goku's Flying Nimbus during the gang's fight with Over; turns out a sentient cloud isn't a good way to break a fall as Bobobo, Don Patch, and Jelly Jiggler fall right through him straight into the bear traps.
- In the Doraemon episode "My Own Golden Cloud", Doraemon catches a cloud creature for Noby to ride so that he can avoid being late for school. As usual, Noby is still late for school because he didn't have time to practice riding the cloud.
- Dragon Ball (loosely based on Journey to the West, below) has the Flying Nimbus, a fast, yellow, possibly sentient cloud that Goku got from Roshi who in turn got it from Korin. It only allows people who are pure of heart to ride it; anyone else just falls through it like, well, a cloud. The anime also has a black cloud which can seemingly be ridden by anyone Korin allows, as it was used by Professional Killer Mercenary Tao—until Korin had it insultingly dump him off.
- Jewelpet Kira☆Deco!: Coal flies on a black cloud, generated by his magic, with its sides shaped like wings.
- Parodied in Toriko near the end of the PAIR arc: the magical flying cloud which allows the heroes and the monkeys to leave Bambina's domain... is actually the Monkey King's poop...
- Yatterman: in episode 62, the heroes meet Sun Wukong, who can fly with hit friends on a cloud, which is actually shaped as a car and makes car noises.
Comic Books
- Avengers: The Initiative introduces Cloud 9, a girl who can control an alien cloud to surf through the air.
- In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), the character Monkey Khan flies around on a cloud, as the character is an homage to Sun Wukong from Journey to the West.
Eastern Animation
- I'll Return as the Rain: A variant of this appears when Guda-Guda attaches balloons to a cloud and then flies on it with his friend, a human girl.
- Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: The Peach God, from Joys of Seasons episode 72, stands on a floating cloud.
- In Pleasant Goat Fun Class: Animals & Plants episode 3, Wolffy appears flying on a cloud with the encyclopedia.
Films — Animated
- Olaf's Frozen Adventure. During the song "When We're Together", Elsa conjures a small cloud to lift Olaf so that he can place a star at the top of her ice Christmas tree. Whether she can do this to herself remains unclear.
Literature
- Journey to the West: Sun Wukong is the Trope Maker, although his ability is actually Not Quite Flight.
- The Witch of Knightcharm: Luban, a rookie witch at an evil Wizarding School, demonstrates the ability to do this. Her cloud lets her fly over a bunch of death traps in the obstacle course all rookies have to complete, and she also uses it to shoot lightning bolts at the other students running the course with her.
Live-Action TV
- In Monkey, an adaptation of Journey to the West, above, the title character had this ability, as did some of the monsters he fought.
Manhua
- Old Master Q has the titular character and an unnamed Arab Guy racing each other in one panel, the former on a flying cloud and the latter on a Magic Carpet.
Tabletop Games
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: The original Oriental Adventures has the spell "Cloud Trapeze", which allows a wu jen and some passengers to fly on a magical cloud. Although short-lived, it's also very quick, probably the fastest aerial method of travel in the game. Renamed "Cloud Chariot" in edition 3.5.
- Summoning a cloud for this purpose is a spell available to sorcerers in Exalted.
Video Games
- Cloud Master: Michael Chen, the protagonist, spends the entire game flying around ancient China on a cloud while shooting magic-based projectiles at enemies in his way.
- Flychu from Densetsu no Stafy is a mouse that literally drives around a cloud. Said cloud also spits out projectiles to attack during her boss battle.
- Hachoo! starts off with the hero flying on a nimbus cloud towards the Shaolin temple for his training, with airborne enemies - flying on their own clouds - pursuing him, which he'll need to defeat by punching and knocking them off their clouds.
- Daze Before Christmas have you playing a Badass Santa with it's last boss being a giant flying cloud. You ride a smaller cloud (created by Christmas magic!) chase after it while swapping projectile attacks until the enemy cloud is dispersed.
- Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu: The Master flies around standing on a cloud, on which he gives Jackie a ride to the Bonus Stages. Jackie gets a cloud of his own for the final battle in the sky.
- Kickle Cubicle: The protagonist of the arcade version does this. In the NES version, he's carried by balloons instead.
- The Legend of Zelda: In The Wind Waker, the froglike wind gods Cyclos and Zephos fly around on clouds.
- Mega Man: Cloud Man from Mega Man 7 can invoke this trope with his mobile. His NetNavi counterpart actually does have a cloud or cloudlike thing for a lower body.
- Oriental Legend, a Beat 'em Up adaptation of Journey to the West, have your characters arriving at the start of each stage on flying clouds. It seems like in this game, this ability is no longer exclusive to Sun Wukong only.
- Paladins: Grohk the Lightning Orc summons a cloud during his ultimate ability that allows him to fly.
- Pikuniku features several puzzles that require you to zoom around on little mobile clouds, trailing a cute little string of puffs behind you as you go.
- Pokémon: Tornadus, Thundurus, and Landorus are a trio of Flying-type legendary Pokémon that all have clouds as their lower bodies, at least in their Incarnate Formes.
- Super Mario Bros.:
- Lakitu fly around on clouds with smiley faces. In Super Mario Bros. 3, the cloud also exists as an item (originally called "Jugem's Cloud" due to Inconsistent Dub) that can be used to skip levels. In Super Mario World, Mario can hijack the cloud and fly it himself; and in Super Mario Maker and Super Mario Maker 2, almost any enemy can be placed into one.
- Mario Party 10: The minigame Fuzzy Fliers sees all participating players riding a cloud on the outside of a tall tower, which they ascend as the screen scrolls upward automatically. Each player's cloud has a separate time limit, and if the timer hits zero, the cloud will disappear, causing them to fall and lose the minigame. Along the way, they can collect cloud power-ups to increase their cloud's timer, but they must also avoid Fuzzies, which cause them to lose time on contact.
- Biwa the Demon Monk from Yokai Hunter Shintaro floats on a cloud during his boss battle, allowing him to move all over the arena while trying to sic his attacks at you from above. Thanks to Boss-Arena Idiocy however, there are platforms that allows you to reach his elevated position and slash him up close.
Webcomics
- Bronze Skin Inc.: Babu is always seen on top of a small cloud.
Western Animation
- A Kind of Magic: Willow and Ferocia's grandfather is a wizard who gets around by flying around on a cloud.
- In The Legend of Korra, ancient airbenders were able to somehow fly about in clouds. Wan later learns this technique, and uses it to fly around when fighting against Vaatu.
- My Little Pony:
- My Little Pony 'n Friends: In "The Golden Horseshoes, Part 2", the magic horseshoe of flight lets its user create clouds to carry themselves and others, and move said clouds at great speed.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Pegasi don't need a cloud to fly, but they can walk on clouds and even drag a cloud with them to mimic the effect, as occasionally demonstrated by Rainbow Dash.
- Quick Draw McGraw: An episode of Snooper and Blabber had the detectives tracking down a villain using a cloud as a means of transportation. The villain's name was Nimble Nimbus.
- Star vs. the Forces of Evil: Star often summons a cloud with her wand to fly on when she needs to get around.
- Steven Universe: In "Steven the Sword Fighter", Amethyst spends most of the episode lounging on her own personal cloud, until she eats it for fun and inflates herself. The cloud resembles The Flying Nimbus from Dragon Ball, which served as an influence in the creation of the show.
- In Chowder, Chowder sometimes rides on the back of his pet "stink cloud", Kimchi.
- A haughty wizard visiting Dunwyn in Adventures of the Gummi Bears is never not seen riding his personal cloud. At one point he weaponizes it by swiping off a piece with his wand and tossing it as a mini thundercloud at the bears.
