#man the celestial realm is empty af

[maelswife]

I cannot explain into words how I hate CBL's Celestial realm and how its the only way its ever been shown for more than 1 frame

Like.. that's where yall live..... okay... like there are some buildings and stuff but... this looks bad

atleast in the anime in that one simple frame it looked A BIT cooler 😭 5 small islands with the same size and on the same height like....ok... wheres the flavor. There could have been so many cool things done with it and instead it looks like something I could have built in my minecraft world

[anandasumisu]

The Inconsistencies of Pig

Hey there readers! This is the 2nd part of my Kera Sakti rant. If you haven’t seen the first one, I heavily recommended you to read it here: http://smithanandari.tumblr.com/post/155676317158/my-kera-sakti-phase-is-back-again-no-surprise

So as I said in the previous part, this part will be talking much about The Pig’s character’s inconsistencies through the entire series of Kera Sakti (I and II. I refuse to acknowledge the existence of Kera Sakti III because it is not a sequel to TVB’s Journey to The West series. It’s Taiwanese production titled Monkey King: Quest for Sutra, for God’s sake). If you’ve seen the series, I believe you found it too! As fan of The Pig, I noticed a lot of character changes. Some might due to character building but some of them are just… off. It kinda started from the episodes of Spider Demon arc, and gets worse in the sequel (Kera Sakti II). Here’s my breakdown.

As for the start, I must be talking about episodes of The Pig’s early life. Here, the series creator makes a crazy (but damn good) move by altering what the original book provides (An officer who harass a heavenly deities then banished from heaven). They added this superb story: He was Heavenly Commander Tian Peng who has fallen deeply in love towards a beautiful celestial lady, called Chang Er, who has mutual love with other officer named Wu Kang instead. These episodes show Tian Peng as a much powerful man with lower-ranked rival having the love from his sunshine. It’s just like Count di Luna from opera Il Trovatore who has fiery love inside his body for beloved Leonora, who loves rebel Manrico instead. But interestingly, unlike di Luna, Commander Tian Peng doesn’t fight for his love openly to his rival Wu Kang. He tries backdoor ways to get her. The most notable one is where he turns back time several times to save her first but fails every time. Here’s this character’s comedic root shows up. I enjoy these awkward yet funny scenes so much. Knowing these acts, the heavenly emperor got furious and punish Tian Peng because heavenly deities are forbidden to love (and because basically he’s about to make a fucking Flashpoint). His punishment? The ultimate thousand of love tragedies!

From low-ranked officer, to heavenly commander in charge of 80,000 navy soldiers, to a mere human who keeps getting trouble from love. That is the next part of the series about. The series shows audience some of >500 life he has lived during the punishment, for example a story where he’s a high commander who falls deeply in love with princess from enemy’s country he’s been fighting in war. He then sentenced to death for treason, just like Captain Radamès in Aida (wait, is this series’ script writer a fan of Giuseppe Verdi?) At a point he accidentally reincarnated to the wrong realm and ended up being unsightly humanoid pig who somehow still having heartbreak stories (Goddamnit Yue Lau). My personal favourite is the day he parted ways with his wife back in Gao Village before starting the journey with Tan San Zang. He has a poem (I’ve read from another source that this poem belongs to Chinese poet Li Bai) that he likes to recite at the end of each tragedies:

“多情自古空餘恨  (Duōqíng zìgǔ kòngyú hèn)

此恨綿綿無絕期 (cǐ hèn miánmián wú jué qī)  ”

Or in English (from JTTW’s English Hardsub):

“I am overwhelmed by love in emptiness and resentment condition.

I only resend all these years that goes on without end.”

Or more famously known by Indonesian as “Sejak dulu beginilah cinta. Deritanya tiada akhir.”

(Thank you, Google Translate)

These scenes, despite being relatively small in running time in comparison to Wu Kong’s intro story, is powerful enough to show the audience the quality of Tian Peng/Ba Jie worth adored. Us, the audience, are served with dramatic ugly tears and painful feelings. From these, we see him as a hopeless romantic who lost everything he had just because he is too deep in love with someone! He might look funny at times (mind you, this is a comedy series) but the pain, God, the audience can feel the pain! Maybe this is why I found some of these scenes disturbing when I was a kid. I was expecting fun stuff from comedy series, but is served with a man showing his agony. But as a young adult, damn, I find it as some of the best moments from the series.

Then the scriptwriter(s) goes confused. In the Red Boy-Dream Demon duo arc, they made The Pig as a major pervert! He does some sexual harassment (for sake of comedy) instead of just looking at ladies in gently manner (and flapping ears, hahahaha). Maybe it’s because the borderline between ladies man and pervert is kind of hazy. In this arc he puts himself as a coward, but would sacrifice himself for his master. He has a small fighting scene (which will be never seen again, sigh…), is cunning (even though not all of his ideas work in solving the problems), and at times, helpful. He also in good terms with Wu Kong, even though Wu Kong plays him a little. 

In the White Skeleton Spirit arc, he kind of had enough with Wu Kong and San Zang and then decided to be a dick towards them. He fights poorly (Ow come on! He was a commander back in the day, ffs!) but here, we can see him again becoming a gentle hopeless romantic lad, who in the end gets another agonizing heartbreak. There’s this inconsistency worth mentioned: In the earlier episodes, Ba Jie tends to use a disguise when interacting with ordinary people, so we can conclude that he’s not really confident with his physical appearance. (A bold move from the series creator since Book Ba Jie is SO DAMN CONFIDENT with his ugly-ass face). But in some scenes he doesn’t really mind facing the public without disguise, then back again being shy by insisting to his master to let him show himself as a well-dressed scholar (which the master refuses). There are lots of scenes in this arc showing Ba Jie uses veil to cover himself. But after the resolution of the arc, it is shown that he throws away his veil, accepting the fact about his looks. This scene tries its best to justify this particular inconsistency.

The small arc of Three Taoist doesn’t say much. Just showing him as a show-off and his dynamic with fellow disciples. Fun episodes, though. The Spider Demon arc is not really my favorite. It’s draggy and doesn’t do much with the pilgrim’s dynamic. It focuses on the Spider Demons’ own problem instead. There’s some development of The Pig, though. He still is looking at beauties but tries his best to look away. But really, there’s nothing in this arc. The Women Country arc is kind of a bummer to the Pig’s character too. He’s shown as a one dimensional character. Egotistical, that’s it. These episodes supposed to be able to show the dynamics of four characters but I just saw it as a random mess caused by babies. It ended the series with confusion.

Now where it goes far down, The Kera Sakti II series. BY GOD it has the funniest moments, but has none of the character complexity of its predecessor. I laughed my ass off watching some scenes but really, I feel empty watching it. Despite its fun dynamics between the four pilgrims, almost all of the arc is draggy (especially you, yes, I’m looking at you, Tung Bei Monkey arc). I don’t know whether or not the production changed the entire writer and/or director because The Pig character is just shown as a mere clown of the series. He’s not cunning, he’s plain stupid! He’s obscene, dim-witted, a poorly-skilled fighter, and whiny baby. It’s REALLY different from the previous rendition, even though it’s played by same actor (well, this concludes that Wayne Lai is a volatile actor *clapping hands confusedly*) Hell, even there’s a scene where he says “Well, how do I supposed to know, I’m just a pig.” WHAT IN THE HELL WAS THAT?  I hate this character. I know he’s funny af (so many funny scenes of him!) but that is not how The Pig is presented in the previous series. The presentation that made me fell for him (Sighs…) I think what happened in Kera Sakti II is, the series creator tried to adjust Ba Jie’s character towards its original (book) because the love tragedies never really happened again on him in this sequel and the famous poem becomes a mere tagline.

So that’s about it. From this post you kinda get the inconsistencies of the most humane character in Kera Sakti throughout the series. Maybe it’s just me being picky on things but it’s just my two cents (with this long-ass writing I should say four dollars). Has any of you thought the same? Or maybe you found other kinds of inconsistencies throughout the series? I would like to know and believe me, I like reading long-ass article!

Nevertheless, this Kera Sakti series is timeless. I’m about to re-watch some of it right now!