// PC GAMER — GAMING
From ancient Buddhism, to iconic manga hair, to Keanu Reeves: a PC Gamer Causality Chain™
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
Causality Chain is a series at PC Gamer exploring the unlikely links between history, culture, and videogames. And ocassionally hedgehogs.
The arc of history curves in mysterious ways. Beloved actor Keanu Reeves—Ted, Neo, John Wick himself—may not be Buddhist, but he does, in fact, owe the existence of one of his blockbuster roles to the teachings of one of Buddhism's most important figures.
How, you ask? And what exactly does this have to do with videogames? Excellent questions that can only be answered by a causality chain, tracing the butterfly effect of a man walking westward 1,400 years ago to the modern day movie star known for his iconic delivery of the word "Whoa."
Join us, as we tip over the dominoes to link past to present...
620s AD: Around the year 627, Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang begins a 17 year journey from China to India in search of Buddhist texts...
He returns in the year 645 with hundreds of Sanskrit manuscripts, which he will work to translate until his death. One of Xuanzang's disciples writes and publishes a book titled Records of the Western Regions, a dictated account of his pilgrimage.1
1590s: Xuanzang's account inspires 1,000 years of folktales, both written and in the oral tradition. In the late 16th century, a fictional account of the journey of Buddhist monk Tang Sanzang and the monkey king Sun Wukong is published under the name Journey to the West.2
1984: Manga artist Akira Toriyama decides to follow up his hit comic Dr. Slump, which was set in a vague satirical version of America, with a new series that has "Chinese scenery" instead.3
Toriyama uses Journey to the West as the template, saying in a 1995 interview "I thought it would be easy if that story served as the basis, since all I would have to do would be to arrange things." His protagonist Son Goku is modeled after the Monkey King.