Nobody (浪浪山小妖怪, Lànglàng Shān Xiǎo Yāoguài, or The Little Monsters of Langlang Mountain) is a 2025 traditionally animated 2D film from China that was written and directed by Chinese animator Yu Shui. Based on the renowned Chinese classic Journey to the West, the film was produced by the world-famous Shanghai Animation Film Studio, known for such icons of Chinese animation as Havoc in Heaven, Nezha Conquers the Dragon King, and Lotus Lantern.

The film follows a nameless wild boar yaoguai who lives on Langlang Mountain. Alongside his friend, a toad yaoguai, the two make a living as lowly underlings to the local yaoguai king, who rules from King's Cave. The king is preparing to capture the famous monk Tang Sanzang and eat his flesh in hopes of becoming immortal, and the boar and toad hope they might be able to pull some strings and get to taste a bit of it for themselves. But when they accidentally incur the wrath of their king, the pair are sentenced to death and flee for their lives. Rendered effectively jobless and homeless by the mishap, the boar and toad decide to try and catch Sanzang by themselves to eat. However, they quickly realize this isn't going to work when they learn about Sanzang's superpowered entourage of yaoguai-vanquishing protectors, the water spirit Sha Wujing, the pig-man Zhu Bajie, and most famously, Sun Wukong the Monkey King.

Despite the toad's lamentations of their hopeless situation and how they've lost pretty much everything, the boar has a new idea. Since Sanzang and his escorts are heading to India retrieve Buddhist scriptures that will grant enlightenment and thus immortality, he figures they can do the next best thing — go to India pretending to be the Tang monk and his disciples and trick the Buddha into giving them the scriptures. With the boar impersonating Zhu Bajie and the toad disguised as Tang Sanzang, the pair also recruit a weasel yaoguai and an ape yaoguai to play the parts of Sha Wujing and Sun Wukong respectively. Together, the four little monsters set off on their own sham Journey to the West. But by taking on the roles of China's most famous band of yaoguai-subduing heroes, our unlikely gang of impostors will have to face the same dangers the real Sun Wukong and co. do every day. And in the process, these oddball nobodies might finally be able to make a name for themselves in the big bad world.

The film is based on the first episode of Shanghai Animation's hit 2023 Animated Anthology series Yao - Chinese Folktales, likewise titled "Nobody" (小妖怪的夏天, Xiǎo Yāoguài de Xiàtiān, or "The Little Monster's Summer") and also directed and written by Yu Shui. Said episode features the same protagonist, similar derivative elements from Journey to the West, and several common themes. The film itself was released on August 2, 2025, quickly becoming China's highest-grossing 2D animated film of all time shortly after release. It has also seen limited theatrical distribution in Australia, New Zealand, North America, and parts of Asia, on top of also being shown at international film festivals across the globe.

Trailer 1 here.👁 Image
Trailer 2 here.👁 Image

For tropes applying to the Yao - Chinese Folktales episode this movie is a Spin-Off from, see that series' page.

And if you're looking for the 2021 live-action movie, see here.

Tropes

• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: The boar was best friends with a crow yaoguai in the original "Nobody", with the pair being coworkers of equal standing. Here, the crow is the boar's senior among the king's minions, and in his only scene, he chastises and punishes the boar for wasting time messing with a random human before reminding him of his low rank.
• Adaptational Jerkass: In the original "Nobody", the crow was very friendly with the boar, helping him with work for the king and explaining who the pilgrims are to him. In his sole appearance here, he instead bullies and humiliates the boar, along with rubbing his higher rank in his face.
• The Alleged Steed: The pilgrim impersonators' version of the White Dragon Horse ends up being a small, skinny ordinary horse with a lame leg that causes it to teeter constantly as it walks. It proves such an awkward, jerky, and uncomfortable ride that the toad throws up when riding it early on, and for the rest of the movie, the gang just let it walk beside them.
• Alternate Continuity: The movie appears to be this in relation to the original "Nobody" episode of Yao - Chinese Folktales. The boar is still the protagonist and he still works for the same yaoguai king in the same plot to capture Tang Sanzang, but his fate is entirely different in the episode.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Generally averted, but notably the weasel has yellow fur (as the Chinese word for "weasel", "huángshǔláng", 黄鼠狼, means "yellow rat-wolf", weasels are usually colored yellow in Chinese works), while the boar and toad's king is a white tiger with blue eyes (a color morph that does not normally occur in nature) and the rat has white fur with red streaks around his eyes.
• Ascended Extra: The toad showed up in the Yao - Chinese Folktales episode too, but he's a nameless coworker of the boar rather than the boar's best friend. Similarly, the weasel seems to be based on another background underling shown working alongside the boar, although he differs from his Yao - Chinese Folktales predecessor in being a rogue living on his own instead.
• Bad Boss: It seems this is standard protocol among yaoguai commanders and kings.
  • The boar and toad's own king gives extremely harsh punishments to his minions for being unable to clean out very old, very grimy cauldrons properly. He sentences a goat yaoguai to 40 lashes and has a pangolin yaoguai's scales all removed. And when he discovers the boar accidentally scratched off his grandfather's calligraphy from the cauldrons, he orders him and the toad (who didn't do anything wrong) to be executed on the spot.
  • Downplayed by Yellowbrow. Unlike the boar and the toad's own king, he offers Sanzang's flesh to them as a reward for helping him capture the Tang monk and defeat Sun Wukong, which the toad observes as a marked improvement over the last yaoguai king they worked under, who planned to keep Sanzang entirely for himself and his commanders (the best they could hope for was getting their uncle who works in the kitchens to sneak them some pieces). However, he's swift to punish some of his minions for almost botching their illusory version of the Buddha's abode and has his second-in-command immediately killed on the spot for falling for the heroes' disguise as him.
• Bait-and-Switch: Quite a few bits in the movie use this as a gag.
  • The film's opening scene is of a human traveler being terrorized by a hulking wild boar yaoguai who pillages all his belongings from him and forces him to prostrate before him... only for it all to be revealed to be our boar protagonist's imagination, and his fantasy is interrupted by the crow yelling at him to stop bothering the human and get back to work.
  • When the main characters first spot Yellowbrow's fake Thunderclap Monastery, the film makes a dramatic pause as the audience anticipates the protagonists to be overjoyed that they have finally reached the Buddha's abode, much as Sanzang thought he had in the novel. The pause is instead broken by the toad suggesting they stop there for lunch, Recognition Failure meaning none of the characters know what Thunderclap Monastery even is.
  • When the fake pilgrims' meet Yellowbrow and his minions disguised as the Buddha and his divine followers, Recognition Failure again means the protagonists think they're in just a regular temple with regular monks, leading to much confusion from Yellowbrow. But while his reaction initially leads viewers to assume he suspects the pilgrims are impostors, his conclusion is instead that these oblivious fakes have managed to see through his trap.
• Beast Man: Since yaoguai are animals that attain human-like form through the same Taoist and Buddhist practices that allow humans to become immortals or Bodhisattvas in Chinese myth, most of the yaoguai characters are this.
• Becoming the Mask: The main four characters are initially Villain Protagonists who assume the guises of the four main heroes of Journey to the West for the purpose of conning the Buddha out of the scriptures and thus acquiring immortality, while also using their impersonations to get free food and shelter from unsuspecting humans. But the various encounters they have along their journey, including fights with other yaoguais, helping local villages, and the kindness of an elderly monk, mean that by the time the gang reach Yellowbrow's false Western Heaven, they have gained a reputation as heroes that they ultimately embrace when they decide to rescue the children of Hillside Village from Yellowbrow. Tellingly, it is also around this point that they decide to go to the West as themselves, rather than as impostors of the famous pilgrims. This Character Development is probably best exemplified by the weasel, who by the end of the film, is every bit as thoughtful, dependable, and diligent as the real Sha Wujing — a far cry from the Motor Mouth who hated playing the character and previously made a living scamming others with a God Guise.
• Big Bad: Yellowbrow, the villain of Chapters 65-66 of Journey to the West, is the main antagonist.
• Big Damn Heroes: Yellow Dog of all characters ends up becoming this when he ends up saving the ape from being sentenced to death, although he's thrown off the cliff to his doom shortly after. Played much straighter immediately afterwards when the boar and weasel show up in time to finish the rescue and bring the team back together.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Yellowbrow gets his name for his bushy oversized eyebrows, which are indeed a bright yellow color, contrasting with his blue skin.
• Bittersweet Ending: Our main characters lose their yaoguai forms forever and revert to becoming ordinary animals and never achieve their goal of acquiring the scriptures for immortality, but by defeating Yellowbrow and rescuing the children, they become heroes to the villagers (who erect a shrine in their honor) and prove themselves as having lived and achieved far more than they ever could have as underlings.
• Canon Foreigner:
  • With the exception of Yellowbrow, none of the major characters are canonical to Journey to the West, even despite how seamlessly the story fits into the canon of the novel.
  • Of the main four characters, the ape has no direct counterpart in the original Yao - Chinese Folktales episode, instead being the film's Monkey King Lite.
• Carry a Big Stick: Yellowbrow's weapon of choice is a huge club covered in nasty-looking spikes known as a wolf's tooth mace (狼牙棒, "láng yá bàng", a real-life weapon used throughout Chinese history).
• Dedication: The final scene of the film is a dedication “to each brave soul that dares to begin.”
• Demoted to Extra: The boar's bear and wolf superiors show up too from the original "Nobody", but they're reduced to non-speaking cameos. Similarly, the boar's crow friend is reduced to only a single scene, and is a markedly different character here.
• Distressed Dude: As per the actual Journey to the West, the toad gets captured by a gang of dog yaoguai who mistake him for the real Sanzang and thus plan to eat him in hopes of becoming immortal. He tries to get out of it by showing to them he's not actually Sanzang, but the dogs' leaders, Black Dog and Yellow Dog, are convinced its Sun Wukong's magic at work. He only manages to escape because his friends arrive to save him, leading the dogs to immediately surrender to who they believe are Sanzang's disciples.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Keeping with the movie's themes of striking out one's own path in life and following your own dreams, yaoguai society is portrayed as functioning extremely similarly to bureaucratic office work culture. The king is essentially the president of the company, his commanders are the managers, and the little underlings are the rank-and-file employees.
• Dramatic Irony: A good chunk of the film's plot, comedy, and drama relies somewhat on already being familiar with Journey to the West and its main characters, resulting in several scenes that viewers will understand and enjoy based on them knowing much more about Journey to the West than the characters in-story do. Asides the Mistaken for an Imposter Running Gag the real pilgrims face and many of the instances of Recognition Failure from the protagonists, the initial encounter with Yellowbrow rides heavily on viewers already knowing the deal with Yellowbrow and derives a lot of humorous and dramatic irony out of the main characters having no idea who he is.
• Eats Babies: Yellowbrow's Evil Plan is to capture and consume the children of nearby Hillside Village in order to increase his power and become strong enough to defeat Sun Wukong.
• Establishing Character Moment
  • In the boar's very first scene, he imagines himself as a huge and terrifying demon while forcing a human traveler to cower and give him all his belongings, only to have his moment ruined by the crow catching and berating him. This sets up the boar's lowly position in the hierarchy of the king's cave and his dream of breaking out of this someday to pursue his own life and achieve far more than his current situation allows.
  • The toad is introduced chatting with the boar about his hopes of getting his uncle working in the kitchens to give him some of Sanzang's flesh to eat while the pair work on scrubbing cauldrons for their king. This establishes the toad as contrasting the boar in being much more content with working in the existing system and eventually climbing his way to the top, in turn setting up his extremely poor reaction to being forced to flee his old life alongside the boar when the king sentences them to death.
  • The weasel's Establishing Character Moment occurs as he leads the boar and the toad to the ape's cave, chatting incessantly the entire way, thus setting up his Motor Mouth nature that then serves as the basis for the Character Development.
  • The ape is first seen clinging on the ceiling of a cave in an attempt to avoid the sights of the other three, and despite the others' efforts to convince him to join them with various enticements, he is frightened off by every perk they tell him he'll get. Thus, the ape's extremely introverted personality and extreme cowardice is established.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • The boar is the leader of the Villain Protagonists and the one who orchestrates the whole scheme to steal the scriptures from the Buddha by impersonating Tang Sanzang, Sun Wukong, and the rest, but he clearly cares very deeply about his parents and baby siblings, paying them a visit at one point during the journey and sharing many familial moments with them that he shares with his companions while there.
  • The toad may be a whiney coward who is willing try and deceive the gods or eat a monk's flesh in order to achieve immortality, but he is utterly broken to learn that his uncle was killed when Sun Wukong wiped out the entirety of King's Cave.
• Everyone Has Standards: The main four characters plan to swindle the Buddha out of the scriptures to attain immortality, and three of them are also open to the idea of killing and eating Tang Sanzang as a means of become immortal, but even they are horrified by Yellowbrow's plan to kill and consume a group of innocent human children. The moral dilemma they face over whether they should take up Yellowbrow's offer of serving him and getting some of Sanzang's flesh to eat while ignoring the fates in store for the children plays a role in the group almost breaking up.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Yellowbrow seems very puzzled by why the boar, toad, weasel, and ape are even trying the whole "fake Journey to the West" scam in the first place. He points out to them that there are plenty of powerful and respected yaoguai kings that countless lesser yaoguais compete for positions under for even the slightest hope of attaining immortality, power, respect, and/or wealth, and his own commanders ridicule the protagonists' scheme as utterly futile as the omniscient Buddha knows the real pilgrims personally and could never possibly fall for a group of lowly yaoguais in disguise. What neither Yellowbrow nor his commanders don't get though is that for the protagonists, there's a lot more at stake than achieving immortality — which the boar neatly summarizes to Yellowbrow in their final confrontation.
  “I want to live the life that I live.”
• Evil Counterpart: Canon Journey to the West villain Yellowbrow, as the film's Big Bad, is placed as this to the main characters. In the same way the four pilgrim impersonators have disguised themselves as the heroes of Journey to the West in hopes of tricking the Buddha into giving them the scriptures so they can become immortal, Yellowbrow has disguised himself as the Buddha in hopes of tricking the pilgrims into coming to his fake temple for the scriptures so he can eat Sanzang and become immortal. But while our main four are a lowly gang of Beast Man yaoguai underlings striking out on their own, Yellowbrow is a powerful Monstrous Humanoid yaoguai king who commands a vast army of minions and whom working under is highly coveted among yaoguai. And while our main characters end up Becoming the Mask and develop into local heroes for the humans of their region, Yellowbrow sinks ever lower into depravity with his plan to butcher and devour innocent human children.
• Expy: Black Dog and Yellow Dog seem to be based on canon Journey to the West villains Goldhorn and Silverhorn, sharing the brotherly dynamic and color schemes of the pair. But whereas Goldhorn is the older brother and Silverhorn is the younger, it's reversed for Black Dog and Yellow Dog.
• The Faceless: The actual pilgrims of Journey to the West never have their faces revealed, although other shots of them suggest their designs to be based on those of previous Shanghai Animation productions like Havoc in Heaven and The Monkey King Conquers the Demon.
• Fake Facial Hair: The weasel doesn't normally have a beard, unlike Sha Wujing, so he plucks some of the ape's hairs to create a fake beard.
• Furry Reminder: As yaoguais are ordinary animals uplifted to humanoid form, many are prone to engaging in their traditional behaviors.
  • The toad often uses his tongue to snatch bugs.
  • The weasel is very fond of the taste of chicken.
  • The chicken painter takes his payment in grain and pecks at it in the same way a regular chicken does.
• Fusion Dance: In the film's climax, the four protagonists use this with the boar's Super Mode to help even the paying field against Yellowbrow, thanks to the boar's father spilling the technique's secrets to them. This transforms them into an eight-armed, four-headed giant glowing with power and possessing the combined skills and strength all four amplified, on top of also being able to switch out heads and limbs as needed.
• Gentle Giant: The ape is the biggest of the main four, but is also the gentlest and shiest of the group, as well as The Heart of the team.
• God Guise: In addition to Yellowbrow impersonating the Buddha, the weasel is introduced pretending to be an immortal at a small shrine, using his guise to get humans and other yaoguais to find food for him. The fact he was doing what Yellowbrow is doing is later pointed out by his companions when they meet the yaoguai king.
• The Heart: The ape is this among the protagonists. While the rest of the Villain Protagonists are only interested in trying to pull off the swindle of the century on the Buddha (and aren't adverse to eating human flesh either), the ape becomes the most dedicated of the group to playing the role of Sun Wukong. When Yellowbrow offers them Sanzang's flesh in exchange for helping him, the ape is the only one who remains dedicated to the role and is the most appalled of the bunch by Yellowbrow's plan to kill and devour children for power. Even when Yellowbrow sentences him to death for refusing to aid him, the ape's steadfastness to being the team's Wukong is ultimately what ends the Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure at the end of the third act, his cry of his finally-mastered Mangled Catchphrase reminding the group of how far they've come.
• Heroic Sacrifice: A non-death variation. The four protagonists use their Super Mode's Fusion Dance to defeat Yellowbrow, but this comes at the cost of the essence they have cultivated to become yaoguai in the first place, causing them to permanently turn back into normal animals and they will never able to become yaoguai again.
• High-Altitude Homicide: Yellowbrow orders the Ape to be executed in this manner for refusing to partake in his plan to capture Sanzang. Yellow Dog ends up suffering this fate too under Yellowbrow's orders.
• Hour of Power: The boar's Super Mode only lasts a short while, and once it's up, he and other yaoguai who joins its Fusion Dance will turn back into normal animals permanently.
• Imposter Forgot One Detail: Throughout the entire first encounter between Yellowbrow disguised as the Buddha and the main characters disguised as the pilgrims, neither realizes the other are impostors and awkwardly bumble their way through the entire thing. Then Yellowbrow invites the fake pilgrims over for wine, which the toad happily accepts. That's when the weasel points out as pretend-Buddhists, they're not allowed to have alcohol... which also means the Buddha of all people shouldn't be offering them it either. At this point, both sides finally realize the other is a fake, and Yellowbrow's soldiers swiftly capture the protagonists.
• Killed Offscreen:
  • All of the boar and the toad's compatriots at King's Cave suffer this fate at the hands of Sun Wukong, including their supervisors and king. Compared to the original "Nobody", where this was treated as the Bad Bosses getting their due and the boar finally getting his chance to forge his own path, the tragedy is emphasized more, with the toad breaking down into devastated bawling at the realization his uncle would have been among those massacred.
  • Black Dog suffers this fate at the hands of Sun Wukong as well. The last we see of him is him challenging the Monkey King to a fight. We then see his brother Yellow Dog witness them fighting from behind a door before fleeing when he realizes they're screwed.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Black Dog and Yellow Dog capture Toad under the mistaken belief he's the real Sanzang and plan to cook and eat him as quickly as possible to gain immortality before Wukong can rescue him. But when the other main characters come to rescue their friend, the two yaoguai kings believe they weren't quick enough and immediately surrender. They then come out to greet the fake pilgrims as kindly as possible and cater to them with a hot bath and new clothes before sending them off, believing that while they lost the chance at immortality, they at least escaped Sun Wukong's wrath with their lives.
• Large and in Charge: Yaoguai society seems to run entirely on this notion, with the taller yaoguai always being the more powerful and dangerous superiors of the shorter yaoguai. And the taller the yaoguai, the more powerful they are; the boar's king and Black and Yellow Dog are about human-sized, while Yellowbrow towers over pretty much every other character in the movie.
• Last of His Kind: The ape is the sole remaining yaoguai of his species living on Langlang Mountain after the boar's king killed his whole family.
• Liar Revealed: Yellowbrow's minions follow our protagonists to Hillside Village to capture children for Yellowbrow's scheme, and in the ensuing struggle, the villains reveal to the villagers that the four are mere impostors and not the true pilgrims, to the horror and anger of the villagers. This, alongside Yellowbrow's offer, are the two main factors in the Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure at the end of the third act. Fortunately, the main characters redeem their name to the villagers by rescuing all the children anyways.
• Magically Inflicted Disability: The boar's father is permanently bedridden and completely unable to walk or get up as a result of his failure in practicing Taoist supernatural arts.
• Mangled Catchphrase: A Running Gag is the ape's inability to get Sun Wukong's boast "I am the Great Sage Equal of Heaven!" (我是齐天大圣!, "Wǒ shì Qítiān Dàshèng.") correctly. He finally gets it right in the end.
• Mirror Character: Each of the main four characters is one to the Journey to the West character they disguise themselves as.
  • The boar to Zhu Bajie. Both are Pig Man yaoguai (one a wild pig, the other a domestic pig), but the similarities end there. While Zhu Bajie is known for being the lazy, cowardly, and gullible junior of Sun Wukong who throws in the towel at the slightest inconvenience and is much more interested in satiating his base desires, the boar is The Leader of the pilgrim impersonators, dreams of great things in life beyond being a mere underling to some yaoguai king, is clever and ambitious, and is thoroughly determined to reach his goals.
  • The toad to Tang Sanzang. Although both characters frequently complain of the hardships they face on the journey and are characterized as weak and fearful, the toad differs from Sanzang in that he is much more capable when forced to confront danger. But whereas Sanzang is known for his extreme piety and deep devotion to his Buddhist values, the toad is much more willing to debase himself or throw away whatever ideals he had at the moment if it means getting something better.
  • The weasel to Sha Wujing. Sha Wujing is The Quiet One, the weasel is a Motor Mouth. Sha Wujing does whatever he's told without complaint, the weasel is extremely reluctant and unenthusiastic about having to play Wujing and haul the luggage everywhere. Sha Wujing is a Static Character who is mostly Out of Focus compared to Wukong and Bajie, the weasel undergoes as much Character Development as his companions and is as important to the plot as the other three.
  • The ape to Sun Wukong. Sun Wukong is famed for his incredible courage, shining charisma, great cunning, utter recklessness, and sheer irreverence. The ape, on the other hand, is timid, cowardly, cautious, simple-minded, and quiet-natured introvert so extreme in his fear of and awkwardness around people that he cries at the drop of a hat. But also, while Sun Wukong represents the mind in Journey to the West's overarching spiritual allegory and is known for his penchant for self-centeredness and arrogance, the ape is The Heart of his team. And finally, whereas Sun Wukong is a monkey, the ape is... well, an ape, traditionally seen as a "higher" form of primate, despite the fact Wukong is far more powerful than the ape and of higher social status (on account of being the Handsome Monkey King and Great Sage Equal of Heaven).
  • The group as a whole qualifies too in relation to the real pilgrims. The real pilgrims all possess significant social power and influence already (Sun Wukong is famed as the Great Sage who wrecked Heaven 500 years ago, Tang Sanzang is the oath-brother of the Emperor of China and the reincarnation of a disciple of the Buddha, Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing are former celestial generals, and even their horse is a transformed dragon prince), but the main four are a group of nameless nobodies, with two having been grunts for a yaoguai king and their horse being The Alleged Steed. Additionally, the heroes of Journey to the West seek to legitimately acquire the scriptures from the Buddha for the spiritual benefit of the Chinese people, while the protagonists of Nobody want to trick the Buddha out of the scriptures to gain immortality for themselves.
• Mistaken for an Imposter: Due to the shenanigans of the fake pilgrims, the actual Journey to the West crew find this repeatedly happening to them. When they confront Black Dog and Yellow Dog, the brothers believe them to be impostors on account of the "real" pilgrims having already passed their lair. And when Black Dog is killed by Wukong, Yellow Dog goes off to find the fake pilgrims and begs for their help in stopping their impersonators.
• Monkey King Lite: The entire premise of the film is that a gang of yaoguai are pretending to be the pilgrims of Journey to the West in an attempt to acquire the scriptures from the Buddha (read: dupe him), but the ape playing Sun Wukong stands out. While his personality and narrative role is more meant to be a mirror to that of Sun Wukong, his red face is meant to mimic that often given to Wukong in Peking Opera and Chinese Animation (notably Shanghai Animation's most famous work, Havoc in Heaven).
• Monstrous Humanoid: Yellowbrow noticeably differs from the other yaoguai characters in that he's a fearsome blue-skinned ogre-like creature rather than a Beast Man of any kind. This reflects the fact his true form is a human, not an animal.
• Mook–Face Turn: In any other Journey to the West-based story, the main four characters would be nameless minions who get massacred once Sun Wukong defeats the boss and rescues Sanzang, but through Character Development and Becoming the Mask the little monsters of Langlang Mountain go on to become local heroes and to achieve far more than most of their kind ever do.
• Motor Mouth: The weasel talks incessantly about every subject under the sun and even when he has nothing of use to say. He's very unhappy to learn Sha Wujing is meant to be The Quiet One of the pilgrims, but Character Development helps him accept his role and he subsequently learns to speak only when he needs to say something important.
• My Beloved Smother: The boar may be an adult now living entirely independently, but his mother still treats him a little like a child, most prominently constantly pushing him to drink more water every day and chiding him for having not emptied his drinking gourd. When the group depart the boar's childhood home to continue their journey, she asks they remind him on her behalf to finish his water every day.
• Mythology Gag: Several nods to the original Yao - Chinese Folktales episode in the movie.
  • The boar's Establishing Character Moment is a very close remake of a scene from the original "Nobody", where he and the crow terrify a woodcutter into giving up his supply of wood.
  • The boar's usage of his own bristles to clean out the king's cauldron calls back to a gag in the original "Nobody", where his superiors use him as a scrubbing brush as punishment for being unable to clean the cauldron fast enough. He likewise loses all his bristles as a result.
  • One of the chicken painter's rejected depictions of Sun Wukong and co. is the version seen in an Imagine Spot from the boar in the episode, showing them as divine human warriors.
  • The boar's mother again chides her son for not drinking enough water every day.
• No Name Given: None of the main four characters have names; they're only known as the boar, the toad, the weasel, and the ape. This was completely intentional on the creators' part, as it emphasizes them as being "nobodies".
• Our Yaoguai Are Different: Being derived from Journey to the West, almost every character in the film is a yaoguai! Most are of the Beast Man variety, from boars and toads to weasels and apes to tigers and dogs to rats and chickens. But a few Monstrous Humanoid-style yaoguai show up to, namely the canonical Journey to the West antagonist Yellowbrow.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: While the boar and the ape could reasonably pass for Zhu Bajie and Sun Wukong, not a single character is suspicious in the slightest at who are obviously a toad and a weasel dressed as monks. This is addressed in-universe, as the vast majority of humans and yaoguai in the story have only heard about what the famed pilgrims allegedly look like and are often surprised at just how different they apparently are. When the impersonators reach North Zhang Village, the local storyteller gets a talking-to from the village elder for getting his descriptions of the pilgrims entirely wrong.
• Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: At the end of the third act and start of the fourth act, the four main characters split up as a group due to their disgrace from being revealed as impostors to the people of Hillside Village and their disagreement over whether or not to accept Yellowbrow's offer of serving him in exchange for getting to eat Sanzang's flesh and overlooking his child-eating. The toad readily takes up Yellowbrow's offer, the ape adamantly refuses, the weasel decides to return to Langlang Mountain, and the boar remains torn between his choices. Ultimately, it is the ape's adherence to continuing to play the character of Sun Wukong that reminds the boar and weasel of how far they've come and prompt them to reform the team with him, and the toad rejoins shortly after when he witnesses his friends rescuing the children.
• Prone to Tears: The ape, with his shy and sensitive personality. He spends the start of the journey wailing non-stop.
• The Quiet One: The ape tends not talk much, and even then, he almost never raises his voice. The Motor Mouth weasel also becomes this, thanks to Character Development, enforced by the boar giving him a whetstone to sharpen his monk's spade on instead of talking.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Our protagonists are a gang of nameless nobodies composed of two ex-Mooks to a local demon king, an overly talkative conman, and a highly reclusive introvert who's also the Last of His Kind. And they've banded up to impersonate four of the most famous heroes in Chinese legend in a not-entirely-well-conceived plan to steal Buddhism's holiest texts from the most powerful deity in the Chinese pantheon.
• Recognition Failure:
  • A Running Gag throughout the movie. Neither the boar nor the toad have any idea who Tang Sanzang is until they are told, and the two know even less about Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie, or Sha Wujing. In fact, their scheme to trick the Buddha into giving them the scriptures is so poorly thought out that none of the main four characters actually know what the Buddha looks like, to the point where they almost don't fall for Yellowbrow's trap.
  • The rat has absolutely no idea who any of the pilgrims are. When the main characters attempt to bluff and frighten him with the real pilgrims' legendary reputation, it completely falls flat, because the rat simply has never heard of Sun Wukong or the others.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: The denouement implies Sun Wukong knew about the boar and co.'s adventures the entire time. And as a token of respect to them, he plucks four of his transforming hairs and blows them off to the wind.
• Shout-Out: Many of the chicken painter's attempts to give an artist's impression of Sun Wukong and co. result in him creating renditions of the Journey to the West pilgrims based on their appearances in the 1986 TV series and in fellow Shanghai Animation Film Studio production The Monkey King Conquers the Demon, among others.
• The Stations of the Canon: The story is implied to be set between Chapters 63 and 65 of Journey to the West, with Yellowbrow being the antagonist and a mention being made early on of Wukong and co. being hailed as heroes in the capital city of the resident human kingdom suggesting Langlang Mountain to be in Jisai Kingdom (which Sun Wukong saved from the Nine-Headed Demon). But despite the presence of the pilgrim-impersonating protagonists and their own struggle against Yellowbrow, the plot that the real pilgrims follow stays completely on schedule. Maitreya intervenes after the climax to revive Yellowbrow, increase his strength, and give him the cymbals and pouch that he uses in canon against Sun Wukong, instructing Yellowbrow of his importance as one of the 81 Ordeals the pilgrims must face to reach the Western Heaven.
• Stewed Alive: Black Dog and Yellow Dog almost do this to the toad, deciding that if they're going to eat Sanzang before Wukong saves him, they'll skip over butchering him first. However, the cauldron isn't hot enough to cook the toad by the time the other protagonists arrive to rescue him, so Black Dog and Yellow Dog quickly repurpose it as a hot tub to appease the pilgrims.
• Super Mode: The boar's secret once-in-a-lifetime technique grants him this, temporarily transforming him into a towering, glowing version of himself far more powerful than he normally is and allowing him to fight Yellowbrow toe-on-toe. His father is implied to have become permanently bedridden as a result of a failed attempt to learn this technique, but he passes its secrets along to the boar's friends, allowing all four to perform a Fusion Dance. However, its once-in-a-lifetime for a reason — using it costs a yaoguai all their spiritual cultivation, causing them to transform back into their original animal form, strips them of all their memories, and prevents them from ever being able to become a yaoguai again.
• This Was His True Form: Happens to any yaoguai that is killed or rendered powerless. The rat is turned back into an ordinary but white-furred rat after the ape defeats him, Yellowbrow transforms into a divine servant boy when our heroes defeat him, and our main four turn back into their original animal forms forever once they've exhausted their power.
• To Serve Man: Asides from the fact every single yaoguai wants to get a taste of the monk Tang Sanzang (including our main characters), we also have Yellowbrow's plan to kill and cook a bunch of children to become powerful enough to defeat Sun Wukong.
• Totem Pole Trench: The ape, boar, and weasel pull one off to rescue the children Yellowbrow intends to eat, disguising themselves as Yellowbrow. Hilariously, the ape, despite the biggest one, is placed on the top as he knows the way to Yellowbrow's dungeons, and the weasel is forced to carry the other two up, the boar reasoning he should have developed reasonable upper strength from carrying the luggage for so many miles.
• True Companions: Through Character Development, our four pilgrim impersonators become a band every bit as tight-knit and loyal to each other as the real Sun Wukong and co. Their final scenes before they revert to their original animal forms permanently is them sharing some last laughs together before promising to somehow reunite in their next lives while also hoping they'll still recognize each other as animals.
• Unconfessed Unemployment: The boar chooses not to reveal to his mother that he and the toad no longer work at King's Cave, fearing her reaction. He tells the truth to his father, who promises not to tell her and praises his son for choosing to pursue his own life.
• The Un-Reveal: At the end of the film, the main realize they never learned each other's names and are about to reveal them to each other, but they revert to their original animal forms forever before that can happen.
• Unseen No More:
  • The boar's king was mentioned quite a bit in the Yao - Chinese Folktales episode but never physically appeared. He finally shows up in the flesh in the movie, revealing him to be a white tiger yaoguai.
  • The whereabouts of the boar's father were never indicated in the original "Nobody", and the boar only interacts with his mother and baby siblings. His dad finally appears here; turns out he's bedridden and no longer able to move as a result of a failed stint in the mystical arts.
• Use Your Head: The boar possesses an iron-hard head. He's first seen using it to clean out his king's cauldrons without any ill effects, and later on it proves powerful enough that he's able to knock out two ox yaoguai several times his size and fight Yellowbrow with it.
• Villain Protagonist: The main characters are a group of yaoguai minions who have decided to strike out on their own in their own half-baked scheme for becoming immortal by pretending to be the pilgrims of Journey to the West and scamming the Buddha out of the scriptures. However, Character Development leads to them Becoming the Mask.
• Would Hurt a Child: Yellowbrow plans to kill and eat a group of children to become powerful enough to defeat Sun Wukong. The appalling nature of this plan is enough to play a major role in causing the protagonists' Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure, with the toad and the boar are initially willing to overlook it in return for Yellowbrow sharing Sanzang's flesh with them, while the ape and the weasel object to it.
• You Are Number Six: As underlings for the king, the boar, toad, and the rest of the king's low-ranking minions all have tags that designate a number to them. The toad keeps his even after being forced to abandon his post, indicating his desire to remain a subordinate and find a new yaoguai king to serve under, unlike the boar.
• You Dirty Rat!: When the disguised group comes to North Zhang Village, they are asked to get rid of a rat yaoguai who has been stealing the locals' stuff. Said rat isn't much of a threat when compared to canon villains like Yellowbrow, but he proves to be an obnoxious jerk.