[nuc1e0n]

Interesting. I've not watched that show and didn't know it's the same story. I know the same graphic artist who worked on the design for the band Gorillaz also did idents based on this story for the Olympics in Beijing a few years back.

[Onavo]

Toriyama exercised a fair bit of artist license in his work. I am reasonably sure the original texts were more about hitting opponents with a big magical stick rather than Kamehamehas.

[foobarchu]

It's less an adaptation, more just loosely inspired by journey to the west (disclaimer: I have not read journey to the west)

[peterfirefly]

And Journey to the West is a fairly modern book, only a few centuries old. It is based on many older folk tales of China (including many that weren't originally Chinese) and connects them with a framing story, a bit like Decameron or One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights). Some of them had already been connected before the book was written.