The "Journey to the West" story. Goku commits a transgression in heaven, is punished and journeys with his friends to earn honor.
Proto-Dragon Ball! I know it's a traditional Japanese story, but the similarities to the modern anime series are too many to ignore. That's Goku with the power pole and flying Nimbus (image) and Oolong wants to marry a girl, but Goku saves her and takes Oolong with him. It's listed as one of the 50 worst films of all time by someone, but I've seen that list and their taste in movies sucks. I've also seen "best movies" lists filled with worthless crap though. I thought the animation was a little standard, even for the time it was made. Disney was doing cell animations in the 1930s and that's what this was. Obviously, I liked the plot and characters. It's not a traditional Japanese story just arbitrarily. A story has to be good to last a few hundred years. The music mostly sounded too Americanized to me, but it wasn't bad. I watched the version with subtitles and original Japanese audio. There is an American release version with English speaking voice actors and different music. I say it's a perfectly fine movie because it was entertaining, held my attention and made me think of Dragon Ball. I rate it good.
