When Does Monkey Season 3 Come Out? Is It Renewed?

What is Monkey about?

Monkey takes one of world literature's greatest adventure yarns—the sixteenth-century Chinese novel Journey to the West—and transforms it into a wildly inventive television spectacle that somehow makes philosophical Buddhist pilgrimage as thrilling as any sword-and-sorcery quest. The premise is deceptively simple: a Buddhist priest named Tripitaka and three animal disciples must travel westward from China to India to retrieve sacred scriptures that will bring peace to the world. But what unfolds across its fifty-two episodes is something far richer—a series of episodic encounters with demons, celestial beings, and moral challenges that function simultaneously as comedic romp, action showcase, and genuine spiritual parable. The hook is irresistible: watch a mischievous monkey with superhuman powers, a gluttonous pig warrior, and a reformed river demon protect their gentle priest through an endless gauntlet of supernatural obstacles.

The series succeeds by embracing tonal whiplash as a feature rather than a bug. One moment it delivers genuine spectacle and martial arts choreography, the next it shifts into broad slapstick humor or quiet moments of character reflection. Masaaki Sakai's Monkey is a live-action embodiment of anarchic energy—flipping, fighting, and cracking wise with infectious charm—while the ensemble cast creates genuine chemistry that makes even filler episodes feel purposeful. The show's visual imagination is remarkably inventive for its era and budget, deploying practical effects, miniatures, and creative editing to suggest worlds of wonder. It's distinctly a product of Japanese television in the late 1970s, yet it functions as a faithful adaptation of source material that transcends any single cultural moment.

Critical and fan reception has only deepened over the decades. The show's 8.4 IMDb rating reflects a devoted international audience that discovered it well after its 1978-1980 run, recognizing it as something genuinely special—a fusion of adventure serialization, comedy, and Asian philosophy that few Western productions were even attempting. It became a cult phenomenon among fantasy enthusiasts and anime fans, later influencing how Eastern source material would be adapted for television.

Within the realm of adventure fantasy, Monkey occupies an entirely distinctive space. It predates both the fantasy boom of the 1980s and the anime explosion of the 1990s, yet it shares DNA with both. Unlike many genre contemporaries that played it straight, Monkey understood that the best adventures balance spectacle with humor and heart. Its cultural footprint extends far beyond its original Japanese audience—it introduced the Journey to the West saga to generations of viewers who never read the novel, and it stands as an exemplary model of how to adapt classical literature for television without surrendering either its complexity or its entertainment value.

Is Monkey renewed or cancelled?

Monkey Season 3 Release Date

Monkey seasons

Monkey trailer

Monkey latest news