Secret Journey

Monk Genjo Sanzo has a pretty standard quest setup — traveling to India to retrieve sacred sutras — until he accidentally frees Goku, a monkey spirit that Buddha personally sealed away for being, well, completely uncontrollable in the worst possible way. Now they're stuck traveling west together, and Goku's particular brand of chaos follows them every step of the road. This is a 2-episode OVA from 2016 by Studio 9 Maiami, based on the classic Chinese tale 'Journey to the West,' which you might recognize as the same source material behind Dragon Ball's early DNA. The fantasy worldbuilding pulls from Eastern mythology, and the comedic tone leans hard into the absurdity of pairing a disciplined monk with the most undisciplined creature imaginable. It's short, it's weird, and it commits fully to its premise without apology. If you've watched something like Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina and wanted a version that goes in a completely different direction tonally, this scratches a very different itch. It's not trying to be Kino's Journey — there's no philosophical musing here, just two mismatched travelers and mounting chaos. Fair warning: this is a hentai OVA, so the adult content is central rather than incidental. Go in knowing that, and you'll know whether it's your kind of thing within the first few minutes.