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Pop Culture Chinese Mythology? : The Heaven Haters Boy Band

I first introduced the Heaven Haters boy band in my Erlang Shen post, but it’s a recent meme that describes Ne Zha, Sun Wukong and Erlang Shen as the 反天庭三人组, or the Anti-Heavenly Court Trio. A little like the 3 Musketeers.

I already included this art in a different post but it just goes so hard.

Artist 万葉皆秋 on Xiaohongshu and Douyin

I’m sure you can learn about Sun Wukong from more qualified people than me, but some shameless self-promo:

My Ne Zha post

My Erlang Shen post

My Investiture of the Gods post

I recommend either reading all 3 of these, or at least the first two, or doing some research into these myths before you can understand the power of the Heaven Haters boy band.

Keep in mind the Heaven Haters boy band is mostly headcanons and memes. While these three characters do all rebel against heaven, they all ultimately concede defeat to ultimate authority: Wukong gets properly humbled by the Buddha and the monk Tangsen (Read JTTW to know who Tangsen is), Erlang Shen and Ne Zha eventually become the Heavenly Court’s special ops squad.

Heaven Haters boy band is still funny though, and they genuinely do all hold resentment for heaven. 

I’ll make clear how and why the various members of the Heaven Haters boy band rebel against heaven.

Sun Wukong:

This is fairly obvious. His most famous story is literally called Havoc in Heaven 大闹天宫 (or more literally, Tantrum in Heaven)

He was literally born with Rebellion as his middle name. First thing he does upon gaining power is rampaging his entire way through the East China Sea Dragon King’s entire palace for fancy weapons. (This, by the way, is Ao Guang, Ao Bing’s dad.)

Then he goes and smashes up the heavenly palace. Then he literally FIGHTS HIS WAY THROUGH HELL and erases his name off the list of the dead. Soloed 100,000 of the Heavenly Court’s soldiers and won (actually I don't remember if this was in the original JTTW or if it's a plot point from a recent movie adaptation, but either way it's a pretty well-known part of his story).

Erlang Shen:

This seems subtler since he works for the Heavenly Court, and his uncle is the Jade Emperor, the head honcho. However, he still disobeyed the direct Heavenly Mandate to trap his mom under a mountain, and he split the mountain in half to save her.

Erlang is more of the cold, calculated type- if you offend him or try to fuck him over, he’ll ruin your life, but otherwise he couldn’t be bothered. In fact, even though he helps the Heavenly Court, he only does so for big opponents like Wukong- day-to-day tasks that his position requires, he totally ignores.

His uncle struggles to control him, and has resigned himself to just letting Erlang Shen do whatever the fuck he wants.

Ne Zha:

Although Ne Zha isn’t as strong as the other two, he’s still one of the strongest in the entire Heavenly Court. He’s the type to throw hands first and talk later. He’s more obedient to the Heavenly Court than Erlang or Wukong, but he’s probably actually done the worst thing out of the three of them: try to commit patricide.

This is a HUGE no-no in Chinese culture, which prioritises filial piety over almost everything else. Erlang Shen splitting the mountain in half to save his mother (and directly disobeying Heaven) isn’t as bad as Ne Zha trying to kill his dad.

I’m not going to blame him, since Li Jing is a bit of a dick, but if Li Jing didn’t have that powerful pagoda the Buddha gave him, Ne Zha would set him on fire in a heartbeat.

In battle, Erlang is what you would call a homing missile, Wukong is a tactical nuke, and Ne Zha is a bunch of cluster bombs. Erlang is precise and deadly, Wukong is… Wukong, and Ne Zha does not discriminate in who he wants to beat up. Surprisingly, out of these three, even though Wukong is the one famous for throwing a huge tantrum, he’s probably the most reasonable and gentle one.

Let me put it this way: would you rather deal with a murderous iPad kid on (actually) flaming Hot Wheels roller skates who punches first and asks questions later, a sadistic royal warrior who can split you open from inside (NOT THAT WAY, get your heads out of the gutter),

Or a feral monkey that you can placate just by calling him a bunch of fancy nicknames?

I'll just say that neither Ne Zha nor Erlang Shen would be tricked into putting on a cursed set of clothes to control them. I'd MUCH rather deal with Wukong as an enemy. Worst case scenario I die painfully anyway, so I'd like to at least have a chance to pull out the fancy nicknames and appease him.

See, this is the reason they sent Wukong to go on the Journey to the West and not Ne Zha or Erlang. I don’t think they would’ve made it two steps on the way before the other two beat Tangsen to death just for looking at them the wrong way. 

Also another thing that’s funny is their names technically line up.

Sun Wukong’s title: Qitian Dasheng 齐天大圣 Great Sage Equal to Heaven

Erlang Shen’s title: 二郎神 Godly Second Son

Ne Zha’s title: 哪吒三太子 Ne Zha the Third Prince

So… 大圣二郎三太子... Great Sage, Second Son, Third Prince. 

This is funny because this is the reverse order of their ages. Ne Zha is the oldest, Erlang is the second oldest, and Wukong is the youngest.

Also funny is that Erlang and Wukong are the strongest and Ne Zha is weaker despite being younger. Not much you can do against Monkey King hacks.

It’s debatable who’s stronger between Wukong and Erlang. Technically it’s Erlang- he’s beaten Wukong before, albeit with help and while Wukong was trying to protect others. 

Between the three strongest mythological characters (in popular culture, there are others stronger), their stats are:

11 eyes

10 arms

0 parents

10 billion various side characters killed

If you recall, Wukong was born out of a rock. Ne Zha’s mom is probably dead by now. He also already has “returned his flesh and bones to his parents” by cutting himself apart and committing suicide for his dad, so technically he and Li Jing aren’t father and son anymore. I actually don’t know if Erlang’s mom is still alive but his dad is definitely dead.

There’s a funny saying in Chinese: 一块石头两斤藕，三只眼睛栓条狗

One rock, two lotus roots, three eyes and a dog. 

That’s all it takes to make the Heavenly Court shiver in fear LMAO. Basically the equivalent of a toddler, a monkey and a Californian dog dad. 

In essence, I stan the Heaven Haters boy band more than any other K-pop group, sorry Stray Kids. I'm not going to lie though, Erlang Shen is definitely a smash. Ne Zha... IDK, not exactly my type (unless its the recent Jiaozi movie Ne Zha). Wukong is a monkey but I can definitely see the appeal for some people I guess.

Keep in mind for the Wukong simps that in most adaptations, since he is... well, a monkey, he speaks with the Chinese equivalent of a heavy Cockney accent. Do with that what you will.

shoutout to curly for being blond-haired and blue-eyed ig..

Lyra, my beloved cat of 13 years, passed away this year on Father's Day. She's been by my side through very difficult times and was my little rock of steady and unrelenting love. I struggled a lot drawing this, and struggled a lot posting it, but I know I would've wanted to read a comic like this that validated my grief for her when I lost her.

Wherever you are, Lyra my little summer star, I love you always! Thank you for being the best thing in my life.

Daily suffering 🔥💔

For days, we have been cooking over a fire, as our lives have become intertwined with the difficulty of securing cooking gas due to high prices and its shortage in the markets. Every day we face a new challenge in preparing food for our families 😢💔

I now need your donations, no matter how small. They will help provide gas for my family, and will give us a chance to return to our daily lives without the hassle of starting a fire.🙏🏻🥺🫂

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redraw! 😌😒

I watched a few movie reviews on Nezha 2 and one of them on two white guys (iirc) doing a podcast on their surface thoughts on the movie kinda threw me off as one of them said 'one thing that was off-putting to me was a lot of onscreen crying' or something like that. Which is super off-putting to me actually.

I mean what do you mean? Your little brother or mother or wife just died in front of your eyes what do you mean you should not cry and it's not a natural response? Ao Bing cried into his dad at the start as he felt so awful for letting his dad down and his buddy nearly died if he didn't intervene. Ne Zha cried so hard when he saw his parents again because he really thought they were gone. Both kids are three years old for the love of God. And Shen Gong Bao is a literal family man he has a soft spot for his little brother of course when he died trying to escape he had to cry so much and to be honest, I've watched videos of how the animation team spent a long time animating and planning the crying scene for him to ensure it's perfect. The creative team has spent so long to ensure every detail to actually ensure the whole story and every shot and scene will have a lasting emotional impact to touch the audience.

And another thing that's also respectable is how the team and the story in general is very committed to fleshing out the characters and ensuring they are all very relevant to the plot and have their own personal stories in a sequel, which is not often seen nowadays given how hard it is to make a better sequel (but that's another story and post I digress, but anyway-)

What I'm trying to say is that we all need more stories of boys openly crying. The only other movies off the top of my head I can think that has boys openly crying are maybe Coco, or Luca and maybe HTTYD, and I feel Nezha 2 has done a great job in showing the different sides of healthy masculinity, in how it's okay for boys to ugly cry and for dads to be tough on the exterior while also being very caring and gentle to their own sons, and for close brotherhood bonds being a soft side of characters. And it also dispels a stereotype in how Asians are often stoic and not as emotional as westerners, as while a lot of Chinese and Asians are quite stoic, there are plenty of people who see themselves in Ao Bing and Ne Zha and etc.

And I also saw a post earlier on how Ne Zha and Ao Bing defy societal rules and societal expectations respectively, with Ao Bing doing so by being outwardly feminine in looks and being elegant while precise and aggressive in his attacks and still being able to be confident in his self, while Ne Zha has been insecure in his own looks until the end. And personally I feel the movie is a great place for kids and boys especially to learn that masculinity can be anything they can define, like how one can be more confident like Ao Bing even when he's not traditionally masculine, while knowing it's okay to be insecure and that they can overcome judgements in society.

And with their friendship and loyalty to each other (and possibly *cough* *gay* *it's ok if you don't ship them*), it also teaches boys that male friendships can be very close knit where they can be vulnerable to one another, like how Nezha soon learnt to be vulnerable around Ao Bing and how Ao Bing learnt to follow his heart through Ne Zha's influence. Boys can learn from one another and become emotionally stronger together like it's not just a girls thing yay-

So yeah this is another long ramble but tldr again:

Nezha 2 is a fantastic movie on healthy masculinity and we need more movies like this for boys especially to learn that expressing strong emotions are very healthy and essential in being a person. And we need to punch toxic masculinity to death the way Lu Tong and He Tong did at the end to the bald bitch so-

I FOUND THIS MASHUP ON TIKTOK AN DBDNAN LOOK WHAT I'VE MADE

Me and who

a heads up for anyone agonizing over 431 and it’s distinct oddness compared to the rest of the manga/as a last chapter:

tl;dr horikoshi asserts that 429 is mha’s final chapter and 430 is mha’s epilogue. he subtly implies he did not independently write 431 and less subtly implies he does not see it as part of his main storyline. basically up to us if we want to see it as canon or not, but to horikoshi, chapter 430 was the end of bnha.