It was directed by Tetsuo Imazawa, with Mayori Sekijima handling series scripts, Sachiko Kamimura designing the characters and Katsumi Horii composing the music.

In the distant past, the Guardian of the Milky Way galaxy named Lanancuras began to harbor a desire for more power.

Upon waking up 300 years later at the age of 17, Yakumo Tatsuro stumbled upon her soon to be companion Mushra while he is strung above a waterfall for impersonating a king.

The Kadrians had devised a plan to free their master: they believed that crashing the meteor into Earth would destroy the seal, thus allowing Lanancuras to escape.

In the first timeline, Lanancuras used up a lot of energy to influence the Human-Enterran War when his meteor struck Earth, therefore remaining completely dormant.

A two-volume manga adaptation by Yoshihiro Iwamoto was serialized from the February to September 2000 issues of Kodansha's Comic BomBom magazine.

The plot is completely different from the anime version; it is more tragic, and has a happy ending where Mushra and Yakumo get married and raise a daughter.

After Yakumo's first meeting with Mushra and their ordeal with the Enterran bounty hunter Katris at the remains of the Statue of Liberty, Sago and Kutal will eventually join with them too.

The series is an adaptation of the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en, transplanting the events to a far-future science fiction setting.

Sha Wujing becomes Sago, Zhu Bajie becomes Kutal (who transforms into a liger, and Sun Wukong becomes Mushra (retaining the character's golden headband and telescoping staff).