What Puts the Monkey King Inside a Japanese Choco Egg Figure

Sun Wukong Choco Egg Figure from Saikyo-O Zukan Selection Vol.3

Japan’s Battle Encyclopedia and the Toy Line It Spawned

Saikyo-O Zukan — roughly “The Strongest King Encyclopedia” — is a series of illustrated battle reference books published by Gakken Plus. The premise is simple: dinosaurs, ancient creatures, mythological figures, and historical warriors compete in head-to-head matchups to determine who would come out on top. The series built a loyal following among Japanese schoolchildren during the 2010s and eventually expanded into merchandise, including this line of Choco Egg figures.

The “Selection” in the product name suggests a curated roster of standout characters from the books, distributed in blind-box format across multiple waves. The Vol.3 designation confirms at least two earlier releases came before it, placing this figure in an established series with enough demand to sustain multiple volumes.

Sun Wukong: Why the Monkey King Belongs in This Lineup

Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, is the protagonist of Journey to the West, a sixteenth-century Chinese epic attributed to the author Wu Cheng’en. The story follows the monk Xuanzang on a pilgrimage to India, with Sun Wukong serving as his most powerful guardian — a trickster-warrior capable of shapeshifting, wielding his magical Ruyi Jingu Bang staff, and said to have caused chaos in the heavens before his eventual reform. His reputation for near-invincible combat ability makes him an obvious fit for a franchise built entirely around the question of who is the strongest.

Sun Wukong has been a familiar presence in Japanese popular culture for a long time, adapted into manga, drama, and animation across many decades. This figure depicts him in a dynamic combat stance — armored in shoulder guards, chest plate, and a skirted lower section, gripping his long curved staff — with the simian facial features that make the character instantly recognizable. What sets this version apart visually is the material itself: the sculpt is molded entirely in a translucent teal plastic, a technique known in the Japanese collecting world as clear color molding, with no paint applied. A matching transparent stand is included.

Shokugan and the Choco Egg Legacy

Choco Egg is a product of Furuta Confectionery, a Japanese candy manufacturer that launched the line around 1999. Each release consists of an egg-shaped chocolate shell with a small capsule inside containing a collectible plastic figure. The series became especially well known for its early runs of highly detailed animal sculptures, which drew serious collector attention both within Japan and internationally, and later expanded into licensed collaborations with books, games, and media franchises.

The broader category that Choco Egg belongs to is called shokugan, a contraction of the Japanese words for “food” and “toy.” Japan has produced candy-accompanied collectibles since the 1970s, and the blind-box format — where the buyer does not know which figure is inside until the package is opened — has sustained the category’s appeal across generations. The Saikyo-O Zukan Selection figures appear to be a licensed collaboration between Furuta and Gakken, pairing a well-established publishing franchise with one of Japan’s most recognized candy-toy formats.