This one puts you back in the era when getting stronger meant doing the drill again, badly, until your arms shook. Chinmi isn't a chosen one, he's an orphan kid with a sister named Mei Lin and a monkey named Goku who won't shut up, hiking into Dairin Temple to learn kung fu the slow way. The 1988 animation isn't pretty by modern standards, but the fights read clean: stances hold, weight lands, you can actually follow what a technique is supposed to do, which is more than a lot of prettier shows manage. Twenty episodes across a China drawn as endless road and mountain, where the reward for surviving a match is usually a longer walk to the next one. Watch it for the moment Chinmi realizes the master wasn't being cruel, just early. That's the whole genre in one lesson.

Young Chinmi, an orphan, leaves the small restaurant he and his older sister Mei Lin keep near the Choko River to train in kung-fu at the renowned Dairin Temple, whose masters have heard of his skill and invited him. He relies on an inner power fighting style first taught to him by Master Yosen, and a comical monkey named Go Ku travels at his side. Through hard work and his teachers' guidance, Chinmi rises to become one of the temple's best students. When the time comes for a pilgrimage, he sets out across a vast and ancient Chinese kingdom, where dangers put his abilities to the test and the people he meets inspire him in different ways. The result is an action adventure built around kung-fu training and the road.