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Welcome to MangoBot, a column about Asian futurism by TokyoMango blogger Lisa Katayama. Way before Speed Racer became fodder for one of the season's most highly anticipated blockbusters, it was a simple 60s-style Japanese cartoon. The original Speed Racer was a TV anime series called Mach GoGoGo, aired on Fuji TV—one of Japan's major television networks—in 1967 and 1968. Like many other sources of entertainment in Japan at the time, Go's determination and the superior technology of Mach 5 were symbolic of the country's rapid post-war recovery and the determination that drove it. While you're waiting to head to your multiplex to watch the Hollywood version tonight, let me take you back in time and show you a glimpse of the original.
The protagonist was a starry-eyed, two-dimensional protagonist named Go who wore white ankle-length pants and struck cool, determined poses while moving in simple staccato animation. His car was called Ma-ha Gogo, or Mach No. Five, and it did seemingly impossible things like jump through the air, grow super-grip tires on command, and slash obstacles with rotary swords. (The series title has a triple meaning—the name of the car, the name of the boy who drives it, and an exclamatory expression.)
Mach GoGoGo was an instant hit. The plots were easy to follow, the characters immediately likable. Neither writer/producer Tatsuo Yoshida or director Tsuyoshi Sasakawa were car enthusiasts—in fact, neither even had a drivers license. But it didn't really matter. The two knew how to craft a good story. The near-impossible challenges imposed on the protagonist by evildoers were the perfect setup for themes like revenge, competition, and honor to play out over and over again. In one series of early episodes (each story often spanned two or three), Go races against a mysterious, remote-controlled, robot-driven car that has been causing accidents. Go quickly gains a reputation as the mercenary hero who can fight superhuman nemeses that even the cops are helpless against, and inadvertently launches into a busy career of globe-hopping and car-racing.
Go is cool and collected, but the rest of the anime is chock full of humor and an ironic mix of strengths and weaknesses. The girlfriend, Trixie, might complain about her foot hurting, but then she'll parachute out of a burning airplane; the father, who created the Mach 5, is an engineering genius but a social goof; and his little brother who runs around in a candy-striped bodysuit with his monkey, often solves crimes way before the adults do.
The characters in the original Speed Racer are not atypical of Japanese anime. In fact, you see the repetition of these same types of characters to this day—the adventurous, disobedient young male hero, the feminine-yet-sassy girlfriend, the wise but slightly goofy father, and the unbearably cute extras.
The original series ran over 52 episodes. It kicked off in a prime spot, 7PM on Sunday nights—one of the few times when children and families in Japan gathered to watch TV. You can still rent the dubbed originals at certain video rentals stores, and on Netflix if you're lucky. An anime remake came out in the 90s and was aired in the US, but it's not quite the same thing.
On one level, the Wachowski brothers' new Speed Racer preserves a lot of the elements of the classic anime. The Mach 5's special features are derived from the original, and Go, or Speed, is pretty much the same dude—as are some of the other main characters. But the similarities end there. Of course, the obvious difference is that the Hollywood version is live action and features super CGI and cost a gazillion dollars more to produce.
But more importantly, the essence of storytelling is completely different. The Hollywood version is chock full of drama and emotions—the child who dreams about racing all day in school, the mother who encourages him to follow his dreams, the family's tragedy of the dead Rex Racer (Speed's older brother). There's all this buildup and tension. None of this in the original anime. The very first episode begins very abruptly: Go "borrows" his dad's super car and enters it in a race, and wins. There's a certain charm about that blunt simplicity that is increasingly hard to preserve as the prerequisites for a box office action movie become more elaborate.
So whether you come home from Speed Racer opening night feeling amazingly hyped up or strangely dissatisfied, try to watch at least one episode of the original anime sometime soon. It's worth the 30 minutes, if only to see how its creators applied antiquated animation to portray superfast, superhuman car racing.
Comments
I hate that stupid monkey.
I guess I was too spoiled by Warner Brothers and Disney animation to, um...fully appreciate Speed Racer. I was seven years old when it first aired in the US. I did not like it then, time and nostalgia have not changed my opinion.
It's Go Go Go.
Not Cry Cry Cry.
@B:
It was the only way to get viewers to accept Spritle. ...Give him an even more annoying sidekick.
@MilesFromNowhere: I'm with you there. For me a still image with a moving mouth did not animation make. As a side note I've also always hated School House Rock, another bit of forced nostalgia for something many of us probably don't remember.
@MilesFromNowhere: Yeah, damn those American production standards!
When I was just a wee lad, growing up here in southern New England, we had 5 TV channels, before cable even existed, and one would run Speed Racer episodes once a week.
I was about 6-7 yrs old. I remember it well enough to know that they ran Kimba the White Lion right after.
This was some 37 years ago, too.
Made a huge impression. I loved that show.
Hulu has the first season of Speed Racer (English) up for viewing pleasure.
@Barum:
Yup, same here..Along with Marine Boy and Ultraman. (ah...good old UHF 20)
...Of course this wasn't 37 years ago, it was more like...uhm. Well, it was recent. Definitely recent. Recent enough that it put me at around twenty-something.
(yes, indeedy)
well, that opening was a little different from what i remember. ;)
but the visuals set off fireworks of nostalgia in my brain. gonna see the movie tonite.
thanks for that!
I was in love - LOVE! - with Speed when I was 9 and 10 years old. He was so MOD, and so inscrutable! sigh.
@Miranda Kali:Wow, you're in DC? Captain 20, "Live long and win lots of prizes" shows the Speed Racer, Ultraman, Marine Boy, Kimba the White Lion, Astro Boy, Gigantor, etc... after school.
Ahhh, memories. Peanutbutter sammich, soda, homework and cheesy cartoons.
@SavannahJack:
Oh yes. Dick Dyszel was an icon through out my youth. First as Captain 20, then as Count Gore Vidal when I started watching campy horror movies late into the night.
...Come to think of it, if not for him, I may not be the io9, reading woman I am today...
Damn him. ;)
AHHH! Speed Racer, Kimba and Ultraman. Shades of a long ago time. Sadly my (younger) husband doesn't have the same appreciation. Channel 48 - where have you gone?
Man o Man, how I hate anime.
Speed Racer looks seriously metro sexualized...gay. Scarf, a little eye liner. Sorta like a pretty Jeff Gordon.
ah, simple and nonsensical kids shows.
how i miss you.
@Jeff-Minor:
Here I thought it was more Donica Patrick doing Drag King.
(wow...I'm surprisingly turned on by that idea)
@Miranda Kali: Ah, the count. Dick was amazing. I was shocked when they sacked him, started my own long slide into cynicism and journalism (former TWP editor, here).
Thanks for the memories.
And what did we get?
Dastardly and Muttly, The Anthill Mob and Penelope Pitstop!
Heyulp heyulp it's the Hooded Claw!
Don't forget Speed Racer's insanely high body count.
I remember Racer X gunning down a bunch of gangsters with a Tommy Gun and them doing the Dead Man's Dance.
Great Stuff.
@Garrison Dean, King Awesome: I'm exactly the opposite. When I was a kid, I lived abroad as a result of being a military brat, and living in Europe specifically exposed me to imaginations and imagery that was way outside the rigid lines of the Warner Bros/Disney mindset. I think I was spoiled by the material coming out of Europe and Japan when I was younger (even though I'm far too young to have caught Speed Racer's original airing - I lived in Europe in the 80s) and when I got back to the states and started watching American cartoons, I found myself intensely disappointed right out of the gate.
@Priam: This is going to be a bad recurring feature column for you, then, isn't it? Might want to beg out and leave it to the rest of us. ;)
Speaking as the kid who watched Speed Racer, Jonny Soko and his Giant Robot, Ultraman (Not animation.) and Gigantor when they syndicated in the States in the early 70s. I loved Speed Racer.
I mean as an 8 year old boy how could I not love a story about a mammoth car, made out of gold by an international crime syndicate, smashing its way through a forest?! Whenever I start humming the Mammoth car them music, those in the know immediately catch the refence.
And the story about a automobile engine so powerful and fast you had to take drugs to use it?! So maybe Speed was utter cheese in some ways, for an 8 year old kid, the show had pure genius for writing!
You I just realized something. Only a few minutes ago I castigated an io9 author for panning 2001 as slow and sterile and here I am frothing over a proto-anime cartoon.
Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am legion. I contain multitudes.
Here is a bingo card to use when watching old episodes of Speed Racer:
[swatkins.info]
Have fun!
@corpore-metal: Wow, thanks for quoting that. You reminded me that I meant to look that up earlier this very day.
Yes, I was right! Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass. Cool.
Carry on...
10 Questions about "Speed Racer" the movie
1. Why did Speed need a new car for the Grand Prix?
2. Was the 43 Prix really fixed?
3. When did Wednesday get all perky?
4. Why didn't Rex come clean with his family?
5. Ninjas?
6. If the ninjas knew that poison on a thread trick didn't work on 007, why did they think it would work this time?
7. What happened to the Asian girls lips? And is there a cure?
8. If Royalton was so rich, why were his teeth so bad?
9. And couldn't he afford better henchmen?
10. Could Anakin take Speed?
Miranda. I'm not sure if he's a regular guest, but I saw Dick Dyszel at Balticon last year. He was walking through the lobby in his Count Gore DeVol makeup and costume and I got chills! It made me realize how much he was the godfather of my sci-fi/horror movie experience waaaaaay before the internet and the sci-fi channel. Captain 20 was the man in charge and he hooked me into anime, Lost In Space, and Ultraman! Nice to know someone else remembers. :-D
-Joe
Speed Racer, or Meteoro if you grew up in South America, was one of the must-see Saturday morning cartoons when I was little, as was Mazinger Z, AKA Tranzor Z. This was WAY before Transformers came out, though.
If NBC remade Speed Racer like they remade Knight Rider, you can bet money that the Mach 5 wouldn't have the "A" button on the steering wheel, because apparently TV budgets nowadays are so incredibly meager. (Turbo Boost was KITT's coolest capability, IMHO. The coolest feature, though, was the scanner and the voice modulator.)
On a separate note, Disney execs never did admit using Kimba as their template (read: plagiarism) for The Lion King.
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