Gil Asakawa's Nikkei View

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Speed Racer: Still Go, Go, Going Strong

1967 was a terrific year for youth. The Vietnam war was raging across the world, but in America, young people were letting their hair grow long and voicing their opinions (for instance, against the war) as one generational bloc.

Click to hear the Speed Racer theme song in either English or Japanese!

It was the year of the Summer of Love in San Francisco; the Beatles were groovy and "Sgt. Pepper" was the album everyone had on their record players. A young Dustin Hoffman lit up the movie screen as a new kind of anti-establishment hero in "The Graduate." "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." and "Batman" brought excitement to the TV screen. And, for kids like me, who were not college students but at the younger end of the youth generation, a new cartoon caught our imagination: "Speed Racer."

"Speed Racer" was a fresh kind of cartoon for those of us who watched Saturday morning TV and were used to Bugs Bunny, Popeye and Casper the Friendly Ghost. "Speed Racer" wasn't about cute creatures or weird-looking characters (what's with Popeye's forearm, anyway?). Here was a cartoon starring teenagers, with (somewhat) teenaged problems. The budding race car driver Speed Racer had a cute girlfriend Trixie, a demanding Dad and understanding Mom, and a pesky younger brother (who happened to have a bizarre pet chimpanzee). Other regular characters included the eager mechanic Sparky and the mysterious "Racer X," who we find out is actually Speed's older brother, who left home after having a fight with their dad. He shadows Speed to make sure he becomes the world's greatest driver. Scooby Doo, an American cartoon (drawn by a Japanese animator) that also featured teenagers, came two years later, in 1969.

OK, so the Speed Racer plot wasn't exactly "Rebel without a Cause," but it had plenty of elements that kids like me could identify with, plus Speed's car, the Mach 5, was the coolest-looking thing on wheels. At the time, we were all crazy about slot cars, racing electric-driven model cars on curving tracks laid out on the floor.

I knew right away that this series my friends and I liked so much was a Japanese import� like me.

The series had a super-catchy theme song that had you humming all day: "Here he comes, here comes Speed Racer, he's a demon on wheels. He's a demon and he's gonna be chasing after someone�." The song ended with the stirring cheer, "Go Speed Racer, Go Speed Racer, Go Speed Racer Go!"

The erstwhile plot of the series was that Speed's father, a race car designer, needed money to continue refining the Mach 5, a machine already supercharged with more cool gadgets than imaginable. The buttons on the steering wheel activated Pops Racers' hidden innovations. One button extended protruding circular saws to mow down trees in front of the car if the Mach 5 was forced into the woods; another instantly changed the tires to super-grip treads so Speed could go off-road onto any terrain; another let the car hop over obstacles with specially-installed jacks; and another allowed the Mach 5 to operate underwater.

Speed wanted to race the car but Pops at first forbid his son from becoming a race car driver. In an early episode we learn the reason his father is so against his son racing: Speed's older brother Rex totaled an earlier car designed by Pops and left home when Pops said he couldn't race again. Rex dons a mask and becomes Racer X, who Speed thinks is a competitor at first but then shows up in every episode to save Speed.

Speed's car, the Mach 5, was the coolest-looking thing on wheels. It inspired toys, models like the one above, and even a full-sized version you can drive.

Speed begins racing anyway, as a way to help his father earn the money to keep designing cars. In each episode, Speed would enter a race and face adversity in the form of evil gangsters and cheaters trying to control the outcome. With the help of Trixie and Speed's 8-year-old brother Spritle (and Chim Chim the chimp, who inexplicably dresses like Spritle), Speed overcomes every obstacle and emerges a heroic, valiant winner. In many of the episodes, bad guys were killed by the score, not just by guns and bombs but also in nasty crashes and explosions. Speed Racer was exciting partly because for its time, it was quite violent - it may not pass censors as a TV show today.

As silly as it sounds, this was powerful, heady stuff for a 10-year-old kid in suburban America. And I wasn't the only one hooked on Speed. The show was a hit between 1967 and '68, and was remade briefly in 1994. A Speed racer Fan Club still exists, and Volkswagen even used the Speed Racer theme song and cartoon to advertise its Jetta model car a few years ago. Now, in the age of the Internet, there are a dozen Web sites keeping alive the memory of the series, and it was even made into a newspaper comic strip in 2000. There are Speed Racer video games, Mach 5 models and other merchandise being bought and sold every day over the Internet.

But back then, there was something more that kept me glued to our black and white television. There was distinctively different about these characters: I could tell they were Japanese.

Japanese anime has a distinctive style. Partly, it's the appearance of the characters. They tend to have very large eyes - I know, it's a bit of a racial contradiction but it's a fact, a standard carried over from manga, or Japanese comics. They also use interesting conventions to show effects like speed - the same blurred backgrounds whizzing by are still familiar today in the "Pokemon" and "Dragonball Z" cartoons. And, anime is often drawn in an extremely cinematic style: In Speed Racer, for example, many of the scenes are "shot" from low camera angles or from above - angles seen in movies by innovative directors, but not in your typical Road Runner short.

In 1967, I had just been in the US for a year, and I still had very vivid memories of watching anime in Japan - Astro Boy, Gigantor and 8th Man were my first introductions to cartoons. And although Speed Racer hadn't yet debuted in Japan when my family moved to the States, when I saw Speed's big, pretty eyes and their long lashes, I knew right away that this series my friends and I liked so much was a Japanese import� like me.

This fact also explained some anomalies in the cartoon: The "M" on the Mach 5 and on Speed's shirt didn't stand for "Mach" but for "Mifune," because in the Japanese series, "Mach Go! Go!," Speed's name was Go Mifune (the pun is that "Go" stands for "five" in Japanese). And the "M" on Trixie's shirt wasn't to express her love for the Mach 5, but her own initial: In Japan, the character's name was Michi Shimura.

The anime was based on a manga, or comic, that debuted in 1966 and was made into a TV series in Japan by Tatsunoko Productions, before being distributed worldwide by Trans-Lux Television.

The actual animation was admittedly stiff, and modern anime ("Spirited Away" comes to mind immediately) and even American cartoons today are much more realistic and flowing and better-drawn. But it's a testament to the quality storytelling and interesting "family values" (despite the violence) of the original Speed Racer series, that people are still interested in Speed and his story.

Limited Edition Speed Racer DVD -- Click here to order your copy!

The first season of "Speed Racer" was just released on DVD in a special "collector's edition" that comes in a slip case made from a piece of rubber made to look like a tire - pretty clever, even though the "special features" on the disc aren't very interesting. But just seeing the episodes - crude, stiff animation and all - made me appreciate the show all over again.

I was most amazed at how vividly I remembered the characters and storylines. One two-part episode in particular (all the stories were two-parters) about the "Mammoth Car" was so memorable it was like I'd just seen it last week. The bad guys had stolen a bunch of gold and were smuggling it out of the country molded into a gigantic car during a race. The evil, face-like fa�ade of the Mammoth Car as well as the Godzilla-like scream it made as it bore down on the other puny cars in the race immediately took me back 25 years.

In a way, I see Speed Racer as a Japanese American, because he was rooted in Japan but was accepted as part of American culture. I'm glad to see how he's still making his mark today, and hope he keeps on going.

ARCHIVES

Speed Racer: Still Go, Go, Going Strong

Copyright 1998-2003 by Gil Asakawa -- not for use without permission.
Contact me if you'd like to run "Nikkei View" in your publication.
Thanks for reading!

ARCHIVES

Speed Racer: Still Go, Go, Going Strong

Copyright 1998-2003 by Gil Asakawa -- not for use without permission. Contact me if you'd like to run "Nikkei View" in your publication. Thanks for reading!

Copyright 1998-2003 by Gil Asakawa -- not for use without permission.
Contact me if you'd like to run "Nikkei View" in your publication.
Thanks for reading!