Speed Racer is an English adaptation name of the Japanese manga and anime, Mach Go Go Go ( マッハGoGoGo , Mahha Gō Gō Gō ? ) which centered on automobile racing. Mach GoGoGo was originally serialized in print form in Shueisha's 1958 Shōnen Book , and was released in tankōbon book form by Sun Wide Comics, re-released in Japan by Fusosha. From 1967 to 1968 it ran as a television series in the United States, with 52 episodes. Selected chapters of the manga were released by NOW Comics in the 1990s under the title Speed Racer Classics , later released by the DC Comics division, Wildstorm Productions under the title Speed Racer: The Original Manga . In 2008, under the name of its Americanized title, Speed Racer , Mach GoGoGo, in its entirety, was re-published in the United States by Digital Manga Publishing and was released as a box set, used to commemorate the franchise's 40th anniversary and also served as a tie-in to coincide with the 2008 film. It was published under the title Speed Racer: Mach Go Go Go as part of the company's DMP Platinum imprint. The actual television series itself is an early example of an anime becoming a successful franchise in the United States, which spawned multiple spinoff versions, in both print and broadcast media.
Plot
A young man named Speed Racer wants to become a professional racer, despite the lack of Pops Racer's (his father) approval. When Pops reluctantly quits his job after the corporation he was working for declined production of a modified engine for his new racing car, the Mach 5, he later thinks of creating his own family owned company, Racer Motors (Mifune Motors in Japan). He realizes that he would need a great amount of money to make his idea work. Nonetheless, Pops conceals his plans for the Mach 5's new engine on a windshield. Speed, who values the welfare of his family, decides to take it upon himself to obtain the money for Pops. In hopes of using his unique driving skills to do so, Speed decides to do what he does best and enters a race.
Speed, along with the help of his friend and mechanic, Sparky, tune up and adjust the Mach 5 in preparation for the race, attaching a new windshield in the process. Unbeknownst to them, they had taken Pops' windshield that concealed the plans for the new engine. Speed takes the windshield along to the race the next day. With the windshield, Speed unwittingly brought trouble towards him, for a corporate gang, who is after Pops' revolutionary designs for the engine, sabotages the race, putting Speed in peril.
Speed, through his wit, realizes that Pops had hidden the plans on the windshield and fights hard to prevent the gang from stealing it. In a last minute effort to save his father's hard work, Speed shatters the windshield with his helmet so that in effect, nobody walks away with the plans. With the gang out of the way, Speed finishes and wins the race...however, he doesn't win the prize money since officials had found out that the race was sabotaged by the corporate gang. A slightly disappointed Speed apologizes to a slightly frustrated Pops, who had found out that Speed had entered the race, for entering the race and destroying his plans. Pops tells Speed that the plans were always locked within his head and gets slightly enraged and tells Speed to quit racing. Speed, who is confident enough to ignore Pops, drives away into many different adventures that come towards him and his friends.
Media
Manga
Selected chapters of Tatsuo Yoshida's original Mach GoGoGo manga series were reprinted by Now Comics as Speed Racer Classics and by DC Comics/Wildstorm Productions as Speed Racer: The Original Manga (ISBN 1-56389-686-9). In 2008, a hardcover box set of the complete manga series was released by Digital Manga Publishing as Speed Racer: Mach Go Go Go (ISBN 978-156970731-9).
The characters and story lines originated in Japan as the manga and anime series Mach GoGoGo, from the anime studio Tatsunoko Productions.
Mach GoGoGo was first created and designed by anime pioneer Tatsuo Yoshida (1932–1977) as a manga series in the 1960s and made the jump to TV as an anime series in 1967. The actual manga was inspired by Yoshida’s earlier, and most popular automobile racing comics, Pilot Ace . Pilot Ace’s main storyline would be lifted onto Mach GoGoGo, which followed the adventures of an ambitious young man who would soon become a professional racer.
When Yoshida had plans for a newer project, he took the popularity of Pilot Ace to his advantage. The characters’ designs in Pilot Ace would set the main ground for the character design in a newer project entitled, Mach GoGoGo. Yoshida got his idea for his story after seeing two films that were very popular in Japan at the time, Viva Las Vegas and Goldfinger. By combining the look of Elvis Presley's race-car driving image, complete with neckerchief and black pompadour, and James Bond's gadget-filled Aston Martin, Yoshida had the inspiration for his creation. Soon enough, Mach GoGoGo hit shelves in the early 1960’s. The central character in the anime and manga was a young race car driver named Gō Mifune ( Mifune Gō ).
The name of the series, Mach GoGoGo is actually a triple pun:
- "Go" is the Japanese word for the number 5. Thus "Mach-go" is the name of the car ("go" also being a suffix attached to the names of ships, etc.), which would be called the Mach 5 in the American adaptation
- It is the name of the main character, Go Mifune. (Speed Racer in the American adaptation)
- It contains the English word "go."
Taken together, the program's title means, " Mach-go , Gō Mifune, Go !". This is what the saying "Go, Speed Racer, Go!" comes from, taking out Gō Mifune and replacing it with his English name.
Also: "Gogogo", is used as a general Japanese sound effect for "Rumble". The names themselves constitute a multilingual wordplay of the kind that had started to become part of the Japanese popular culture of the time.
The manga (which was compiled into two deluxe volumes for Fusosha's re-release) has several story lines such as "The Great Plan", "Challenge of the Masked Racer", "The Fire Race", "The Secret Engine" and "Race for Revenge" that have been adapted to the anime, each story having similar story lines. However, minor changes occur between both the original manga and the anime series. Differences include minor changes in some story lines and back stories of several characters and places.
A few years later after the volumes were released, Yoshida decided to release his manga series as an anime program, adding new and heart-pounding plots in addition to the original stories in the manga. 52 episodes aired in Japan, each one emulating the fast-paced action of the manga.
Anime
Main article: List of Speed Racer episodesThe manga spawned an anime adaptation which became a bigger success than the manga which was created around the same time as its appearance. In 1997, Tatsunoko produced a modernized version of Mach GoGoGo which aired on TV Tokyo and lasted for 34 episodes. An English adaptation of this remake was produced by DiC titled Speed Racer X , which aired in 2002 on Nickelodeon, but only the first 11 episodes were adapted due to licensing disputes between DiC and the Speed Racer Enterprise.
Mach Girl ( マッハガール , Mahha Gāru ? ) , a web based series by Tatsunoko Productions, and created by Tatsuo Yoshida's daughter, Suzuka.
English adaptation
The English rights to Mach GoGoGo were immediately acquired by American syndicator Trans-Lux. Speed Racer premiered on American television in the fall of 1967. In the series, Speed’s full name was Go Mifune, in homage to Japanese film star Toshiro Mifune. His name, Americanized, became Speed Racer. His adventures centered on his powerful Mach 5 car, his girlfriend Trixie, his little brother Spritle with pet chimp Chim-Chim, and his mysterious older brother, Racer X. For American consumption, major editing and dubbing efforts were undertaken by producer Peter Fernandez, who also provided the voices of many of the characters, most notably Racer X and Speed Racer himself. Fernandez was also responsible for a rearrangement of the theme song's melody, written by Nobuyoshi Koshibe, and subsequently wrote its English lyrics. The theme was performed in the opening and closing titles (uncredited) by Danny Davis and the Nashville Brass.
A cover of the show’s theme song "Go Speed Racer Go", performed by Sponge, is included on the 1995 tribute album Saturday Morning: Cartoons' Greatest Hits , produced by Ralph Sall for MCA Records.
In a 2008 interview with Chicago Tribune DVD columnist Louis R. Carlozo, Fernandez recalled that he landed the job working on "Speed Racer" after ghost-writing scripts for Astro-Boy and Gigantor . Simultaneously with "Speed Racer," Fernandez also voiced the main character and wrote scripts for another anime series,
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