Thursday, July 3, 2008

By PATRICK MACIAS

Special to The Japan Times

Fast-moving, globe-trotting Japanese anime icon "Speed Racer" has hit the silver screen in the form of a flashy, big-budget Hollywood film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski ("The Matrix"). From its familiar-to-millions theme song to the characterizations of teen race-car driver Speed and the mysterious Racer X, the movie is a loving pop-art tribute to the classic action-comedy anime of decades past.

Speed Racer, Hollywood style © 2008 WARNER BROS. ENT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Although the limited cel animation of the TV series has been updated with state-of-the-art CGI in a live-action outing starring the likes of Emile Hirsch (Speed Racer), Christina Ricci (Speed's girlfriend, Trixie) and John Goodman (Pops Racer), the film is as faithful an adaptation of the original as could be imagined.

But, as the series' original cocreator Ippei Kuri points out, "What makes a good anime and what makes a good live-action film are very different things. The key to both is how human drama is depicted. That's how you can decide if a work is truly great or not."

The show followed the adventures of a teenage race-car driver and his family as they traveled the globe, all the while tussling with crooks, gangsters and rival motorists who believed in foul play. Engrossing story lines would play out in exotic locales, with the mix of drama and action, both on the race track and off, setting the tone for Japanese animation to come.

In 1962, at the dawn of Japan's modern anime industry, Kuri cofounded one of Japan's oldest and most successful anime studios. Kuri has a midas touch for making classic anime, and he is now in the unique position of watching his creations come to life in the form of live-action feature films.

And while he's pleased that a movie based on "Mahha GoGoGo" (the original Japanese title of "Speed Racer") is opening in theaters across Japan this week, Kuri seems more impressed that the long-in-development project even made it across the finish line at all.

"It's certainly not the first time Hollywood has tried to make a 'Speed Racer' movie," he says of the new $120-million film. "I was involved with an earlier proposal at Warner Brothers, and they wanted to know if they could change the character and story line. I remember they were talking about casting Charlie Sheen for the part of Speed. He was himself a big fan of the show, and he was really hoping to be the star. He certainly looked the part, and I think he would have been good. Johnny Depp was another actor who was suggested. This time around, I simply wondered who was going to play the part of the main character."

Go Mifune, the main character in "Mahha GoGoGo," was renamed Speed Racer in the West. © TATSUNOKO PRO.

Kuri, born Toyoharu Yoshida in Tokyo in 1940, formed Tatsunoko Production Co., Ltd. (commonly known as Tatsunoko Pro.) with his brothers Kenji and Tatsuo. Both formidable draftsmen, Kuri and Tatsuo began their careers as manga artists before moving into TV animation with Tatsunoko's first series, "Space Ace," a kiddie show much influenced by the popular "Astro Boy." Soon, the fledgling studio needed a followup.

Kuri recalls, "Around 1965, I was going to a lot of motorcycle races. Back then, car racing was popular in the U.S., and I thought the sport would soon catch on in Japan as well. While not everyone could afford to own a car back then, I was able to buy one thanks to the success that Tatsunoko was having. I used to drive everyone to the bike races, and that's where I was inspired to make a story about car racing."

These company outings resulted in "Speed Racer," awash in wide-eyed optimism and hyper-modernity. And while the settings changed from the Middle East to Europe and America, the show rarely ever seemed to look to Japanese culture for inspiration.

"Since childhood, we (the Yoshida brothers) really envied the style of American comics like Superman and Batman," explains Kuri. "The drawings looked so lifelike and accurate. After the war, during the U.S. occupation, there were many well-built American soldiers in uniforms. To me, they all looked like Superman. I actually thought that all Americans had bodies like that!

"America also made a great impact on us through the movies. After the war, we didn't have a washing machine, just a board on a bucket. Our living conditions were just awful. When we saw American home-drama films, we saw electric appliances that everyone has now, but that did not exist in Japan at the time. When they opened the refrigerator, there were ready-made ice cubes inside and people are making fancy cocktails. We felt nothing but longing for stuff like that."

Today, Western-style furnishings and gadgets dominate Kuri's home studio in Tokyo's Kugayama Ward, which bears a distinct resemblance to the family dwellings in the "Speed Racer" movie (Kuri even insists on trying out a new espresso maker before the interview begins). But "Speed Racer" is about more than just mechanical marvels and globe-trotting adventure. At the core of it all is a tightly knit family unit complete with the gruff-but-loving Pops Racer, a character known only as Mom who's rarely seen without an apron, and three brothers; the number of siblings in the Yoshida clan.

"I lost my parents when I was young, so another thing that made a big impression on me was the structure of the family in American films," says Kuri. "There would always be a mom and dad who looked extremely happy. There were friends and pets and a good-looking girl next door. All of these things eventually appeared in 'Speed Racer,' and they all came out of my longing for American home life."

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