Speed Racer - Episodes 1-11

First and foremost, this is NOT the same version of Speed Racer we grew up with! Both the opening credits sequence and the closing credits sequence have been re-done. Gone are the original "Trans-Lux" credit and the exciting swirling white animated "Speed Racer" logo. Now, the opening boasts cheesy yellow & red titles that were obviously created by computer. The lousy graphics were then placed over a re-edited opening sequence that uses the original Japanese version as its base (You can see the swirling red Japanese title in the middle of the wheel). This is where the computer-generated credits are used (with jarring, ham-fisted edits!). The closing credits also feature computer-created graphics that are superimposed over out-of-focus background animation. The closing theme also appears to have been re-recorded...

Look, I know you shouldn't base your purchase solely on the fact the opening and closing credits were changed, so let's look at the episodes themselves:

The colors are very good, as it does look like the producers of this DVD went back to the original Japanese masters. The problem is that the producers decided to pack *5 hours* of material onto *one* single-sided DVD! The episodes have been compressed too much! The bit rate fluctuates from only 2.1Mbps to about 4.5Mbps. (Compare this to the 6.9Mbps to 10.0Mbps bit rate of Rhino's "Battle of the Planets" DVDs.) The Speed Racer episodes suffer from quite a bit of digital artifacting. My disc's video also freezes from time to time.

Maybe the producers of this think they are being generous by including 11 episodes. Well, I think they could have given us 11 episodes over 2 discs, or at least one double-sided disc. They compressed the material too much, and the final results are very disappointing.

Beyond the video compression the producers used to cram 5 hours of material onto one DVD, many of the episodes have also been "time-compressed", meaning they have been sped up. This is usually done so stations can air more commercials, but for a home video release, it's inexcusable!

So, how do I know they have been time-compressed? Well, I compared the actual episode content (minus the opening & closing credits) of the first eight episodes to the Japanese version. Of these first 8 episodes, 3 run faster than the originals. Now, the US-version is edited in a few places, so that will shorten their runing time, but identical portions should run the same speed. Sadly, they don't.

When you watch the episodes side by side (something my TV is capable of doing), the US Speed Racer episodes start getting ahead of their Japanese counterparts. Episodes 1, 7, and 8 all immediately start running faster than the originals. The running time for the first episode is 21:31. Compare that to the 22:45 of the Japanese original (1:14 faster). That's enough for 2 more commercials! Episode 7 is 1:35 faster, and episode 8 is a minute faster.

I don't want to speculate on why the producers felt the need to time-compress these episodes, but it shouldn't have been done!

The Japanese release of "Mach Go Go Go (Speed Racer's original Japanese name) came out on a total of 9 DVDs. They cost a lot more than this disc, yet they feature a much better picture, with less compression. I only wish the US-version was of the same high-standard as the Japanese-version. Sadly, it's not.

Finally, to emphasize how [bad] an operation this whole DVD is, look at its "1966" copyright date. Well, "Mach Go Go Go" wasn't released in Japan until 1967, and the US version didn't come out for another year or two...! Why 1966? How can a company release a truly definitive version of Speed Racer when they don't even know when it was made..?!


'Bout Time!   February 20, 2003
jadedromantic (Houston, TX)
46 out of 51 found this review helpful

Well, well, it's about time! The BEST Japanese anime show of its time, and loved by every one of us who watched it religiously while growing up, "Speed Racer" FINALLY comes to DVD with the first 11 episodes!! If done right and in order, as various websites say, this is what the disks should include:

1. The Great Plan pt. 1
2. The Great Plan pt. 2
3. Challenge of the Masked Racer pt. 1
4. Challenge of the Masked Racer pt. 2
5. The Secret Engine pt. 1
6. The Secret Engine pt. 2
7. The Race Against the Mammoth Car pt. 1
8. The Race Against the Mammoth Car pt. 2
9. The Most Dangerous Race pt. 1
10. The Most Dangerous Race pt. 2
11. The Most Dangerous Race pt. 3

"Mach V vs. Mach V" is one of my very favorites, but this is a great start, and will buy every DVD "Speed Racer" set that comes out. What a great addition to the collection of anyone who likes anime, nostalgic tv, and the dangerous adventures of Speed, Racer X, Pops, Trixie, Sparky, and of course Spritle and Chim Chim. Some sites say there are 55 episodes total, from what I have checked there are 52, but either way can't wait to own them all!

Trivia: Do you know what the "M" on Speed's helmet and the "G" on his shirt were for? I never did, until recently, but here's the DL: in the original Japanese version of the cartoon, titled "Mach Go Go," Speed's name is Go Mifune - so the "G" stands for Go (his first name), the "M" on the helmet for Mifune (his last name). Finally, THAT riddle from childhood solved!

GET THIS SET! Unless they really mess up the transfer, this is the best DVD animation news in years!

Go Speed Racer, Go!!


Finally!   October 31, 2003
Duane Thomas (Tacoma, WA United States)
31 out of 35 found this review helpful

I've loved Speed Racer since I was a little kid. When Ted Turner's first television station, WTBS, Channel 13, started up in Georgia in the mid-70s, he had all the great old shows, The Munsters, The Brady Bunch, Get Smart, The Addams Family, I Dream of Jeannie, The Partridge Family....all part of his afternoon lineup. Speed Racer came on at 3 PM, Monday thru Friday. Every weekday for years I'd get out of school at 2:30, the bus would take me home, I'd rush into the house and turn on the TV just in time for the theme song. I never got tired of it. (Just an interesting point of trivia - I think - in a book on Speed Racer I read the results of a survey where Speed fans were asked what they considered the single most important reason Speed Racer is so popular. The #1 answer: the theme song.)

I've seen some TV shows I loved as a kid, years later when they were released on video, and wondered how I ever could have enjoyed them. Being three years old is no excuse. The prime example being 8th Man. But I watch Speed Racer today, and while I'm well aware that, because of my history with the show, the fact it was such an important of my life while growing up, I love it perhaps more than can really be justified by what's there....some episodes still DO it for me. And that's pretty cool.

What in America we call Speed Racer actually began in the Sixties in Japan as a manga (comic book) called Maha Go Go Go. In America you'll usually see this partially translated as Mach Go Go Go so that's the terminology I'll use from here on. Grand prix auto racing was very popular in Japan at the time, almost a national obsession. To Tatsuo Yoshida, the creator/artist/writer of Mach Go Go Go, the opportunity presented by this situation was obvious: create a series about a teenage Grand Prix driver. I have reprints of several of the original manga. At least some of the anime episodes (more about which shortly) were adaptations of previously published manga stories.

The ....Go Go Go part of the title was a triple entendre. (1) "Go" means the number five in Japanese, it was a reference to the car's name, the Mach 5. (2) In the original manga and anime, the main character we call Speed Racer in the US was named Go Mifune (or Goh Mifune, I've seen it spelled both ways), a homage to Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune (Yoshida was a huge fan) which explains why "Speed" has a yellow G on his shirt and his support crew is called the Go Team. (3) The American word "Go," i.e. "Haul it, dude."

The big red M on the Mach 5's hood, which in America we commonly assumed stood for "Mach 5" was actually the emblem of Mifune Motors, Pops Racer's car company. Likewise this explains the M on Speed's helmet. Trixie had an M on her blouse because in the original manga/anime her name was Michi Shimura. Sparky lucked out; the S on his chest happened to match both his Japanese name, Sabu, and American renaming, as well.

One thing that never made any sense to me, when watching Speed Racer as a kid, was that Racer X had the "Mach 5 symbol" on his chest. It makes even less sense once you learn this is the Mifune Motors emblem. "Hello Speed, I'm secretly Kenichi Mifune, your older brother who ran away from home years ago. In order to hide this fact, I will....wear the emblem of the family business in foot high lettering on my chest!" Good plan. They'll never figure that one out. And of course, they didn't.

In the original manga - and this is something we never really got from the anime - Michi (Trixie) was the spoiled, willful, rich daughter of the head of a rival car company (which explains how she owns her own helicopter - something I always wondered about as a kid - and drives a Mercedes). She first met the Racers when she was sent to spy on them. Wouldn't she know it, she fell in love with Speed which kind of scotched that plan. In my early teens I couldn't understand what Speed saw in Trixie. It's only with adult sensibilities that I appreciate what a total little hottie Trixie really was.

Of course I hated the bratty kid brother. And the monkey! Don't get me started. WAY too much unneeded so-called comic relief in what should have been - and was - a really exciting, dramatic adventure series. I took my Speed Racer seriously. I could never understand how a guy as cool as Speed could have such a whiny little snot-nosed punk of a brother.

All 52 episodes of the original Mach Go Go Go anime were translated into English and in 1967 began airing in America as Speed Racer. The series is about equally split between stand alone eps and two-parters (there's only one three-part Speed Racer). The series has a very self-contained air, with a beginning, middle and an end. It begins with Speed's first professional race and ends when he wins the world championship. In the late 80s thru early 90s the entire series was released on video tape. I bought about half the series, all the tapes I could find, at that time. Just a few months ago the first 11 episodes were released on DVD. You better believe I bought that one. (Hopefully we'll eventually see all 52 episodes on DVD.) All the video tapes that were dupes of DVD eps I then turned around and gave to my next door neighbor's teenage son. Spreading the glory and majesty that is Speed Racer to a new generation. And he really liked them. Obviously there's hope for America's future, after all.


This is a great DVD!   June 19, 2003
Kurt A. Johnson (Marseilles, Illinois, USA)
24 out of 29 found this review helpful

Speed Racer is a Japanese "Manga" that was created in 1966. In 1967, the 52 episodes of the show were dubbed into English, and syndicated across the U.S., where they were watched by millions of young people who carried the cartoon in their hearts all the way to today! Speed Racer is the story of a young racecar driver who experiences excitement and danger around the world, both on the racecourse and off. Even though the show is now some 38 years old, the cars are still fantastic to look at and the story has lost none of its fascination!

Recently, the first eleven episodes of the show have been released in this DVD. The eleven episodes cover five stories: The Great Plan, Challenge of the Masked Racer, The Secret Engine, The Race Against the Mammoth Car, and The Most Dangerous Race. Not only that, this DVD is crammed with extras, the best of which are and interactive look at the Mach 5 (Speed's car) and a gallery of villains - each with a clip showing the villain in action!

This is a great DVD! My ten-year-old son has been a fan of Speed Racer since he was quite young (a chip off the old block!), and he is very glad to have some of the episodes on DVD. So, now he and I can sit and watch this great cartoon together. If you know a young boy who likes racecars, then get him this DVD, and he will love you for it!

One extra thing: the limited-edition "rubber tire" packaging is a nice touch. It is so well done that it is really a work of art. Get this DVD!


The first 11 episodes of the original anime!   February 14, 2003
18 out of 21 found this review helpful

Finally the first 11 episodes of the Speed Racer anime are coming to DVD! Don't worry Speedy fans, more episodes of the show are coming but this is to start you off on your Speed DVD collection. If the other sayings on other sites are true, the next DVD of Speed Racer you will see will contain all 55 episodes of the show on a few DVDs in one package. No release date has been set for that release, but if you can't wait for that release, then spring out the money to get this one because it should be really good.