The Wizard of Oz (1982 film)

The Wizard of Oz (オズの魔法使い, Ozu no Mahōtsukai) is a 1982 anime feature film directed by Fumihiko Takayama, from a screenplay by Yoshimitsu Banno and Akira Miyazaki, which is based on the 1900 children's novel by L. Frank Baum, produced by Yoshimitsu Banno and Katsumi Ueno for Toho Co., Ltd. The film was originally shown at the Cannes Film Festival, but did not have a regular run in U.S. theatres.

The Wizard of Oz
オズの魔法使い
Screenshot of The Wizard of Oz anime, featuring the four main characters
Directed byFumihiko Takayama
Written byYoshimitsu Banno
Akira Miyazaki
Music byJoe Hisaishi
Yuichiro Oda
Production
company
Distributed byAlan Enterprises
(North America)
Toho/TV Tokyo (Japan)
Release date
October 6, 1982 (North America)
December 31, 1986 (Japan)
Running time
78 minutes
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese English (dubbed)
Box office$612,300 (North America)

In the 1980s, a re-edited version of the film was released in Czechoslovakia. The film was dubbed into the Slovak language except for the songs, which were performed by Japanese singers (from the original Japanese music version). Some other foreign dubs, such as the Italian and Greek versions, had this premise edit as well.

Cast
Character Original Japanese
Dorothy Gale [1] Aileen Quinn Mari Okamoto
The Wizard Lorne Greene Kazuo Kumakura
Seri Machika (as the Beautiful-Winged Lady)
Scarecrow Billy Van Kotobuki Hizuru
Tin Woodman John Stocker Jōji Yanami
Cowardly Lion Thick Wilson Masashi Amenomori
Omby Amby Unknown
The Good Witch of the North Elizabeth Hanna Miyoko Asō
Jellia Jamb Unknown
The Wicked Witch of the West Kaori Kishi
Glinda, the Good Witch of the South Wendy Thatcher Kumiko Takizawa
Aunt Em Unknown Taeko Nakanishi
Servant
Uncle Henry Naoki Tatsuta
Toto Shohei Matsubara
Soldier Motomu Kiyokawa
Monkey King Toshiyuki Yamamoto

Relation to other works

The Novel

The film is known for staying particularly close to the novel, its primary elimination being the journey to Glinda, which is only now slightly less of a deus ex machina than in the MGM version. Also borrowed from that version are the red "magic shoes" rather than the silver shoes of Baum's text. Some familiarity with the later books is clear, as the houses are the same two-chimneyed domes found in the artwork of John R. Neill, who never illustrated the first Oz book. It is one of the rare films to depict the various forms the Wizard appears to each of the travelers, such as the Beautiful-Winged Lady (shown to be a puppet rather than the Wizard in a costume, as in the book), the Terrible Beast (looking like an ordinary rhinoceros) and the Ball of Fire.

Release in US and home media

Unlike most Japanese animated movies, it was first released in the United States; the English dialogue was recorded first and released in North America on October 6, 1982, and the Japanese-dubbed version was not released in Japan until 1986. The English version of this film, edited by Johann Lowenberg and produced and directed by John Danylkiw, appeared on television in the United States in 1982. Alan L. Gleitsman was the executive producer of Alan Enterprises, which did the English dub for the North American release. New Hope Entertainment was also involved in producing the English-dubbed version. It was distributed in English-speaking countries and territories, including the United States and Canada, by Alan Enterprises. Paramount Home Video released the English dubbed version on VHS, Betamax, Laserdisc, and CED in the 1980s and on VHS in 1991.

Film and television anime

Although this movie is in no way related to the 1986 anime television series produced by Panmedia outside of having the same source material, the fact that the movie was released in Japan in the same year that the TV series was first broadcast (and that both this film and the TV series were released in English in the U.S. and Canada) sometimes leads to the two works being confused. But despite that however, some information say that this film was actually originally released in Japan in 1982 and in North America later on, in 1983 for television, considering that the Japanese dialogue was recorded first, but might have been either released on that same year, or delayed until 1986.[2]

Music

The music was written by Jō Hisaishi and Yuichiro Oda. The Lyrics were written by Keisuke Yamakawa.

  1. "Someone is waiting for me" (だれかが私を待っている, Dareka ga watashi wo matte iru) (Main theme) (Singer: Mitsuko Horie)
  2. ?
  3. "What is 1+1?" (1＋1は何？, Ichi tasu ichi wa nani) (Insert song) (Singers: Mitsuko Horie and Koorogi '73)

The English dubbed version featured new different lyrics by Sammy Cahn and Allen Byrns.

  1. "It's Strictly Up to You" (Main theme)
  2. "I Dream of Home"
  3. "A Wizard of a Day"
gollark: Not *all* of it. And I think we should aim to reduce that.
gollark: That is indeed a word which you can put in quotes.
gollark: The trouble is that even an initially good measurement of how well you're likely to do a specific job is probably going to be distorted more and more the longer it's used as people try to optimize for it instead of actually being good at the job.
gollark: Apparently IQ correlates decently with some important things.
gollark: Ideally hiring would be entirely merit-based, but we end up with credentialism instead.

See also

References
  1. "東宝版アニメ「オズの魔法使い」". Biglobe.ne.jp. Retrieved 2013-04-24.
  2. "The Wizard of Oz – 1982 – Web Wizard Of Oz". 2007. Retrieved 2013-05-04.
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