The Wizard of Oz is a 1982 animefeature 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. In the 1980s, a re-edited version of the film was released in Czechoslovakia. The film was dubbed into the Slovak languageexcept for the songs, which were performed by Japanese singers. Some other foreign dubs, such as the Italian and Greek versions, had this premise edit as well.
Cast
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, the Terrible Beast and the Ball of Fire.
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 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.
Music
The music was written by Jō Hisaishi and Yuichiro Oda. The Lyrics were written by Keisuke Yamakawa.
"Someone is waiting for me"
?
"What is 1+1?"
The English dubbed version featured new different lyrics by Sammy Cahn and Allen Byrns.
