The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (anime): Difference between revisions

[[File:oz-no-mahotsukai-episode-17_521.jpg|frame]]

 

 

The 52-episode series was produced by Panmedia under the title ''Oz no Mahōtsukai'' and debuted in 1986. It has a visual style resembling Nippon Animation's ''[[World Masterpiece Theater]]'' productions; character designer Shuichi Seki worked on both.

 

 

The English-language adaptation was produced by [[Cinar]]. In addition to re-dubbing all the dialogue, ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' has new titles and credits, which contrive to disguise the fact that it's not a native English-language product (none of the Japanese cast or crew are credited in the Cinar version). Cinar also re-edited each of the four story arcs into movie-length versions. As of this writing, only the movie-length versions are available on DVD, but the full episodes [http://jaroo.com/watch/the-wonderful-wizard-of-oz stream in rotation on Jaroo].

** Mombi and Tip, who don't appear in the first book at all, show up in episode 11, just after the defeat of the Wicked Witch of the West; Mombi has come to visit the Witch, but on learning she's dead settles for trying to steal the magic cap that controls the Winged Monkeys.

** Episode 16 has an early-bird reference to the Nomes.

* [[Empathic Environment]]: A forest being menaced by a giant spider is dark, sinister, and foggy until the spider is killed, then the very next scene shows it bright and sunny. [[Justified]] because Dorothy and her friends arrive when night is falling, and the scene after the spider's death is the following morning when they're preparing to leave.

* [[Evil Laugh]]: The Wizard breaks out an impressively scary Mwa-ha-ha when he's trying to get Dorothy and her friends to go away and not forget about making him keep his side of the bargain.

* [[Hey, It's That Voice!]]:

** [[Sumi Shimamoto]] is Dorothy, [[Yoshito Yasuhara]] is Scarecrow, [[Seizo Kato]] is the Wizard, and [[Masako Nozawa]] is Ozma.

* [[Hulk Speak]]: The Growliwog.

* [[I'll Never Tell You What I'm Telling You]]: When Dorothy first meets Tiktok, he's on a secret mission, and when she asks what it is he explains that he can't tell her because it's a secret -- then he gets flustered and winds up explaining in considerable detail precisely what he's not allowed to tell her.

* [[Magic Mirror]]: The Wicked Witch of the West has one, which she uses to track the progress of Dorothy and her friends.

* [[Mind Control Eyes]]: When the Wizard's guards refuse to let Dorothy and her friends in to see him, the Witch of the North's protective kiss on Dorothy's forehead glows, and they get [[Mind Control Eyes]] and become much more co-operative.

** The Deadly Desert becomes the Dangerous Desert in dialogue, although it's still "The Deadly Desert" in the episode title.

* [[No Ontological Inertia]]: When the Wicked Witch of the West is destroyed, all the people she's turned to stone are released, her magic mirror shatters, and her palace collapses. (The stone people and the mirror fit with the common idea of a witch's magic ending when she does, but there's no previous indication that magic was used in constructing the palace, only lots of Winkie slaves hauling stone around.)

* [[Staircase Tumble]]: When General Jinjur and her army are trying to break into the throne room of the Emerald City in episode 25, the guy who guards the throne room takes a tumble down the very long flight of steps leading up to the door. He doesn't seem to get hurt.

* [[Standard Snippet]]: When they encounter the field of flowers that puts people to sleep, in the English-language version the incidental music quotes a couple of bars of the lullaby "Rock-a-bye Baby". Later in the same episode, there's a group of mice who sing a wordless version of "Three Blind Mice" as they scurry away.

* [[Suspiciously Small Army]]: General Jinjur's army. All five of them.

* [[Take My Hand]]: