TokyoScope INTERVIEW: Ippei Kuri, Speed Racer, and the Dawn of Anime
1940-2023. Celebrating the life and work of a master of animation and manga
I awoke to some sad news this morning in Japan: anime and manga creator Ippei Kuri had died at the age of 83.
He was part of a trio of brothers who founded their own anime studio, called Tatsunoko Productions, at the dawn of the TV anime industry in Japan in the early 1960s.
Most famously, Ippei Kuri helped to create “Speed Racer,” an iconic series that was shown and beloved around the world. But it was only one of a series of hits from Tatsunoko that helped shape the course of anime to come.
Ippei Kuri was also an amazing artist in his own right, with a drawing style that incorporated elements of pre-manga Japanese pulp heroes, American superhero comics, and a raw physicality that defined the classic Tatsunoko style. No one else drew like him, and now, no one else ever will.
In his memory, I’d like to present a feature interview I did with Ippei Kuri for the Japan Times in 2008, around the time of the release of the live-action “Speed Racer” movie from the Wachowskis.
Ippei Kuri, born Toyoharu Yoshida in Tokyo in 1940, formed Tatsunoko Productions with his brothers Kenji and Tatsuo at the dawn of Japan's modern anime industry during the early sixties.
Both formidable draftsmen, Ippei 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 follow-up.
Ippei Kuri recalls, "Around 1965, I was going to a lot of motorcycle races. Back then, car racing was popular in the US, and I thought it would soon catch on in Japan. Not everyone could afford to own a car back then, but I was able to buy one thanks to the success that Tatsunoko was having, so I used to drive everyone to the bike races. That's where I developed my love for speed. And eventually, I was inspired to make a story about car racing." These company outings resulted in a show about a teenage race car driver and his family who traveled the globe all the while tussling with crooks, gangsters, and rival motorists who believed in foul play. "Speed Racer" was awash in wide-eyed optimism and hyper-modernity and, as the settings changed from the Middle East to Europe and America, it rarely ever seemed to look to Japanese culture for inspiration.
Kuri explains, "Since childhood, we (the Yoshida brothers) really envied the style of American comics like Superman and Batman. The drawings looked so lifelike and accurate. After the war, during the US 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, and the environment has a distinct resemblance to the family dwellings in the 2008 Hollywood Speed Racer movie (Kuri even insists on trying out a new espresso maker before the interview begins). But of course, there's more to just "Speed Racer" and his creator than just mechanical marvels and globetrotting adventure. At the core of it all is a tightly-knit family unit complete with the gruff-but-loving Pops Racer and a character known only as Mom, who's rarely seen without an apron, who have raised three brothers; the exact number of siblings in the Yoshida clan. Kuri recalls, "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. There would always be a mom and dad who looked extremely happy. There were friends and pets (who turned into a monkey in my story) 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."
As "Speed Racer" went into production, elder brother Tatsuo stepped forward as the show's main visual designer. Meanwhile, Kuri, the youngest of the three, became the series' main producer and came up with ideas for storylines and sequences. He also personally directed many episodes of the series, including the classic "Trick Race" episode which raised the body count for TV animation as dozens of cars crashed and burned, along with their drivers. While still aimed at young children, Speed Racer's knack for action, both on the race track and off, helped move Japanese anime from mere kid's stuff into a mode of pure adrenaline-fueled adventure.
Today Kuri insists, "We intentionally tried to make a show that was peaceful and not violent. For instance, there is no evil organization that the heroes have to fight. There are villains, of course, sometimes with guns, but they never kill anyone. Still, we heard some complaints later that Speed Racer was considered a little too violent in the USA (indeed, consumer watchdog group Action For Children's Television described Ippei's brainchild as an 'animated monstrosity' that offered viewers the 'ultimate in crime, evil characters, cruelty, and destruction'). But in Japan, it was actually conservative and not violent at all. The hard part was that we needed to have the show be popular in Japan first to sell it to America. Facing that dilemma, we tried to compromise and make something that was simply feel-good entertainment. But obviously, we also had a big intention to sell it to America right from the beginning."
Speed Racer became a smash hit soon after its debut on US television in 1967, paving the way for eventual syndication around the world. Since then, the 52-episode series has seldom left the airwaves, and its memorable characters have been featured in commercials, music videos, and a bevy of merchandise. The show passed from generation to generation. Racer X became the name of a punk rock band. A Speed Racer T-shirt made a cameo in "Pulp Fiction." The Racer clan has even been featured in campaigns for Volkswagen cars and auto insurance companies.
But as Kuri points out, "At the beginning, 'Speed Racer' didn't bring in much profit. I'm sorry to say that the middle man on the Japanese side of the deal was kind of sloppy about his work." Kuri, along with Tatsunoko Productions, has seen little gain from the worldwide success of "Speed Racer" and received no tribute from the 2008 Hollywood movie beyond a mention in the credits. Yet Kuri considers success as its own reward. "We had such low expectations. After all, 'Speed Racer' was a Japanese-created work, and America already had giant animation studios like Disney. The scale of what we were doing was so small by comparison. Still, the show broke through the wall to America, which was a huge deal for us, and it was continually on the air. On those terms, it was a major success."
Ironically, Speed Racer was fated never to become as beloved in his own country of origin as he was abroad, and the show's international fame has always been a source of bafflement for animation fans in Japan. Kuri has his own theory about the difference in reception to the series: "I think the timing may have been one of the reasons why 'Speed' became so popular in the west. The US had become a happy and prosperous nation after winning World War II, but all that began to change during the Vietnam era. The family unit started collapsing. People began protesting and criticizing their own government. But at that time, Speed Racer was still reflecting the image of the good old days."
Tatsunoko could have easily stayed afloat by churning out more adventures of Speed Racer and the gang for their now-global audience. But instead, Kuri and his brothers decided to take their family-owned company and, thus Japanese animation, into new directions. He says, "Then as now, the model for making a new anime was often simply to adapt an existing manga, but I believed we should create new and original works just for television. That was one of the main goals we had at Tatsunoko."
The success of Speed Racer paved the way for more classic Tatsunoko animation to come in the '70s, including "Science Ninja Team Gatchaman" (AKA "Battle of the Planets"), "Casshern," and "Yatterman," all of which have either been made into live-action films or are currently in production as big-budget movies.
After his brother Tatsuo's untimely death in 1977, Kuri became the head artistic planner of Tatsunoko. The company continues to be associated with era-defining anime like "Robotech" and "Neon Genesis Evangelion," both of which were produced in part at Tatsunoko.
"I like film and I like realism," says Kuri. "But I always felt that it was hard for us at Tatsunoko to try and reach that level of detail in the anime style. Still, we tried in our own way. I wanted to make something that was truly real, but it ended up the way it ended up. The result was 'Speed Racer.'"
Thanks to Masaya Honda for his help with this interview