Oz no Mahōtsukai
 

Has anyone ever heard of/seen this? It's a Wizard of Oz anime from the 80s. Apparently HBO bought it and stripped it of everything Japanese (even not giving credit to the animators) and sold it on VHS and DVD, but only sold it in sets with major plotpoints cut to make them into movies.


the Japanese Intro


This is the only thing I can find of it that has English subs, and apparently it was a one shot fansub.

Hells yeah I've heard of this. When I was a kid they used to show a Dutch version of this. I remember it being awesome, but then again I was 4 or so.

Ah yes, the old 1980's "We can dub a Japanese show and sell it to America on cheap VHS" Trick. A very common practice at the time. I remember owning a Gumby VHS that had random anime previews at the end of it... Candy Candy, Captain Future, and a Japanese version of Little Lulu... all with impossibly bad rerecorded theme songs.

Now here's a question... anyone ever hear of "The Wonderful Galaxy of Oz?" It was okay, but the dub was beyond amateurish. Worse than the cheapest fansub I've ever seen, and no one could act in it. I think its available on one of those 1 dollar DVD's you find in the bad dollar stores (you know, the kind with cheap bootlegged items instead of licensed stuff?)

Yeah, we used to have a copy of the first "movie" at the Blockbusters where I used to work for years. Actually kept it in the Anime section, as I recall. Never got around to watching it, myself.

I swore off Oz cartoons after that crappy one from the 90s, Dorothy's New Adventures in Oz or something like it.

Not sure, but from what I can tell by the pictures, think I recall seeing some DVDs for it in Wal-Mart's discount bin not all that long ago.

I never thought it was that bad... a little misguided in effort, maybe. Though I think the voice actors they used really made it better than it could have been.

But such is the problem with OZ follow ups...The entire franchise has to compete with the 1930's movie. People somehow forgot the books (until Wicked came out, and this was back when it was a novel). DIC's cartoon (the one I surmise you're talking about) took the copying the old movie route, and remade it as a TV show.

I feel the same about Alice in Wonderland, and how they perpetually just copy the Disney version.

Speaking of OZ cartoons, here's a rare one from the 60's... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjyv_i0tBSk
It's got a pretty odd graphic style...

The DiC series just annoyed me. It seemed to follow the plot of the 30s movie, but made it annoyingly unresolved (every time they thought they were close to getting the brains, courage and heart, the Wicked Witch would run away with them at the end). And I think the actual Wizard of Oz spent the entire series stuck in his hot air balloon.

I dunno, it was just frustratingly unfocused and I never felt they did enough with the concept that they could have.