Ōban Star-Racers
A girl races to save Earth and revive her mother.
Ōban Star-Racers is an English-language French-Japanese animated television series created by Savin Yeatman-Eiffel of Sav! The World Productions. It aired in more than 100 countries including Japan, and in the United States on the Jetix blocks on ABC Family and Toon Disney between June and December 2006. The series originated from a short movie titled Molly, Star-Racer, which won the 2001 LEAF Awards.
Quick Facts
- Runtime
- 23 minutes
- Genre
- Action
- Adventure
- Science fantasy
- Creator
- Savin Yeatman-Eiffel
- Developer
- Sav! The World Productions
- Savin Yeatman-Eiffel
- Thomas Romain
- Stanislas Brunet
- Loic Penon
- Director
- Savin Yeatman-Eiffel; Thomas Romain
- Theme music
- Yoko Kanno
- Composer
- Taku Iwasaki
- Starring
- English:
- Chiara Zanni
- Sam Vincent
- Ron Halder
- French:
- Gabrielle Jéru
- Thomas Guitard
- Jérôme Keen
Facts from the source article.
Characters
Eva "Molly" Wei, voiced by Chiara Zanni in English, Junko Noda in Japanese, and Gabrielle Jeru in French, is a 15-year-old Chinese-American human girl who often neglects her schoolwork to improve her mechanical skills. After escaping her harsh boarding school, she travels to find her father Don Wei, but when he does not recognize her she takes a job as his mechanic and adopts the name "Molly" from a poster. She becomes the lead pilot for Earth Team after Rick Thunderbolt is injured, modifying the Whizzing Arrow's controls to match her scooter. Molly develops a mutual attraction to Prince Aikka of Nourasia and learns that the Great Race of Ōban's reward can grant any wish, including bringing her dead mother back to life. Jordan C. Wilde, voiced by Samuel Vincent in English, Keiichirou Satomi in Japanese, and Thomas Guitard in French, is a 17-year-old army soldier hired as gunner for the racing vehicle. He is a good shot but tends to overdo it, and he harbors an intense hatred of the Crogs because his grandfather was attacked by them. Jordan acts as an overprotective brother toward Eva on Alwas but develops more serious feelings for her on Ōban. At the climax, he tells Molly he loves her and jumps into the sphere containing the Avatar's powers, becoming the new Avatar; he is last seen watching the team leave for Earth.
Development
Dissatisfied with his previous screenwriting work, Savin Yeatman-Eiffel wanted to create a show that revived the emotional depth he remembered from classic 1970s Japanese anime, which he felt had disappeared from Western animation. He founded Sav! The World Productions and released a short movie titled Molly, Star-Racer in 2001, produced in part by Sparx Animation Studios and set to a Y&Co. remix of Ayumi Hamasaki songs. The trailer mixed 3D and 2D, with 3D predominant, and featured many characters with unfinalized designs. The short won the 2001 LEAF Awards and was nominated for best editing in the 2002 Imagina Awards; it leaked online and became extremely popular among animation fans. Despite the trailer's success, financing the series took a long time because Yeatman-Eiffel refused to compromise his artistic vision, including rejecting an offer from a major North American company to change the main character into a boy. He insisted on producing the series in Tokyo with Japanese animators, which he considered the best technical choice given his inspirations. He eventually secured major partners like Disney and Bandai without surrendering artistic control, but the series took nine years from initial concept in 1997 to delivery of the final episode, with production beginning in Paris in 2000 and moving to Tokyo three years later.
Music
The music for Ōban Star-Racers was handled by Taku Iwasaki. An official soundtrack with 20 tracks, including extended versions of "Chance To Shine," was sold only through the series' website, though the complete score totals 85 pieces. Yoko Kanno, known for her work on Macross Plus, Escaflowne, and Cowboy Bebop, composed both the opening and ending themes. For the North American broadcast, the opening was swapped for a rock song called "Never Say Never" by After Midnight Project, which also aired internationally outside Europe when Disney XD launched in February 2009. The ending was initially replaced too, but later broadcasts restored "Waratteta," Kanno's original closing theme, making it the first song with Japanese lyrics on Jetix USA. In Europe, a remixed "Chance To Shine" served as the opening, while the ending became an instrumental version of that same track. Germany and France each got their own localized versions of "Chance To Shine"; the French rendition, "Envole-toi vers l'infini," had lyrics penned by series creator Savin Yeatman-Eiffel.
Media & merchandise
Fans of Ōban Star-Racers have had plenty of ways to explore the series beyond the screen. A French art book, featuring a look at the universe and characters along with an interview with the creator, came out in March 2009 from Carabas, with an English edition following from Titan Books in November of that year. A novel adaptation had already been released in France by Hachette in late 2008. A vinyl collector figure of Molly, standing 8 inches tall, was produced by Muttpop in June 2008, with several limited editions appearing afterward. The first volume of the original soundtrack and two sets of three collectible T-shirts were sold through the Oban Fan Shop. A Flash-based multiplayer game for the pan-European market, created by Little Loud in 2006, became a Flash Forward Finalist. A mobile phone game was handled by Sav! The World and developed by DeValley Entertainment. A PC game, Ōban Star-Racers: Chance to Shine, is in the works at Sky Isle Studios, which previously released an Ōban-themed game called Ōban Dreams within the Dreams software for PlayStation 4 on December 4, 2021, catching the creator’s eye. At the series’ 15th Anniversary event in Paris on that same day, Sav! The World announced a Kickstarter for a region-free Blu-Ray release. The campaign ran from February 1 to March 8, 2022, hitting its €30,000 goal in under an hour and ultimately raising €377,056. The Blu-rays arrived in early 2023 in regular and collector editions, both featuring all 26 episodes restored in 1080p at 24 frames per second in the original 4:3 aspect ratio, plus 11 dubs, English and French subtitles, and extra content. The collector edition came in a five-panel Digipak with a 120-page hardcover mini artbook, cards, and a poster, while a limited numbered version added digital rewards, a pin, and a 15th anniversary medal. Two French-language DVD volumes and a limited full-series box set were released by WildSide Vidéo.
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