Alakazam the Great (Boku No Son Goku)

This is one of those instances where Netflix really came through for me. It recommended this movie, of which I had no prior knowledge, but turns out contains a lot of my deepest interests.

The movie is Daisaku Shirakawa's "Boku No Son Goku", ridiculously titled Alakazam the Great in order to market to the American children of 50 years ago. One reason it is historically interesting is this is one of, if not the first, Japanese animations ever to be released in the states. It was dubbed by the same people who would later do Speed Racer, with Speed himself, Peter Fernandez, voicing the title character. This was before they actually translated what the characters were saying. The people didn't speak Japanese, they just watched the movie and adapted it based on what it looked like was happening. The studio that put it out also tacked on a couple of familiar voices, with Frankie Avalon as Alakazam's singing voice, Jonathan Winters, and the guy who did the voice of Winnie the Pooh narrating.

Another point of interest for me? It is an adaptation of Journey to the West, an ancient Chinese legend of Monkey, a clever, mischievous monkey on an action-packed pilgrimage to India. I've read the translated book of it, and it is one of the most fun books I've ever read. It has been adapted countless times in Asia, in all forms of media, and even a few times in the western world, most recently as a Chinese opera composed by Damon Albarn of The Gorillaz.



Sooo cool.

Now, this particular adaptation of Journey to the West is based on a Manga by the great Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Astro Boy, and considered the founding father of Japanese comics. I've been a huge fan of his works for some time now. I would hold him up to any of the great 20th century visual storytellers; Kubrick (who was also a fan), Kurosawa, Jack Kirby, etc. From what I've read, Tezuka's actual involvement in the movie was limited, but you can still see his influence in the character designs and the story itself.

The story goes as such: Alakazam (or just Monkey in the folklore) is a brash, mischievous little monkey who becomes king of his people. He's maybe not a very good king right away. When told that humans are the smartest of the animals, he seeks out Merlin (once again, an artifact of the translation) and tricks him into teaching him his magic. Once he learns this, he goes up and challenges the heavens, and is punished for his insolence by being trapped in a mountain. He is given a second chance by being allowed to act as bodyguard to Prince Amat (Tripitaka in the version I read) on his pilgrimage to India, in order to bring Buddhist scriptures back to China (this part isn't mentioned in the movie). On their way, they have many adventures (only a couple featured in the movie), and join up with a pig named Quigley (Pigsy in the version I read) and "Max Lulipopo" (known as Sandy in the book).

The movie holds up pretty well, and plays like the Japanese equivalent of a Disney fairy tale classic. The animation, especially, is very influenced by Disney. There are shades of Bambi in the animals, and the Chernobog sequence from Fantasia in some of the creatures. A really cool scene is when Alakazam goes to heaven and battles Hercules. They morph into various animals and duke it out, before ultimately becoming a dragon and a dinosaur. I have a 3 year old nephew who would love it. Alakazam is a great character, tricky in the tradition of Bugs Bunny, and kids will have an easy time liking him.

The voice work is your typical early anime dub, with the really fast talking and trying to fit the lines into the mouth movements. If you're familiar with how Speed Racer talked, it's like that. The movie was given a new, more western score, with songs very befitting of cartoons from 1960. I would be curious to hear what the songs were like in Japan. A lot of early anime (heck, even more recent stuff) was edited down for U.S. consumption, for time, or often for content. I couldn't tell if this was cut down at all. It felt pretty coherent, and there was nothing too violent, so I assume the length of the movie is pretty much intact.

The video quality on Netflix was pretty crappy; I assume there's probably not much money to be had in a DVD release of something like this, and a remastering was probably deemed not worth it by whatever studio owns the rights. Personally, I'd love to see a nice version of the movie in its original Japanese, and I'm sure a high quality DVD version of it exists over there that could easily be transferred to a stateside release. Just, you know, they don't want to spend the money.

If you love folklore and animation history like I do, or if you have younger kids and want to show them a fun story from another culture, look up Alakazam the Great on Netflix.