The Wizard of Oz (1982 film)

The Wizard of Oz (オズの魔法使い) is a 1982 Japanese anime feature film directed by Fumihiko Takayama, from a screenplay by Yoshimitsu Banno and Akira Miyazaki, which is based on the 1900 children's novel by L. Frank Baum, produced by Yoshimitsu Banno and Katsumi Ueno for Toho Co., Ltd.

American version
A version edited by Johann Lowenberg and produced & directed by John Danylkiw appeared on television in the United States in 1986. Alan L. Gleitsman was the executive producer for his own Alan Enterprises which did the English dub for the North American release. It was distributed in English-speaking countries and territories by Paramount Pictures which Includes the United States and Canada.

US cast

 * Aileen Quinn - Dorothy Gale
 * Lorne Greene - Wizard of Oz
 * Billy Van - Scarecrow
 * John Stocker - Tinman
 * Thick Wilson - Cowardly Lion
 * Elizabeth Hanna - The Good Witch of the North, Jellia Jamb, The Wicked Witch of the West
 * Wendy Thatcher - Glinda, the Good Witch of the South

Relation to others
The film is known for staying particularly close to the novel, its primary elimination being the journey to Glinda, which is only now slightly less of a deus ex machina than in the MGM version. Also borrowed from that version are the red "magic shoes" rather than the silver shoes of Baum's text. Some familiarity with the later books is clear, as the houses are the same two-chimneyed domes found in the artwork of John R. Neill, who never illustrated the first Oz book. It is one of the rare films to depict the various forms the Wizard appears to each of the travellers, such as the Beautiful-Winged Lady (shown to be a puppet rather than the Wizard in a costume, as in the book), the Terrible Beast (looking like an ordinary rhinoceros) and the Ball of Fire.

Some feel that it is obvious that the English dialogue for this movie was recorded first and released in North America in 1982, and the movie was not dubbed into Japanese for release in Japan until 4 years later, in 1986. Although this movie is in no way related to the 1986 anime TV series produced by Panmedia outside of having the same source material, the fact that the movie was released in Japan in the same year that the TV series was first broadcast (and that both this film and the TV series were released in English in the U.S. and Canada) sometimes leads to the two works being confused.

Music
The music is written by Jō Hisaishi and Yuichiro Oda. The N.A. version featured new different lyrics by Sammy Cahn and Allen Byrns.
 * 1) Strictly Up to You
 * 2) I Dream of Home
 * 3) A Wizard for a Day

Trivia
In the 1980's a re-edited version of the film was released in Czechoslovakia (now Czech republic and Slovak republic). The film was dubbed into the Slovak language except for the songs, which were performed by Japanese singers (original Japanese music version).