Speed Racer

Speed Racer, also known as Mach GoGoGo (Japanese: マッハGoGoGo(ゴーゴーゴー), Hepburn: Mahha GōGōGō), is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tatsuo Yoshida. It was originally serialized in print in Shueisha's 1966 Shōnen Book. It was released in tankōbon form by Sun Wide Comics and later re-released in Japan by Fusosha. Adapted into anime by Tatsunoko Production, its 52 episodes aired on Fuji Television from April 1967 to March 1968. In the United States, the show aired in syndication at approximately the same time. The anime was later re-broadcast on Tokyo MX from July 1 to September 25, 2008.

Selected chapters of the manga were released by NOW Comics in the 1990s under the title Speed Racer Classics. These were later released by Wildstorm Productions, a division of DC Comics, as Speed Racer: The Original Manga. In 2008, under its Americanized title, Speed Racer, Mach GoGoGo was republished in its entirety in the United States by Digital Manga Publishing and was released as a box set to commemorate the franchise's 40th anniversary, as well as serving as a tie-in with the 2008 film. The television series was very successful in the United States and is said to have defined anime in that country until the 1990s, being watched by a total estimated audience of 40 million viewers during the 1960s–1970s.

Mach GoGoGo was first created and designed by anime pioneer Tatsuo Yoshida (1932–1977) as a manga series in the 1960s and made the jump to TV as an anime series in 1967. The actual manga was inspired by Yoshida's earlier and more popular automobile racing comics, Pilot Ace. Pilot Ace's main storyline formed the structure for Mach GoGoGo, which followed the adventures of an ambitious young man who soon became a professional racer.

The characters' designs in Pilot Ace set the main ground for the character design in Mach GoGoGo. Yoshida got his idea for the story after seeing two films that were very popular in Japan at the time, Viva Las Vegas and Goldfinger. By combining the look of Elvis Presley's race-car driving image, complete with neckerchief and black pompadour, and James Bond's gadget-filled Aston Martin DB5, Yoshida had the inspiration for his creation. Soon enough, Mach GoGoGo hit shelves in the early 1960s. The central character in the anime and manga was a young race car driver named Gō Mifune (Mifune Gō).

The name of the series, Mach GoGoGo, has a triple meaning: "Mahha-gō" (マッハ号) is the name of the car; the name of the main character is Gō Mifune; and finally, it contains the English word "go". In the American adaptation, Mach 5 stems from the number 5 on the door. Although in Japanese, go (五) is the word for the number 5, the Kanji character gō (号), which is used in the car name, actually means "item number" (i.e. it is an ordinal suffix). In addition, gogogo, is used as a general Japanese sound effect for rumble. Taken together, the program's title means, "Mach Number Five, Go!"

The manga (compiled into two deluxe volumes for Fusosha's re-release) has several storylines, such as "The Great Plan", "Challenge of the Masked Racer", "The Fire Race", "The Secret Engine", and "Race for Revenge", that were adapted to the anime. However, minor changes occur between both the original manga and the anime series, such as differences between the back stories of several characters and places.

A few years after the volumes were released, Yoshida decided to release his manga series as an anime program, adding additional plots. Fifty-two episodes aired in Japan, each one emulating the fast-paced action of the manga.

Selected chapters of the original Mach GoGoGo manga series were reprinted by NOW Comics as two volumes of Speed Racer Classics (1988–1989), and by DC Comics/Wildstorm Productions as Speed Racer: The Original Manga (2000). In 2008, a hardcover box set of the complete manga series was released by Digital Manga Publishing as the two volume Speed Racer: Mach Go Go Go.