Two years ago, we announced the upcoming release of the blue ray collector's edition of the anime Oban Star Racers. To support their project, the producers of Sav!The World launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. The success was astounding. But one element would delay the publication of the work: the pandemic and then the war in Ukraine. It took almost two more years before the anime was finally available. An expectation fully offset by the quality of this unique work with an extraordinary destiny and which has marked the French-speaking landscape of animation.
Oban star racers: the French touch in action
At the origin of the project are two men – Thomas Romain, Savin Yeatman-Eiffel and a group of young French animators. The late podcast lol Japan returns in its show n° 74 on the genesis of this project. Because if since Thomas Romain has become a screenwriter, designer recognized in Japan working in particular with the Bones studio (see the excellent interview for wakanim), and if Savin Yeatman-Eiffel has grown his production studio, their series has had an amazing career. Indeed the source of the work is a short film Molly Star racers released in 2001. This pilot makes a lot of noise and allows to launch the production of the series. This one (we are in 2003) is original because it associates a very young French studio Sav! The World Production moves to Japan with a small Japanese studio HAL Film Maker. Especially producers / directors think big especially for their work including sound composition. They succeed in the tour de force to hire Taku Iwasaki and especially the immense Yôko Kanno who signs 4 songs. And when it was released, the work met a strange fate. Broadcast in 2007 in Japan, drowned in a plethora of local production, it goes relatively unnoticed. But in the rest of the world, success is at the rendezvous. 120 countries bought the rights and in 2007, animeland readers named it the best non-Japanese animated series. It will then be entitled to reruns that will further expand its audience.
Oban Star Racers: a space race Opera
The story takes place in 2082, several years after a terrible war between Earth and the Crog people. Eva Wei, 15, is the daughter of Don Wei, a racing team principal and recognized as the best in her field. Since the death of her mother when she was only 5 years old, she no longer has contact with her father who sent her to Stern Boarding School. But Eva has a strong character and escapes to return to her father. He did not recognize it. Never mind, she joins her team under the name Molly. But the story accelerates as the chairman of the Terran coalition puts Don Wei in charge of a crucial mission. Participate in the great Oban race that takes place every 10,000 years. For the peace between Crog and Earthlings is only temporary. Indeed it is by the intervention of a mythical being, the Avatar, that the war stopped. The latter imposed an intergalactic truce so that each people would prepare for the great race. Don Wei sets off with his team and daughter to win the ultimate prize and protect Earth once and for all from alien threats.
Visual poetry
Oban Star Racers is first and foremost an exemplary achievement that, 15 years after its release, has not aged a bit. Indeed it is a very colorful work pulling towards pastel tones. Contrary to other racing anime that play on very marked colors, on strong contrasts, the Sav!The World Productions has chosen much softer, warmer, soothing shades that enhance the races, to let yourself be carried through the different worlds. To say that the episodes are beautiful is a pleonasm. We are transported from the first to the last minute by this very original drawing, this opulence of light and the softness of contrasts. Some shots resemble miniature canvases and often lead the viewer to pause the episode to contemplate the magnitude of the image. The other technical quality concerns the animation. The races are extremely fluid, numerous, dynamic. We compete in ruins, underground, cities, underwater, in labyrinths. Everything goes fast, very fast, the obstacles follow one another, the challenges are permanent. And no episode has the slightest drop in pace. No two races are alike. Oban Star Racers seems to be Mario Kart's child prodigy meeting F-Zero and Speed Racer. A visual delirium, a symphony of the senses.
Oban star racers: creativity and assimilated influence
We are, in addition, in front of an extremely creative work. No crew is similar to another: organic, animal, mechanical, insectoid, militarized. The designers succeed through each crew to represent the civilization that designed it: industrial, religious, steampunkt society. This avoids spending too much time explaining by applying the "show dont' tell". The environments have also been the subject of immense artistic research. Each episode is conceived as a miniature universe giving the whole an immense coherence. The series therefore perfectly illustrates the notion of space opera. This creativity at all times is nourished by a wealth of references/influences totally assimilated. It is first the 7th art that is summoned. The work amalgamates the pod racers of The Phantom Menace, the madness of the redline anime, the exotic universe of speed racers. The video game also has a key importance, as much in the design (the offbeat one of the pirate ship) as in the mechanics of the race. The series puts us in the shoes of earthling/video game players who discover the events on a daily basis (elimination series, head-to-head, final tournament) and different competition modalities (classic race, obstacle course…). As in the best racing video games, the whole goes crescendo whether in terms of difficulties to overcome (jungles, obstacles, canyons, mountains) and scale of the events: circuit racing, planetary rallies. We even like to imagine the series transcribed into a video game as the diversity of worlds, the races would marry well with the video-game universe.
A goldsmith's writing at the service of a thrilling rhythm
Oban Star Racer finally reminds us that any technical mastery cannot do without a well-written story. And on this point the writing of the series is a real gem. Indeed, what was presented as a series of races ramifies into many narrative arcs. It is first and foremost a geopolitical galactic saga where betrayals abound, where alliances are unraveled. It's also a family story about Molly/Eva's origins, her trauma, her father's journey/redemption. It is an adventure anime, pulp, generous, uninhibited. It is also a story of individuals whose motivations, dramas, neuroses and passions are grasped. The series is also brilliantly paced. It's rare enough to say but no episode (26) leaves the impression of filling. The story is so rich that once it starts, it's hard to stop viewing. And this for two reasons: the internal construction of the episodes and the external construction of the series. The mysteries thicken as the races progress. Many cliffhangers come to break the certainties. Answers await several episodes before being provided. And the writers succeed in closing all the stories and responding coherently to all the riddles. Oban Star Racers is in the pantheon of best racing series/anime. Original, beautiful, inventive, intelligent, it shows that the French touch is not a myth
