The Wizard of Oz (1982 film)

The Wizard of Oz オズの魔法使い
Screenshot of The Wizard of Oz anime, featuring the four main characters
Directed by	Fumihiko Takayama
Written by	Yoshimitsu Banno Akira Miyazaki
Music by	Joe Hisaishi Yuichiro Oda
Production company	Topcraft
Distributed by	Alan Enterprises (North America) Toho/TV Tokyo (Japan)
Release date	October 6, 1982 (North America) 1986 (Japan)
Running time	78 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese English (dubbed)
Box office	$612,300 (North America)

Japanese

The Wizard of Oz (オズの魔法使い, Ozu no Mahōtsukai^?) is a 1982 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. The film was originally shown at the Cannes Film Festival, but did not have a regular run in U.S. theatres.

In the 1980s, a re-edited version of the film was released in Czechoslovakia. The film was dubbed into the Slovak language except for the songs, which were performed by Japanese singers (from the original Japanese music version). Some other foreign dubs, such as the Italian and Greek versions, had this premise edit as well.

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 travelers, 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.