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''Meanwhile, a secret meeting was being held secretly.'

— Narrator

English title of the anime series Mach Go Go Go!, and one of the best remembered anime series for several generations of fans and detractors alike.

Speed Racer (yes, that's his real name) is a young race car driver, who drives an incredible supercar designed by his father, "Pops" Racer. Speed would race dangerous routes against dangerous people and come out on top in the end. His "girlfriend", Trixie, would trail him in a helicopter, and his little brother Spridle and the ape Chim-Chim would stow away in the trunk.

It was, at its core, a mecha show. The "Mach 5" ("Mach Go" in Japanese, yielding the pun in the original name) had an array of gadgets more at home on Bond's Aston-Martin than on a racing vehicle, like jump boosters, a spy robot, underwater capabilities, and a trunk (which even street-legal sports cars often lack).

This show is remembered for its goofy character designs, crappy animation and atrocious dub, as well as its memorable characters and over-the-top sensibilities. The show is both fondly remembered and reviled by many anime fans for introducing anime to a wider audience and for coloring its general image. Speed's effeminate look, the way the dubbing actors have to race through the dialogue and narration to fit in all the exposition, and the long sequences without movement all combine to create a style that defined not only this show, but the view of anime in general for generations of Americans. He's a hard man to lose. He's a demon on wheels! Ho-Hoa!

Speed Racer was remade in 1997 with updated versions of the characters and vehicles, but the most amusing appearance of Speed in the last few years had to have been in a series of tongue-in-cheek ESPN commercials. One of the ads featured real NASCAR drivers complaining about how hard it was to compete with Speed, and showed actual race footage with the Mach 5 matted in; another featured NASCAR officials trying to determine if the Mach 5 was suitable for competition. (The decision? No, it was too powerful. "NASA might accept it, but not NASCAR.")

There is a newly released Live Action Adaptation, and a new Animated Series.

Now a major motion picture. Which was really quite entertaining. It did not attempt to make any apologies for the implausibilities or tropes of the original, it merely embraced them with all its heart and ran with them to new heights of fun.

The pun in the original title comes from the triple meaning of the sound "go" in Japanese - the number "five", a denotation for the number or name of a machine (Mach Go-go means the Mach Type 5 - the same can be seen in Tetsujin 28-go), and the English "Ready, set, go". The main character's name is also Go.

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This show provides examples of:

• Acro Fatic: Pops, naturally.
• Alternate Continuity
• Badass Mustache Lionel "Pops" Racer
• Black Knight (Racer X)
• Boring Invincible Hero (Speed lost all of once in the original series' run, and that's because he was deliberately sabotaged so someone who needed the prize money for his sister's medical treatment could win. The movie decided to make his weaknesses more emotional rather than throttle down his racing ability.)
• Bragging Theme Tune
• Bullet Time
• Car Fu: And how!
• Cool Car
• Every Car Is A Pinto
• Genius Bruiser (Pops Racer)
• Good Bad Translation (Who doesn't remember the narmtacularly hilarious dialogue?)
• Ho Yay (Speed's androgony seems to attract a lot of this)
• It Was His Sled: Racer X is Speed's brother. This was almost convincingly subverted in The Movie, making the Double Subversion at the end all the more juicier.
• Long Lost Sibling: Unbeknownst to Speed, Racer X is really his long lost brother, Rex Racer. The Narrator tells the viewer this every chance he gets; or Rex thinks about it where only the viewer can hear.
• Narrator ("One of the most secret, secret places in the world: the Secret National Science Institute.")
• Never Say Die
• Non Human Sidekick (Chim-chim)
• One Two Three Four Go (The Mach Go, called the Mach 5 in the US)
• Punny Name (Particularly with the bad guys)
• Serious Business (Racing)
• Shout Out: The latest animated adaptation, Speed Racer: The Next Generation, has several shoutouts to the original show, including the main character's name (Speed). The most obvious (and to this troper, hilarious) is his roommate, who looks and sounds very much like the original Speed (he's Speed Racer's biggest, and most obsessed, fan) who has a robot monkey named "Chim-Chim".
  • By some miracle, they were able to get Peter Fernandez, the original English voice, into the recording booth as an adult Spritle, and eventually, Speed himself.
• Slo Mo Big Air
• So Bad Its Good (Except it's so bad it's awesome.)
• Speed Stripes
• Steven Ulysses Perhero (When your name is Speed Racer, there's really only one job you can have.)
  • This, however, is an artifact of the translation. The original name for the character is Go Mifune and that's why the car and "Speed"'s helmet have a big "M". The only pun is that "Go" and "five" are homophones in Japanese. (For more information check The Other Wiki).
    • I thought the "M" in the car stood for "Mach", as in Mach 5.
    • The Latin-American Spanish version "explained" the "M" by changing Speed's name to "Meteoro" ("Meteor").
    • Which leaves the "G" (from "Go") in his shirt.
• Switching To GEICO: What, you think I'm kidding?
• Tagalong Kid (Spritle)
• Weaponized Car

The Movie provides examples of:

• Action Girl - Trixie is much more an active partner to Speed than in the original. Even taking part in a portion of one of the races.
• Almost Kiss - Twice, until the end.
• Anachronic Order - Several scenes (especially in the beginning) keep switching around between multiple points of time.
• Annoying Younger Sibling - Spritle (and Chim-Chim).
• Animesque - It's been called 'the first live-action anime'. I can believe it.
• Badass - Racer X. He ain't called "Racer Hex: The Harbinger of Doom Boom" for nothing.
  • Also Pops Racer, who delivers the single most humiliatingly one-sided beatdown to a bad guy in the entire movie.
• Badass Family - the Racers and extended family all apparently know how to deal out some awesome whoopass. Except Sparky.
• Berserk Button - Want to drive sweet, gentle Speed Racer to violence? Insult his brother, or threaten his girlfriend.
• Better Than It Sounds - The critics who panned this movie were Completely Missing The Point about the movie, expecting The Matrix even when the Wachowski brothers went on record to state that it was a family film. People who watched regarded the movie as awesome incarnate.
• Beyond The Impossible - Arguably the entire movie.
• Bond One Liner - delivered by Pops Racer after dispatching a ninja:
  Trixie: Was that a ninja?
  Pops: More like a nonja. Terrible what passes for a ninja these days.
• Book Dumb - Speed was so obsessed about automobile racing, he spoke about little else, and filled out a bubble test so it read GO REX GO. He later admits he probably would not have finished high school without Trixie's help.
• Bullet Time - it was written and directed by the Wachowski brothers. Think about that.
• Cant Get Away With Nuthin - Speed and Trixie tell a fib to help Racer X and Inspector Detector by racing in the race that everyone believes killed Rex.
  Spritle: Look!
  Pops: I'm not falling for that.
  Spritle: It's Speed!
  Pops: Speed's skiing!
  Spritle: ...then who's driving the Mach 5?!
  [On the television, the Mach 5 roars up the road]
  Pops: ...
• Car Fu - Taken Up To Eleven. Also actually called such in the video game.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: Spelled out verbatim in the VERY LAST SHOT of the film!
• Color Coded For Your Convenience: by Word Of God in the DVD Extras.
  • Speed - Blue
  • Pops - Red
  • Trixie - Pink
  • Racer X - Black
  • Taejo - White
  • Spritle - Yellow
• Conservation Of Ninjutsu - Ninjas infiltrate the hotel where Taejo, Racer X and Speed are staying to take their team out of commission. One is deftly successful at silently drugging Taejo, while another gives Racer X quite a time, but ultimately fails. Supported when the third makes trouble for Speed, Sparky, Spritle and Chim-Chim, but then subverted as he is comically relieved of his pants by Spritle and Chim-Chim, then trounced by Pops Racer, who derides the assailant as a "non-ja" ("it's pathetic what passes for a ninja these days").
• Context Sensitive Button - Speed has one button for each of the Mach 5's various tricks, however they're each shown capable of performing a variety of very precision maneuvers. For example, the "jump" button may deploy all four jump feet to hop over someone, or it might deploy just the left two to flip to the right.
• Cool Car - Every car in the movie, pretty much, but the Mach 5 remains the coolest.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive - Royalton, of course.
• Crowning Moment Of Awesome: Pretty much the entire final race is one big one for Speed, especially the last lap after he restarts the car with pure determination and hot bloodedness.
  • For the movie in general, the best scene in cinema history is possibly gangster viking car racers shooting beehives at each other.
    • No, this◊ is the best scene in cinema history.
• Crowning Music Of Awesome: Reboot, played during the final race in which Speed restarts his car from being burned out during the race and comes from dead last to first place. One of the best pieces of music ever.
• Flash Back - a good bit during the first race, as Speed and family recall pivotal moments in their lives.
• Fridge Logic - Speed can detect the Mach 5 driving stiffly and pulling to the left a little with the defensive modifications made to it, but neither he nor Trixie sense the weight of Spritle and Chim-Chim hiding in the trunk.
  • Fridge Brilliance Because Chim-Chim and Spritle are almost always hiding in the trunk, thus the car is adjusted with their weight.
    • WHY does the Mach 5 need a trunk?!
    • To make room for Spritle and Chim-chim of course.
• Genre Savvy - Pops, who pretty much tells Royalton he doesn't trust him because he expects he's a Corrupt Corporate Executive who lives by Screw The Rules I Have Money. And he's absolutely right.
• Gosh Dangit To Heck - Averted; there's a moderate amount of cursing ("ass" is said a lot; there's both a in-movie Sound Effect Bleeped and entirely uncensored "shit") and Spritle even flipped Royalton once. Yet it's still rated PG.
• Hey Its That Guy (Ben Myles of Coupling fame as a sportscaster, and Richard Roundtree as old Ben Burns)
  • (The original english voice actor for Speed and Racer X plays the Race Announcer.)
• Hoisted By Her Own Petard: The female member of the Barbarian team (y'know, the ones that were bribed with furs?) is attempting to launch a beehive via built-in catapault into Taejo's car, but a quick side bump from Speed sends the giant honeycomb straight into the air, and back into the driver's seat.
• Idiosyncratic Wipes - Lots. Tons, but they're beautiful.
• Impossibly Cool Weapon: Almost all the cars in the Casa Cristo have them (especially the Barbarians), even the "defensive" modifications made to Team Togokhan (Racer X, Speed, and Taejo) could be quite dangerous.
• Its The Same Now It Sucks - The reaction of critics in general. They wanted The Matrix in cars and instead got Speed Racer only in live action.
• Large Ham - The whole cast.
  • With the exception of Susan Sarandon SLUT!!
  • Even the most bitter, cynical critic has said that Roger Allam's over-the-top villainy made this film bearable.
• Leitmotif - Virtually the entire soundtrack is remixes of the cartoon theme
• Long Lost Sibling - Intentionally subverted by Racer X, who takes off his mask to prove to Speed he's not actually Rex Racer. But he is.
• Mythology Gag - In the anime, Racer X always holds himself back so his younger brother can win the race. The movie does this backwards during the opening action sequence, when Speed deliberately doesn't beat Rex's Racing Ghost.
• Non Action Guy - Sparky. Spritle and Chim-Chim win more fights than he does (to wit: they work together to de-pants a ninja, while Chim-Chim later gets to hit a guy with a wrench).
• Non Lethal KO - The cars all have a system called "Kwik-Save" that puts them in a protective foam bubble when they crash. Or the drivers have parachutes.
• Oh Crap: After the non-ja is pantsed by Sprittle & Chim-Chim, he bumps into Pops, and takes quick notice of the gold ring emblazoned GRECO-ROMAN WRESTLING!
• Pragmatic Adaptation: Averted hard. This is the show in live action. If you like that, you'll like the movie. If you don't, you won't. This movie makes no apologies for its source material in any way, shape, or form.
• Rule Of Cool - The entire film
• Rule Of Fun - again, the entire film
• Screw The Rules I Have Money - Mr. Royalton, and Lampshaded by Pops Racer.
• Serious Business - Even more so than in the cartoon - auto racing is the most popular and most noble sport in the world, and the outcomes of races have far-reaching effects on the global economy.
• Shout Out: The Crucible race has plenty of shout outs to the original series, even giving Speed an excuse to wear a neckerchief (so he can use it to cover his mouth during the desert run). At the end of the he jumps out and poses like in the original cartoon intro.
• Slow Motion Drop
• Spiked Wheels: Taken to an extreme, where, well 1:57.
• The Reveal - Subverted when Racer X reveals his identity to Speed after The Crucible and Speed learns that Racer X is not his brother, Rex Racer, as he had suspected and then double subverted when it is revealed that Rex Racer faked his death and had Magic Plastic Surgery as the ultimate disguise to fight against corruption as Racer X.
• Training From Hell - What Royalton puts his drivers through.
• Villainous Breakdown: On the final lap of the Grand Prix...
  Royalton: STOOOOOOOP HIIIIIIIM!!!!!!!
• Wacky Racing - Courses that would be at home in F-Zero or Hot Wheels? Check. Themed racing teams, including one of barbarians paid in furs? Check. Cars covered in special weapons and improbable technology? Check.
• Wide Eyed Idealist - Speed. Even after he realizes how dirty the sport is (thanks to a The Reason You Suck Speech from Royalton) he just decides to make racing fit his ideal.
• X Meets Y - Averted, combined with Completely Missing The Point, above. Just because it's directed by The Wachowski Bros. doesn't automatically make it "The Matrix with ____".

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