Ōban Star-Racers
Ōban Star-Racers is an English-language French-Japanese animated television series created by Savin Yeatman-Eiffel of Sav! The World Productions in association with multiple international companies. Originally produced as a short movie titled Molly, Star-Racer, a television series was developed in cooperation with Jetix Europe, with animation production by Hal Film Maker and Pumpkin 3D, a large portion of which was done in Tokyo, Japan. It aired in more than 100 countries including Japan. In the US, the series aired on the Jetix blocks on ABC Family and Toon Disney between June and December 2006. In Canada, the series aired on Family Channel.
For the 15th anniversary of the series, a public event was held in Paris on December 4, 2021 and a Blu-ray Kickstarter campaign was launched in February 2022 to "release Oban in its original HD format" and "encourage the development of new Oban related projects", raising a total of €377,056. The blu-rays were released at the beginning of 2023.
Synopsis
In the year 2082, Eva Wei, a girl whose mother Maya died in a tragic race accident ten years prior, flees boarding school to see her father, Don Wei, who is heralded as the greatest race manager on the planet. When Don doesn't recognise her due to their long absence from each other, Eva takes on the name of "Molly" to hide her identity and becomes his mechanic. It is then that Don's team is chosen as Earth's representative in an intergalactic racing competition known as the Great Race of Ōban, with the planet's survival depending on Wei's team winning the "Ultimate Prize" that can supposedly grant any wish before the evil Crog Empire can. When the Earth team's star pilot Rick Thunderbolt is unable to race following an act of sabotage, Molly ends up becoming the pilot of the team's ship, Whizzing Arrow, alongside gunner Jordan Wilde. Thus Molly becomes determined to win the competition, not just to save Earth from the Crogs, but also to win the Ultimate Prize and potentially bring her mother back.Characters
Main characters
;Eva "Molly" Wei;Jordan C. Wilde
;Don Wei
;Maya Wei
;Rick Thunderbolt
;Koji
;Stan
;Prince Aikka
;Satis
;Canaletto
;The Avatar
Alwas Cycle
Grooor;Flint
;Ceres
;Para-dice
;Super Racer
;Rush
;Spirit
;Colonel Toros
Ōban Cycle
;Sul;Ning and Skun
;Lord Furter
;General Kross
;Ondai
;O
;Muir
Development
Dissatisfied with his previous experiences as a screenwriter in the animation industry, Savin Yeatman-Eiffel wanted to create a distinctive kind of show, one that would revive the type of emotions he had felt as a kid watching the classic Japanese anime series of the 70s. In short, he wanted to stress the emotional side of his characters and story, something that he felt had totally disappeared from Western animation productions. Working on that idea, he created his own company "Sav! The World Productions", which released in 2001 a short movie entitled Molly, Star-Racer, produced in part by Sparx Animation Studios and set to a Y&Co. remix of Ayumi Hamasaki songs. The trailer already showed a mix of 3D and 2D though at the time 3D was still predominant. It featured many of the characters with unfinalized designs including Jordan, Don Wei, Maya, Aikka, Satis, Toros, Sül, Ondai, Ning & Skun, Furter and of course, Molly racing across various places in the Oban landscape featured later in the series. This short movie won the 2001 LEAF Awards and was nominated for best editing in the 2002 Imagina Awards. Leaked on the internet, it quickly became extremely popular among animation fans, generating hundreds of thousands of downloads on various sites - a rarity at the time. The pilot is produced using Alias Wavefront Maya 3D software.In spite of the success of the trailer, the search for financing for the series was a long process since Yeatman-Eiffel had a clear vision of where he wanted to take the show - more realistic and more emotional than the original trailer - and refused to negotiate with a party that would have tried to bend or change the artistic choices at a later stage. Savin was also dead set on producing the series in Tokyo in collaboration with Japanese animators. This was the best choice according to him technically and a logical one too in view of the inspirations that had fuelled the creation of the series.
Savin Yeatman-Eiffel succeeded in the end, involving major financial partners like Disney and Bandai without surrendering his control of the artistic elements. But it took him a total of nine years to complete the series from initial idea to delivery of the final episode.
While this is Sav! The World's first TV series, the company has previously existed as a maker of various short films. Yeatman-Eiffel originally wrote the show's scripts in English and would adapt them into French, with that audio track being recorded first. The English version was recorded by Airwaves Sound Design in Vancouver, Canada - the voice director for the series is Michael Donovan. Yeatman-Eiffel flew to Vancouver and was directly involved in its production.
Music
The musical score is composed by Taku Iwasaki. The series has one official soundtrack consisting of 20 tracks available only through the official site which include extended versions of "Chance To Shine" and other music. The 15th Anniversary Blu-ray Kickstarter project rewards included downloads for 50 tracks of the soundtrack, which released for download to backers April 5, 2022. The full soundtrack of the series comprises 85 tracks.The opening and ending theme songs were composed by Yoko Kanno. In the US broadcast, the opening theme song was replaced by an original rock oriented theme song entitled "Never Say Never", which was also used for international broadcasts outside of Europe when Disney XD launched in February 2009. The closing song had also been replaced during the first broadcasts, but now features "Waratteta", the original closing song is composed by Yoko Kanno. This is the first song to retain its original Japanese lyrics to be featured on Jetix USA. European broadcasts feature a remixed version of "Chance to Shine", but replaced the ending theme with an instrumental version of the opening theme. The German and French broadcast used respectively a German and a French version of "Chance to Shine". The lyrics of the French version, titled "Envole-toi vers l'infini", were written by Oban creator Savin Yeatman-Eiffel.
;Opening Themes
- "Chance To Shine" by AKINO - Used for most international broadcasts and the Blu-ray-Disc release. A French version performed by Christèle Labonne, titled "Envole toi vers l'infini", was used in France, and a remixed version of the Japanese version was used for European broadcasts outside of France.
- "Never Say Never" by After Midnight Project - Used for the North American broadcast.
- "Waratteta" by Sukoshi and Yoko Kanno - International and U.S. broadcast
- Instrumental of "Chance To Shine" - European broadcast
Awards and nominations
- LAEF AWARD - London Animation and Effects Festival 2001
- Nominated for Best editing - Imagina Awards 2002
- Animeland Award of the Best non-Japanese Animation Series of 2006 – Grand Prix Animeland 2007.
- Grand Prix du Divertissement Eurojap Award – Polymanga 2007
- Nominated for Best Animated Series – British Academy Children's Awards 2007
Media & merchandise
A vinyl collector figure of Molly has been released by Muttpop in June 2008. Several special limited editions have followed since.
Volume 1 of an original soundtrack for the series is also on sale, as well as two series of three collectible T-shirts available from the Oban Fan Shop. The full version of "Waratteta" was included on Yoko Kanno & The Seatbelts's album, "Space Bio Charge", released on May 27, 2009.
An Ōban Star-Racers flash based panEuropean multiplayer game was created by Little Loud in 2006 and was a Flash Forward Finalist. A mobile phone game, produced by Sav! The World, was made by award-winning game studio DeValley Entertainment. According to the series' official fansite, there was to be a video game based on the series to be made for the Nintendo DS, Before the game was unreleased being stolen for unknown reasons, A prototype ROM of the game was found after the theft and leaked on October 21, 2025. A PC game developed by Sky Isle Studios, titled Ōban Star-Racers: Chance to Shine, is currently in development. The studio previously released an Ōban Star-Racers-themed game titled Ōban Dreams within the Dreams game creation software for PlayStation 4 on December 4, 2021, which attracted Oban's creator's Attention.
During Ōban Star-Racerss 15th Anniversary event held in Paris on December 4, 2021, Sav! The World announced it would launch a Kickstarter campaign for a region-free Blu-Ray release of the series.
The campaign ran between February 1 and March 8, 2022, meeting its initial target of €30,000 within an hour and raising a total of €377,056.
The blu-rays were released at the beginning of 2023 in both regular and collector editions. Both versions include all 26 episodes restored in their original 1080p, 24 frames per second, 4/3 format ; 11 original dubs ; English and French subtitle, and numerous bonuses. The collector Edition presents the 5 discs in a 5 panel Digipak together with a 120 pages hardcover mini artbook, collector cards and a poster. A limited numbered edition also included additional digital rewards as well as a pin and a collectible 15th anniversary medal.